JUST IN: The Battle of Hormuz | International
International Briefing:
The following report highlights an important international development currently attracting worldwide attention.
Of the many ways to call the war that the United States and Israel launched against Iran in February, perhaps “Hormuz War” is the most appropriate. Hormuz points out as the main protagonist in a confrontation that has lasted almost five decades. If uranium enrichment and Iranian nuclear capacity, or the autocratic nature of the Tehran regime, have been the main dangers historically invoked by Israel or the United States, Hormuz returns us to the capitalist logic that the second half of the 20th century had sweetened based on multilateralism, human rights and the rule of law. Let money circulate through the strait, Trump has said. The Strait of Hormuz is a natural geographical feature. Cumbersome. Like Gibraltar, the Dardanelles or Bering. The curious thing is that rarely in recent history has he said this mouth is mine. In the context of the Middle East, suffering from geopolitical overexposure, this silence was surprising. And it was the trump card that the Iranian regime was saving. If the Suez Canal war (1956) marked the delayed end of the Second World War, once again geography and trade marked the war in the Middle East. As if the last seventy years had been a well-intentioned dream, we return to the old colonial map: technocapitalism has turned the borders of the nation-state into relics, but it has not been able, or not yet, to deal with geography. It is by no means clear that this war is over. We already know what the agreements are worth to Trump. And Netanyahu, his muñidor, continues to do his thing, that is, to try to materialize the borders of Greater Israel, with a strategy that, no matter how inhuman, has not ceased to be effective. And even expressive. A far from innocent jargon calls the current model of Israeli borders “yellow lines”, which in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria function like traffic lights: before, the lines were red and now, waiting for the green crossing. 60% of the territory of the Gaza Strip is already razed, flattened and controlled by Israel; the new southern Lebanon/northern Israel reaches the outskirts of Sidon; Israeli tanks and drones roam freely in southwestern Syria. In the current context of sovereignty without people, the Iranian and Israeli regimes—yes, they are both regimes, since they operate outside international legality, although for very different reasons—go hand in hand. Iran, like Israel, is not so interested in an eternal war as in a game of yellow lines, always subject to discussion: in Hormuz the mines, tolls and control of the banks seem to be subject to continuous fluctuation, and chronic instability will benefit Tehran. Even if the enriched uranium deposits are dismantled, Hormuz will remain. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, hundreds of thousands of citizens wander through a country that has once again broken down, a country that just a year ago had been excited about the long-awaited election of a new prime minister. The Lebanese Government intends to assert itself before Washington by promising internal stability in which no one trusts: its Foreign Minister, Youssef Rajji, has stated that Lebanese sovereignty will not be negotiated by Iran. I wish it were like that. It would be a novelty, since Lebanon has been subjugated since its foundation. Luz Gómez is a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
What Happens Next:
Officials and international observers are expected to continue monitoring the story closely over the coming days.
Observers believe further developments could significantly shape the direction of this story in the near future.
Our editorial team will continue tracking this story as new reports become available.
Source: This article was originally published by Internacional en EL PAÍS and adapted for our international English-speaking audience.
Read the original article here.