The war on Iran may have far-reaching consequences for Gulf security, regional alliances and the future of the US presence in the Middle East. Eugene Doyle talks with former US Ambassador Chas Freeman, to try and see the road ahead.

Whether intended or unintended, the US and Israel are severely damaging the economies of the Gulf States. By attacking Iran, they knew full well what the Iranians would do in response – after all, Iran had warned that any further attack on it would lead to a regional war.

Are we witnessing a brazen plan to destroy both Iran and seriously weaken the Gulf States, using Iran as a weapon to do the latter? Could this be a Machiavellian plan to throw a cluster bomb into The Great Muslim Reconciliation between the Sunni states and Shia Iran? Will the war halt or accelerate the project to create an Islamic NATO which is based around last year’s Saudi-Pakistani defence pact? The Saudis have the dollars; the Pakistanis have the nukes and the troops.

The permanent isolation of Iran was the centrepiece of the US-promoted Abraham Accords – designed to bring the Israeli regime into the circle of love and keep Iran out in the cold. Anything that runs counter to this is a threat. The war comes at a time when Iran and the Gulf States had taken major steps to mend fences after decades of hostility.

The murder of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on orders of Donald Trump in 2020 was supposed to kill off a diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Soleimani and other officials were killed in a US missile strike at Baghdad airport without the permission of or notification to the Iraqi government. He was, according to........

© Pearls and Irritations