The world has entered potentially the most dangerous days of Donald Trump’s presidency. The US president, who has refused to acknowledge his election loss, is in a trigger-happy position to ignite a foreign policy crisis before the end of his tenure on 20 January. The region in which he can act, in conjunction with Israel and Saudi Arabian support, is the Persian Gulf, where a number of events have come together to lead Trump to potentially initiate a US attack on Iran.
The alleged Israeli assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, outside Tehran on Friday comes against the backdrop of several ostensibly linked developments over the past month. As reported by the New York Times, shortly after the American networks declared Joe Biden the winner of the November election, Trump asked the Pentagon to identify targets for a military assault on Iran—the country that he has demonised and sanctioned as a regional menace ever since taking office. He was dissuaded by his advisers, but Trump personally did not take it off the table. This was followed by a reportedly secret meeting a week ago between Trump’s like-minded and close friends, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
Then came the release from an Iranian jail of the Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert after serving two years of a 10-year jail sentence on espionage charges, which she has persistently denied. However, at the same time as her release, three Iranians, who had allegedly plotted to kill Israeli diplomats in Bangkok, were freed from Thai prisons. The Australian government is sure to have played a key role in the exchange, although it has remained quiet about what it may have promised the Thai government for its favour. It has only affirmed Moore-Gilbert’s denial of spying and claimed that no one was released from Australia, although there’s evidently no Iranian person of interest in an Australian jail at present.
Read the article by Amin Saikal in The Strategist.