Jose de Sousa Saramago, a Portuguese poet and the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote: “Not everything is as it seems, and not everything that seems is. Between being and seeming there is always a point of agreement, as if being and seeming were two inclined planes that converge and become one. There is a slope and the possibility of sliding down that slope, and when that happens, one reaches a point at which being and seeming meet.”

The current Iran war and the reasons for it are well described by Saramago’s (1922-2010) observations.

When looking at why the US president made the decision to invade Iran, the commonly held theory is that while it is true that Iran has been threatening both the US and Israel ever since the Mullahs came to power in 1979, it was Netanyahu’s constant pushing that convinced Trump to take the plunge.

There is no question that Netanyahu, as he said a day after Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a wave of US-Israeli strikes, that his close ties with Washington had enabled Israel to “do what I have long aspired to do for 40 years: to strike the terrorist regime decisively.”  Of course, the anti-Israel media jumped on that as proof that it was Netanyahu’s prodding that started this war and that was what convinced Trump to attack.

However, not everything is as it seems, and not everything that seems is.  For the record, this is how Israel has felt about Iran ever since the constant mantra of the Iranian regime has been “Death to Israel…Death to America.”  But it is totally unreasonable and illogical to take the position that Israel, a country of 10 million people, so small that its name does not even fit into the country’s map on most globes, could convince the leader of a country of 380 million people with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, to go to war on its behalf.  For people who really believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that is for sale….. cheap.

So, what other reasons could there be?  The biggest reason revolves around the fact that America sees China as the biggest current threat to the long-term stability of the world as well as to America’s position as the dominant world power.  Trump knows full well that the key to negatively affecting the long-term economic stability of China is to control its fuel supply.

To be clear, China is the world’s largest crude oil importer, bringing in roughly 11 million barrels per day to fuel its economy. But that dependence creates a vulnerability: a large share of its supply comes from the Middle East.

Statistics provided by the US Energy Information Administration (US EIA) indicate that roughly 54% of China’s crude oil imports come from the Middle East, making China vulnerable to shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, which can be easily controlled by Iran.  The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz thus poses a risk to China’s energy security.  In addition, sanctioned countries — Russia, Iran, and Venezuela — account for 33% of China’s crude imports.  The US already controls the export of Venezuelan oil and Iran was clearly in America’s sights once the Venezuelan operation was finished as Iran accounts for 11% of China’s oil imports.

Trump, as should be noted, has always cast an envious eye on Middle East oil resources.  He frequently stated that the United States should have taken Iraq’s oil after the 2003 invasion, often framing it as a way to reimburse the US for the costs of the war and to prevent the rise of groups like ISIS, who later took control of those resources.  Trump argued that if the US was going to spend lives and money in Iraq, it should have secured the Iraqi oil resources, saying “to the victor belong the spoils.”

Those comments were made in the context of criticizing the Iraq War as a mistake and arguing for a more transactional foreign policy where the US is compensated for its military actions.  This position was widely criticized by foreign policy experts and politicians as violating international law and being impractical.  Nevertheless, Middle East oil has been in Trump’s sights for some time and Iran now is a target of that envy if you will.

Remember, not everything is as it seems, and not everything that seems is.

Yet there is another aspect of the war that analysts seem to forget, but which has played out this past week in Iran’s seemingly unprovoked and insane attacks against its Arab neighbors.  Shia Muslim Iran views the Sunni Muslim GCC Arab countries as antithetical to everything the Mullahs in Iran hold dear.  The willingness of the GCC countries to embrace modernity, open up to Western values and even extend a hand of cooperation to Israel is anathema to the values of the radical Islamic clerics who control Iran.

The manifestation of this was the wanton series of attacks by Iran on their Arab neighbors, where the targets are not only US installations but tourist attractions, hotels and other symbols of Western life as well. No doubt the leadership in GCC countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE made it known privately to Trump that they would not object to America attacking Iran even with Israeli support as it would severely degrade Iran’s military and economic assets.   Frankly, given the level of investments that have been made in the US by some of the GCC countries as well as the funding of private initiatives of the Trump family and some of his friends, my guess is that the opinion of the leaders of these countries counted more than anything Netanyahu could have said to Trump in the runup to the attacks on February 28th.  Not everything is as it seems, and not everything that seems is.

In retrospect, Trump’s desire to control the flow of oil to China coupled with the influence of the GCC countries on his decision making are stronger reasons for the action against Iran than the influence of Netanyahu, who, as all of us here understand, heads a country whose military prowess is strongly linked to a regular supply of defense material from the US.

Having said that, the fact is that it was Israel’s successful defanging of Iran’s anti-aircraft defensive capability that made it possible for the US to attack without interference from Iran.  The high-level coordination that is now in place between US and Israeli military command and control elements has been a key factor in the ability to cripple Iran’s continuation as a threat to the region and the world.

“Not everything is as it seems, and not everything that seems is. Between being and seeming there is always a point of agreement, as if being and seeming were two inclined planes that converge and become one. There is a slope and the possibility of sliding down that slope, and when that happens, one reaches a point at which being and seeming meet.” Saramago was not only a poet, but a philosopher as well, who understood that every situation has multiple facets.  Time will tell whether the leadership responsible for our political future is cognizant of these nuances.  One can only hope for that to be the case.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)