Terror in Iran: Whose war is it?

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OPINION

By Dr Opiyo Oloya

Here’s a maxim you can take to the bank. The US is great at breaking up nations, but very lousy at putting the broken pieces back together. The few exceptions are the post-World War II reconstruction of Japan led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the reconstruction of Europe under the Marshall Plan, as well as the rebuilding of the Philippines, Taiwan and South Korea (after the Korean War in the 1950s).

Despite the anti-Khamenei cheers and chants like Marg bar Khamenei — “Death to Khamenei” — heard in neighbourhoods at the start of the current war from Iranians opposed to the Tehran theocratic regime, Iranians must prepare to confront one insurmountable and uncomfortable truth — Israel and the US are not fighting this war for the people of Iran. They are in this to destroy years of cultural, scientific and technological development the country has made, essentially any vestiges of progress and modernity.

The gratuitous targeting of infrastructures like hospitals, schools, airports and oil facilities, for example, is meant to inflict maximum damage that will return Iran to the Middle Ages.

“Today, Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death...,” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social. There is no rhyme or reason to it, just pure destruction for its sake. Think Somalia. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. And now, brick by brick, Americans are blowing up Iran.

Take the story of Iraq, for example. Before the first US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in January 1991, dubbed Operation Desert Storm, the country had experienced rapid economic development through the 1970s and 1980s due to massive oil revenue. Iraq’s large middle class enjoyed high living standards like those in South Korea at the time. Extensive modernisation projects included rural electrification, highway construction and advanced irrigation systems.

The Saddam Hussein government established a huge industrial sector with a sophisticated transportation system that expanded the economy beyond oil. Iraq was a leader in education, spending almost 6% of the gross domestic product on schools. The heavily subsidised healthcare system was second to none in the Middle East, including the Medical City Hospital in Baghdad, equipped with world-class medical facilities.

When a dispute flared between Iraq and Kuwait in the summer of 1990 over who owned what oil field, the US seemed not opposed to Iraq taking down Kuwait. On July 25, 1990, just a week before Iraq invaded Kuwait, US Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam Hussein her country was neutral to the dispute, giving the impression the US was okay with the invasion.

“We have no opinion on the Arab Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait,” she said. However, once Iraq invaded Kuwait, US President George Herbert Bush (father of President George W. Bush) pushed the UN Security Council to authorise the liberation of Kuwait. Although Operation Desert Storm spared Saddam Hussein in February 1991, economically, Iraq was a much weakened country. The subsequent invasion of Iraq, dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom, ordered by President George W. Bush in March 2003 with support from the so-called Coalition of the Willing, completed the destruction of Iraq that started a decade earlier.

The pretext for the invasion was to get rid of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. However, not a single weapon of mass destruction was found in Iraq. Instead, Americans left Iraq a completely broken country, a mere shadow of its former self. Feeding its people was a problem, with nearly 60% relying on food aid. Iraqi children continue to die of malnutrition and curable diseases because access to medicine is highly restricted. Even cultural artefacts preserved over thousands of years were not spared.

The story of Libya is the same. A quirky leader, yes, but Muammar Gaddafi genuinely cared for the Libyan people. At the height of progress and modernisation under his leadership, Libya created a Green Revolution, with enough food to feed its people. By 2010, per capita income reached approximately $12,000. Literacy rates soared from 25% in 1969, when Gaddafi came to power, to over 88% by the end of his rule. Healthcare and housing were free for the people. Libya even saved Italy’s economy from going broke by investing $415m in Fiat car manufacturing, which at the time directly employed over 300,000 Italians and thousands more indirectly.

Of course, none of that mattered in March 2011 when the US-led coalition involving France, the UK and Italy initiated the military campaign codenamed Operation Odyssey Dawn to get rid of Gaddafi. Waves of bombardments followed, and thousands of Libyans were killed. Once Gaddafi was murdered, the US vanished from the scene. In 2011 alone, Libya’s gross domestic product plummeted by 62%. Total economic loss over the following decade is estimated at approximately $600b.

Today, Libya is a totally broken country with a porous border, a country split into two, one under the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, and the other the Benghazi-based Government of National Stability, effectively led by de facto leader Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Life expectancy is at its lowest. The violence festers on, leaving the country in a limbo from which it will not soon emerge. Libya is effectively a failed state.

What the US is doing in Iran is following the same script. When US President Donald Trump teamed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, ostensibly to get rid of some undefi ned “imminent threat”, the whole thing smelled to high heaven of the same lies previously used to attack other countries. Iranians have expressed the wish for freedom from the Khamenei dynasty. Thousands were brutally killed over the past weeks during massive protests, but what they may not be anticipating is that the country they love so much will soon be smouldering embers.

Yes, the outcome of this war, simply told, may bring down the theocratic government in Tehran. Iranian missile batteries are fair game, so are military installations that threaten Israel and neighbouring countries. However, if this is a genuine effort for the good of the Iranian people, then all care must be taken to avoid destruction of civilian infrastructure. There must also be post-war plans to rebuild the country to avoid catastrophe.

Otherwise, as it happened when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi were eliminated, one hanged by the neck and the other brutally murdered like a stray dog in the street, Iran will suffer the longest period of darkness and pain ever imagined by the people currently cheering the bombs falling on Tehran. By then, sadly, the US will be long gone from the scene.

The writer is the inaugural associate vice-president of equity, diversity and inclusion at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada Opiyo.oloya@gmail.com Twitter: @Opiyooloya