Major conflicts inevitably invoke deep historical parallels. Fifty days since the outbreak of the US-Israel war against Iran and nine days since a ceasefire, past histories have loomed large over explanations and for lessons to be drawn from the conflict.
These parallels are many, but three in particular stand out: 1979, 1915 and 1956. In India, another year has engaged much attention — 1971. This has less to do with the 41 days of combat than with Pakistan’s role in securing a temporary ceasefire.
1979 is the most obvious: Americans have not forgotten how the United States of America was treated during the Iranian revolution. That so many of its diplomats could be held hostage for so long while a superpower was frozen into immobility provides the foundation of all that has gone wrong in the US-Iran interface since. In the early days of the war, when an Iranian defeat appeared imminent, its ferocious assault was, in the US's eyes, a just retribution for 1979.
But as the war progressed and Iranian resilience asserted itself by choking passage through the Strait of Hormuz, other historical parallels came to the fore. The iconic battle of Gallipoli in 1915 demonstrated how very difficult it is to dislodge a mainland power from exercising control over a narrow waterway adjacent to it. Britain in 1915, along with France and Russia, sought to inflict a crushing defeat on the Ottoman empire and, thus, gain an overwhelming advantage in the ongoing war against Germany. This plan involved taking control of the Dardanelles Strait, an important economic waterway. A naval assault failed and was followed by a disastrous attempt at landing ground forces in the Gallipoli peninsula leading to widespread slaughter on both sides. Yet, the otherwise militarily weaker Turks held the day in the end.
The US rediscovered this truth as it weighed different options to keep the Strait of Hormuz open during the 41 days of combat. It remains to be seen how the counter blockade announced by President Donald Trump will work. But the difficulties of controlling the Hormuz Strait through securing the adjacent Iranian mainland remain evident.
Choking or controlling an international waterway as a way of counteracting overwhelming military force, as Iran is doing, inevitably raises parallels with 1956 and the Suez crisis. In 1956, Egypt closed the Suez Canal in response to a joint Israel-Britain-French attack. By doing so, it transformed a geopolitical conflict into a geoeconomic one: the supply disruption and the subsequent turmoil in the world economy finally turned the tables in Egypt’s favour.
However, references to Iran being a possible ‘US Suez’ point to a different dimension of the drama underway. In 1956, Egypt, by gaining the upper hand in political terms, revealed a deeper process underway — the decline of Britain as a great power. Is the current war and the difficulty of translating military dominance into political advantage an early manifestation of US decline? The ongoing drama recurrently poses that question.
For many in India, these parallels have receded in importance and relevance in the face of another one: 1971 and Pakistan’s role in the secret diplomacy culminating in Henry Kissinger’s visit to China and the consequent breakthrough in US-China relations.
This time, Pakistan has played an even more astonishing role — bringing the US and Iran face to face at a very high level. It is no small achievement to have played some role in bringing to a pause, howsoever temporarily, one of the most intense military and geoeconomic conflicts we have seen in recent history. Whether the failure to reach an agreement in Islamabad is a pause or a real setback remains to be seen. But bringing the belligerents together and possibly starting a process is no small feat, and there is applause from professionals across the world. For many Pakistanis, the current moment is a much-sought-after corrective to its otherwise poor international image. They feel that for once, their country is on the right side of history.
In most Indian analyses, the question that dominates, howsoever silently, is how did Pakistan marshal the bandwidth to do this? Inherent in this is a view of a Pakistan riven by deep domestic fault lines, wracked by multiple crises, and on the verge of implosion and collapse. This view has surprisingly wide acceptance in India, even in otherwise knowledgeable circles. In the less informed but more influential electronic and social media, there is an even stronger consensus. Pakistan’s mediation or brokerage is therefore seen variously as an instance of impertinence; an opportunistic intervention by a non-entity; or, finally, as a proxy acting on behalf of China, the US or Saudi Arabia.
Such views are underwritten, of course, by a huge quantum of angst at a traditional adversary basking in the international spotlight, having pulled off quite a significant diplomatic feat. In some cases, the angst even overrides the consideration that an end to the conflict is entirely to India’s benefit quite regardless of how it came about.
The larger fallacy underwriting this resentment is of a wide acceptance of Pakistan’s geopolitical irrelevance. This fits in with New Delhi’s current policy approach of seeking to isolate Pakistan internationally on the grounds of its support to terrorist outfits targeting India. But for at least the past year, in fact for much longer, there are signs that Pakistan is not getting isolated. The point is that other countries see Pakistan through the prism of their own interests and assessments: 250 million people, a sensitive geopolitical location, a disciplined military, a relatively stable State system and, finally, nuclear weapons give it a relevance that no argument can overrule.
Whatever the future of the Iran-US negotiations and whether the conflict will resume, the 41 of combat so far will have a transformative impact on the region. What changes are incubating in Iran, Israel and the Gulf states? How will future US postures be influenced by the Iranian resilience? We do not know the answers to all of these but can prepare for the impending changes. To do so best will also require a sharper refocus on all our neighbours, including Pakistan.
T.C.A. Raghavan is a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan and Singapore