With every fragile ‘peace' in Middle East, the West sows seeds of a conflict

Indian Express

2 days ago

I have followed the recent '12-day war' in the Middle East through a 50-year-old personal prism.
My interest in petroleum and a postgraduate thesis on oil for goods barter trade by Iran was sparked by the Yom Kippur War between Egypt /Syria and Israel in 1973. The war triggered a four-fold increase in the international price of oil and global stagflation. My first job in the Petroleum sector with Phillips Petroleum in London (after a short stint in the IAS ) was in 1980, a year after the Shah of Iran was deposed by Ayatollah Khomeini and months before Iran and Iraq commenced a bloody and inconclusive eight-year war. The Iranian revolution had doubled the price of oil and set off another global stagflation and the Iran-Iraq war embroiled the US when in April 1988, it sank the Iranian frigate 'Sahand' after a US frigate had hit an Iranian mine in the Straits of Hormuz. I am reminded of 'Operation Praying Mantis' every time there is talk of choking the straits through which pass nearly 20 per cent of internationally traded crude oil and one-third of Liquefied Natural gas (LNG).
In 1990 when President Saddam Hussein moved his tanks into Kuwait and aimed SCUD missiles at the Shell-Saudi Refinery and Petrochemical complex in Al Jubail on the East coast of Saudi Arabia, I was in the Middle East Region of Shell International based in London. Shell Management decided that the head office must support the evacuation of Shell expatriates from the complex and as the lowest rank executive on the ME Regions totem pole, I was dispatched into the war zone. I could write much about the three days I spent surrounded by agitated rednecks desperate to get out of the region but that would take too many lines. Suffice it to say, I gained first-hand insight into the mental and emotional turmoil caused by rumours, misinformation and fear.
More than a decade later in 2003, when President George W Bush ordered a US-led coalition to overthrow the Baathist Government of Saddam Hussein on grounds that Iraq had 'weapons of mass destruction' and was an accomplice of the al Qaeda terrorist group — allegations dismissed by the 9/11 Commission in 2004 — I was with the Shell Group in India. Although no longer in the thick of events, I was impacted. The international price of crude oil crossed into triple digits and the newly elected UPA government of PM Manmohan Singh reintroduced administered pricing of petroleum products. That put paid to Shell India's plans to break into the petroleum main fuels markets.
Today I observe the fifth major eruption in the region — I define 'major' loosely — conflict has been endemic and continuous in the region so the distinction between 'major' and the rest is subjective — from the vantage point of an armchair commentator. I am no longer directly involved with the petroleum Industry nor engaged with the ME Region but I have the luxury to reflect on this half-century of involvement.
I have read countless commentaries on the current state of affairs. Many questions have been raised.
What is the extent of damage caused to Iran's nuclear programme? Does it still have fissile material and the centrifuges and equipment to enrich this feedstock and build systems to deliver nuclear warheads? Does it have the capability (or indeed the inclination — their leaders cannot have forgotten Operation Mantis) to choke the Straits of Hormuz? How stable is the ceasefire given Israel's PM Netanyahu has not achieved his goal of regime change? What about President Trump? Will he green-light a second round of bombing by Israel? What is China's game plan? And many more.
Experts have weighed in with the answers. I too have views but on reflection, I hesitate to proffer them. For if there is one lesson that a historical overview throws up it is that ultimately the answers will not be derived through political, economic, strategic and humanitarian logic but by the ambitions of autocratic individuals. These individuals may well craft their responses around the enlightenment ideals of freedom, democracy, social justice and human rights but that is optics. The drivers of actions are subjective predilections. Few commentators have an insight into the psychological make-up of these leaders. I certainly do not.
One further thought comes to the fore on reflection. All five major wars have been brought to a close either through diplomacy or military might/stalemate. But the closures have been fragile. For, the root cause of war has never been adequately addressed. I read Henry Kissinger's book 'CRISIS: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crisis' which described the telephonic diplomacy that brought about the ceasefire in 1973. Seen through the narrow lens of the objective to end hostilities, it was a success. All combatants salvaged something out of the fighting and America kept its hegemonic foothold in the region. But the plight of the Palestinian refugees was not on the agenda. Similarly, the Iran-Iraq war ended with no effort to address the core issues that triggered the conflict. It drew to a halt because both sides were exhausted and could no longer accept the high death toll. In a comparable vein, the two Gulf wars ended because the immediate objectives were met (viz the defeat of the Iraqi army and the execution of Saddam Hussein). The geopolitical, economic, religious and ideological cleavages that triggered the wars were tackled only in passing.
Today, the Western world is focused on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. There is a good reason for this focus. Were such weapons to fall into the 'wrong hands' it could have catastrophic consequences. But, by failing to use their heft to address humanitarian needs, the genocide in Gaza, by ignoring the cascading anger and resentment they are in fact creating the conditions for this proliferation. Commentators can speculate but those with a historical perspective know this is the consequential reality.
The writer is former Chairman of Shell India. Views are personal