Just minutes after Tehran threatened “punitive action” against Greece for its involvement in the confiscation of a cargo of smuggled Iranian oil, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces seized two Greek tankers in the Arabian Gulf.
The ayatollahs’ regime has frequently attacked Gulf shipping and staged drone and missile strikes against regional oil infrastructure and civilian targets. The world lethargically shrugs.
Astonishingly, the US has no Plan B. Malley doggedly insists that “the only option here is the diplomatic one.” Biden’s administration asserted in February that without a deal “within the next few weeks” Iranian nuclear advances would “make it impossible” to return to the 2015 agreement. Yet here we are nearly four months later with diplomacy powered along by the endless momentum of delusional wishful thinking and strategic drift.
Without a decisive change in strategy, we risk witnessing the apocalyptic consequences of appeasing deranged theocrats who genuinely believe there’s nothing they can’t get away with.
Source: Baria Alamuddin - Arab News
Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.