Many crimes have been committed worldwide from 1900 to 2026. The War in Iran also stands out as one. This war has turned the Middle Eastern politics on its head, and the post-war global and Middle Eastern political order, it seems, will witness a huge change. This war, like many previous wars, has triggered a global diplomatic and security crisis, and the global community once again demonstrated its chronic inability to respond decisively to prevent a war before large-scale damage was done.

We lived the entire 20th Century in a Hobbesian world, and the events of the first quarter of the 21st Century indicate that nothing much is likely to change unless there is an agreed mechanism of enforced accountability under which the states and non-state actors understand and fear that they will be held accountable for their acts. When all this is over, the world needs to sit down and debate the question, 'what should have been done?' to prevent and contain this war, and by whom. Before the commencement of this war, there were three great powers in the world – the US, Russia and China. And as and when this war ends, the world will no longer be dealing with just the three great powers but a fourth, Iran, will join their ranks.

The story of the long 20th Century and the first quarter of the 21st Century has been a story of great powers dominance and their unhinged willingness to turn the weapons of war against the weaker states. It has also been a story of how the international community failed to prevent the killing of millions of innocent people who were left vulnerable to........

© The Express Tribune