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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Ceasefire won’t end Iran War. US just set the stage for a new phase of endless conflict

Before Donald Trump, Saddam Hussein was seduced by the promise of an easy victory. In the aftermath of the bloody war, Iran ended up with profound influence in Shia-majority Iraq.

Long after its hull was peeled open by a missile fired from an Iraqi jet, the funnel of the APJ Ambika could be seen rising from the viridian waters of the Khowr-e Musa channel. Like the white-domed tombs of unknown captains that line the shores of ports around the Persian Gulf, the funnel served as a memorial to the hundreds of civilian sailors whose lives were lost in the course of the Iran-Iraq war. As the wreck slid deeper into the mud, though, memory faded. The loss of the Ambika figured in Parliament, but the airstrike on Great Eastern Shipping’s Jag Pari, the attack on Spic Emerald, and the killing of Jagdish Bhagwan—shot dead by the panicked crew of an American missile frigate—escaped wider notice.

Forgetting does not erase reality, though. Twenty years after the Ambika went down in 1984, a merchant ship headed through Khowr-e Musa sank after crashing into its wreckage. Likely, the long-forgotten wreck had drifted, and maritime maps no longer accurately reflected its location.

The strange creatures rising from the depths of United States President Donald Trump’s mind have led the Persian Gulf—and the world—back into the nightmare of that war, the longest of the 20th century, in which poison gas and missiles are thought to have claimed the lives of as many as 10 lakh people. There is some tenuous comfort that a ceasefire has held in the face of the disintegration of dialogue, but there is also the grim reality: Each ceasefire has led back to war.

From 1981, Iran and Iraq waged a bitter war against shipping in the Persian Gulf, each seeking to hollow out the other’s economy: The Tanker War, strikes on merchant traffic, oil infrastructure, and the gargantuan vessels which carried crude to power the globe. Iraq was soon attacking ships with international flags. The US hushed up evidence that dictator Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons in his war against Iran, and provided his regime with weapons and intelligence. America ended up drawn into the murderous shipping war—and added to the carnage by shooting down an Iran Air jet with 290 passengers and crew on board.

The strange part of the story is that until 1959—and even after—the two enemies were allies, bound together. Iran and Iraq were both founder-members of the Central Treaty........

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