After much bluster and genocidal threats, US President Trump has announced a 14 day cease fire with Iran. This Pakistan mediated ceasefire in which Pakistan has been characterized as more of a go between rather than a credible neutral mediator is already quite fragile. The hostilities between Iran and Arab states of UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain have not yet come to an end with report of continued targeting of infrastructure in these Arab states by Iran and UAE's retaliation on Iran's Lavan Islands as of Monday morning. Israel has also refused to include Lebanon in a any ceasefire. It operations in southern Lebanon continue as usual.
Any ceasefire does take some time to come into effect while the communication to stop hostilities trickle down to local units. In the case of Iran, due to its decentralized regional command, there is the added issue of all commanders agreeing to the temporary ceasefire. So we will have to wait for a couple of days to see if this cease fire settles in and holds. Israel however is unlikely to give up on its objectives in Lebanon so easily, hence we still need to wait and see how this pans out. There are already some voices in Israel's security establishment criticizing Trump for his decision. Israeli President Netanyahu is also facing criticism from opposition politicians for failing to achieve his objectives. As analyzed earlier, Israel's achievable objective was primarily "Mowing the grass", which, one can argue has been achieved to a great extent. The collapse of Iran's government could not be realistically expected to happen by arial bombardments and decapitation of its leadership has so far not been able to bring about internal fracture.
One cannot rule out an eventual weakening of the governance structures in Iran over a period of time. But for now it seems the Islamic State has won the war by not losing it. The control of Hormuz strait which it has de facto achieved and will hope to convert into a de jure agreement with USA may be problematic for the Arab states, Asian states and pretty much most of the world. Iran hopes to recover its war damages from the revenue from transit fees. This means the bystander Asian nations who had no role in this war and whose interests were set aside by US and Israel while initiating this war will have to foot the bill for this war in perpetuity. Iran may also seek to use access to Hormuz as a leverage to force Asian nations to resume normal economic relations with it.
The biggest economic loser in this War other than Iran and gulf states is indeed the large energy hungry Asian economies. India for now appears to have made a mistake by not being able to maintain its neutrality in this war. Its dependency on the Gulf monarchies for economic needs and on Israel for defense needs put it in a difficult situation. Its traditional warm relations with Iran were already under stress under the weight of US economic sanctions on Iran. Its current situation is in making for a long time ever since the 2010 Obama era sanctions on Iran. Complying with those and later sanctions on Iran and Russia has lead to weakening of its energy sovereignty over the years. Hence India's position as a supplicant of USA in international relations has been solidified thanks to US sanctions regime and unwillingness of India leadership to develop any kind sanctions evasion mechanisms like China has done. India's relations with Iran in particular and increasingly its relations with Russia have become subject to US Veto.
We will have to see how this cease fire holds and whether a lasting settlement is achieved during the negotiations between Iran and USA over the course of next weeks. The differing perceptions between Iran and USA on what has been agreed to as the draft 10 point proposal from Iran does not bear much confidence in this era of social media diplomacy, where the state leaders seem to make all kinds of often contradictory statements in social media, for one to make any coherent sense of their intentions. But even this temporary fragile cease fire has come as a respite to everyone and a hope of seeing and end to this latest West Asian conflict exists. Asian nations need to get involved in this peace process at least now and not just leave it to the principal actors because much is at stake for them. The prospect of another war in West Asia over unresolved differences exists and their economic interests and immigrant population in the Gulf are both at risk if this happens.
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