In addition to the death and destruction in Iran, the first danger of the war launched by Donald Trump against that country is the perpetuation of the conflict.
Members of the US Congress already admit the possibility of sending American troops to the field. This is always how “endless” wars begin: first precision and containment are promised, then they normalize geographic extension, the multiplication of targets and the dilution of any red lines.
The next step towards the global precipice will be the multiplication of enemies, the formation of alliances and the declaration of ruptures between countries and, then, the end, that is, world war, with nuclear weapons at our disposal. With foolishness reigning this is, unfortunately, a viable prediction.
The second danger is the global economic shock and it is already there.
The Strait of Hormuz, closed by Iran, is a vital artery as around 20 million barrels per day transit there, a quarter of the world’s maritime oil trade. A very significant portion of liquefied natural gas also passes through this corridor.
With the war, Washington decided to release 172 million barrels from the strategic reserve and the International Energy Agency moved towards a coordinated record release.
For energy-importing Europe that is also preparing emergency reserves (how long will they last?), for poor countries crushed by external bills and for families already pressured by inflation, Trump’s war has turned into a planetary tax on fuel, transport and food. We have already started to pay this expense that will plunge us into poverty.
The third danger is the end of International Law, which in the past saved so many lives.
When the world’s greatest power normalizes preventative war of varying motivation, it offers others a moral license to do the same. With this war, the world is pushed into the jungle of the right of the strongest.
The fourth danger is, ironically, the strengthening of nuclear proliferation.
Before the attacks, there were ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran, mediated by Oman, and the IAEA itself was preparing additional technical discussions in Vienna on safeguards and verification of Iran’s nuclear program. The war destroyed the mechanisms that made it possible to know what the Iranians were doing. The signal that many regimes take from here is simple: anyone who doesn’t have a nuclear weapon can be attacked, anyone who has one gets life insurance. Few ideas are more dangerous for the 21st century than this one.
And, meanwhile, the proposal is gaining strength that, to solve the energy problem, it is necessary to build more nuclear power plants, more “chernobis” e “fukushimas”, potentially lethal.
The fifth danger is political and civilizational.
War offers fuel to all authoritarian currents that live on humiliation, resentment, block logic, xenophobia and fanatical-religious conflict. In the Middle East, radicalization multiplies. In the West, it reinforces governments that call for more military spending and less democratic scrutiny. In the global economy, it creates conditions for energy-exporting states and rival powers to capitalize on chaos. In the European Union, it gives space for the strongest to command the weakest and the end of the rule of unanimity of member countries on central issues. In Portugal, the Government places us as potential military targets for Trump’s enemies.
How do we stop this madness?
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