M Santhananaban
It is crystal clear that US President Donald Trump, Tel Aviv and Tehran are in an increasingly unsustainable, tense and toxic ticking-time-bomb situation.
Trump had gambled on a quick, dramatic victory but finds himself in an isolated quandary, stuck in a quagmire of his own making.
The president is facing criticism from his own domestic constituency because he is in violation of the US Constitution by unilaterally going to war.
The strikes were launched without US congressional authorisation. Article 1 of the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war.
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But Trump rushed into an unauthorised, unwarranted and potentially unwinnable war with no exit strategy.
The US regime has resorted to the blatant lie of self-defence as justification – a position parroted by the defence secretary and other senior officials.
Legal experts argue that self-defence is properly understood to involve a threat that is much more immediate than anything that appears to be at play here.
Trump is not commanding the dominant narrative he expected.
Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has demanded that the US, Israel and Iran seek a diplomatic exit to the conflict. He has refused to allow the use of Spanish bases for attacks on Iran, framing Madrid’s stance as a rejection of complicity in escalation.
This is a significant blow. Spain was a key partner in the 2003 US-led coalition’s war against Iraq; so its current unambiguous opposition carries weight.
Iran has retaliated to the US-Israel attack with strikes on Israel and mainly US interests in the Gulf countries.
There is a growing global anti-war sentiment. Meanwhile, lives, livelihoods and valuable assets are lost.
Everything possible must be done by the UN to prevent this war from escalating. We can only trust that better judgment will prevail.
Dato’ M Santhananaban is a former Malaysian ambassador with 45 years of public sector experience.
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