Welcome to The Geopolity’s What We’re Watching (3W), our daily look at the interconnected worlds of Geopolitics, Economics and Energy. Curated from the world’s leading sources of information, our analysis and commentary is designed to help you make sense of the events driving the major developments in the world.
In this roundup, we take a closer look at the messages US president Trump and Iranian president Pezeshkian delivered to the American public yesterday (Wednesday).
First, we start with Iranian president Pezeshkian’s open letter, which he released via X. It came just hours before President Trump was scheduled to address America. He started his letter stating, “To the people of the United States of America, and to all those who, amid a flood of distortions and manufactured narratives, continue to seek the truth and aspire to a better life.” Thereafter, Pezeshkian highlights the fact that “Iran has never, in its modern history, chosen the path of aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination… Iran has never initiated a war.” According to Pezeshkian the current US – Israel Alliance war on his country is not because Iran is threat, “Portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts.” Instead, Pezeshkian says, the attacks his country have had to endure are ultimately for power and wealth. “The projection of Iran as a threat is the product of political and economic whims of the powerful — the need to manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets.” Pezeshkian also notes that it is not the financial interests of the American public that are being served by the imperialist war against his country. And, that by engaging in this war, their country is actually damaging its own interests. “Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war? Was there any objective threat from Iran to justify such behavior? Does the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country “back to the stone ages” serve any purpose other than further damaging the United States’ global standing?”, he asks. The real beneficiary, and therefore the driving force behind the aggression to his country, is Israel, writes Pezeshkian. “Is it not also the case that America has entered this aggression as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime? Is it not true that Israel, by manufacturing an Iranian threat, seeks to divert global attention away from its crimes toward the Palestinians? Is it not evident that Israel now aims to fight Iran to the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer dollar?” Despite all this, being attacked in 1980 by Iraq with US support and encouragement, and now twice by the US – Israel Alliance, Pezeshkian says “The Iranian people harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighboring countries. … Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern.” This is how Pezeshkian wants the people of America to see Iran’s military operations across the Arabian Gulf, which have targeted American military and economic interests. “The United States has concentrated the largest number of its forces, bases, and military capabilities around Iran. Recent American aggressions launched from these very bases have demonstrated how threatening such a military presence truly is. What Iran has done – and continues to do – is a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense, and by no means an initiation of war or aggression.” Pezeshkian therefore asks the people of America to not accept the narrative that he and his people are a threat. “Today I invite you to look beyond the machinery of misinformation,” he says. Meanwhile, Pezeshkian warned that Iran would not submit to Trump’s threats. “Throughout its millennia of proud history, Iran has outlasted many aggressors. All that remains of them are tarnished names in history, while Iran endures-resilient, dignified, and proud.”
US president Donald Trump then gave a televised “national address to the nation”. The speech was nothing new, largely a reassertion of the claims Trump has been making over the past few weeks, writes The Hindu. Trump said the US was “on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly”. On February 28, when the US – Israel Alliance launched the war, Trump outlined five broad objectives: to “raze” Iran’s missile industry “to the ground”; to “annihilate” Iran’s Navy; to ensure that Iran’s “proxies” could no longer “destabilise” the region; to prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon; and to bring about regime change. In his April 1 address, Trump claimed the US was now completing all of these objectives. He also said the US was going to hit Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks. “We are going to bring them back to the Stone Ages,” he said. “If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants very hard and properly simultaneously.” Regarding the Strait of Hormuz Trump repeated his most recent talking point that it is not America’s problem – earlier he had asked America’s allies to send ships to help reopen the Strait, which nobody is willing to do. Trump did deny he was considering a US ground operation in Iran, to seize Iran’s enriched uranium. It’s buried too deep underground, Trump said. “It would take months to get near the nuclear dust.”
the BBC came up with a beautiful analogy. It says, “In 1956 the United Kingdom and France went to war alongside Israel after the Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. They attained all their military objectives but were forced to withdraw by President Eisenhower of the US. For the British, it was the beginning of the end of their imperial domination of the Middle East. America is faced by the rise of China. When the history is written of their competition to be the world’s strongest power, Trump’s badly planned war against Iran might be seen as a turning point, a waystation of decline, as Suez was for the United Kingdom.”
Trump tried to sell his war on the American public, writes The Associated Press. He said he wanted to “discuss why Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world.” But over the course of nearly 20 minutes, Trump did not offer any new explanations, AP writes. And, he didn’t provide any information about possible next steps in the war, other than striking “extremely hard”. Again. And, after days of Trump insisting that positive talks with Iran were happening, in his national address he did not once mention diplomatic efforts to work toward a ceasefire. He seemed to suggest the war would end after the US finished hitting targets.
3W notes that Trump’s speech contained racist language, as well as threats to commit war crimes against Iran. “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong,” Trump said, which is a racist remark that is borderline genocidal. He explicitly threatened to “hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously,” which is a war crime by the US’s own standards, as well as those of the United Nations.
As to war crimes, Amnesty International has called for US decision-makers to be investigated for war crimes, writes The New York Times. In response to the Iranian counter-attacks, the US military moved its operations away from military basis into hotels and offices. “It is unconscionable that US forces would knowingly put civilians at risk by leaving their bases and moving to hotels in the densely populated city centers,” said Brian Castner, a crisis researcher at Amnesty International. “The commanders who ordered these relocations, not out of the conflict area but right into the heart of the civilian populations, should be investigated for violating US laws of war.” Both the Pentagon’s law of war manual and the first protocol of the Geneva Conventions outline the need to avoid placing military forces in or near civilian populations. This is the “hiding behind civilians” that the US likes to accuse others of, 3W adds.
Amnesty should take a look at the report from the Red Cross, which, according to Bloomberg, says that US-Israeli airstrikes have damaged or destroyed more than 90,000 homes, about half of them in Tehran. On Tuesday, missiles also struck one of Iran’s biggest state-run pharmaceutical companies, Tofigh Darou, destroying its production and research and development units. The company is a major producer of anti-cancer drugs and anesthetic in Iran. Earlier, the US – Israel Alliance has attacked Iran’s steel industry, while during the first days of the war it attacked the civilian oil infrastructure around Teheran. The war of course started with an attack on a girls school that killed at least 170 children, teachers and parents.
As to how Trump’s speech was perceived, oil prices rose in response, while stock markets across Asia and Europe decline, writes The Financial Times. This does not indicate the financial markets believe Trump’s assertion that everything is under control and going as plan. Rather, it indicating the markets see worse trouble ahead.
This is because the damage to the global economy is already very real, and worsening. The Financial Times writes that the reduction in crude oil and natural gas deliveries to markets around the world, alongside a big increase in delivered prices, means many countries in Asia and Europe have already had to implement extraordinary measures to keep their economies afloat and their societies from imploding. Lowering of taxes on energy, fuel rationing and working from home are being implemented almost everywhere to deal with the shock. 3W notes this is still only the beginning of the energy crisis resulting from the US – Israel Alliance War on Iran. In the best case, where as Trump says, it will be three more weeks until Iran is completely defeated and the Strait of Hormuz is forced open again, it will be 6 weeks from now when the first vessels carrying Arabian Gulf oil will arrive again in Asia and Europe. In the worst case, we note, they won’t arrive again for years, as any Alliance attacks against Iran’s oil infrastructure could lead to destruction of oil production across Saudi, Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE when Iran responds.
Based on these facts, not Trump’s assertions, the BBC came up with a beautiful analogy. It says, “In 1956 the United Kingdom and France went to war alongside Israel after the Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. They attained all their military objectives but were forced to withdraw by President Eisenhower of the US. For the British, it was the beginning of the end of their imperial domination of the Middle East. America is faced by the rise of China. When the history is written of their competition to be the world’s strongest power, Trump’s badly planned war against Iran might be seen as a turning point, a waystation of decline, as Suez was for the United Kingdom.”