What’s next for Iran? Propelled by prophecy or politics, five scenarios could unfold.
First, using its proverbial chess-playing skills, Iran transacts truce. Second, it capitulates. Third, it wages a spreading yet targeted war using missiles, drones, suicide bombers, dirty bombs, cyber and energy disruptions to counter the destructive US-Israel sky war. Fourth, Iran implodes under proxy wars. The US has used anti-regime militias for waging proxy ground wars to ruin Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
Proxy war by saboteurs is a deadly machete for dismembering countries. Iran, a proud colossus straddling the region, could disintegrate into civil war, spawning violent ghettos of gunmen and gangsters. With 93 million people, Iran’s meltdown would metastasise, infecting the whole region. Fifth and the scariest: realising it cannot fight this Armageddon, a cornered Iran uses its final, fatal option—nuclear. The epic American-Israeli fury that this would unleash is the stuff of prophecies.
Iran is an ancient civilisation that withstood many calamities, defeats and victories. Historically, it defended its territories and invaded neighbouring lands with fearsome might. Ancient historian Herodotus records it raised an army of 2.3 million to invade Greece 2,500 years ago. It has also been humbled by the Romans, Greeks and Ottomans. Yet, Iran recovered its mojo by displaying a core strength—strategic patience. If the outcome differs this time, it is because its patience and cleverness cannot match the asymmetrical military, financial, technological, AI and intelligence prowess of the US-Israel duo.
What’s next for the US? Invade Greenland, Cuba, Colombia? Yo-yo tariffs? The unpredictable, unsafe, might-is-right new world order makes us yearn for the peace we enjoyed for decades, peace that we assumed was natural, inevitable. It was, until it wasn’t. Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s autobiographical, The World of Yesterday, achingly captures the annihilation of the peaceful, humane, cosmopolitan European order by World War I, the rise of Nazism and World War II.
Zweig’s nostalgic tribute to that bygone era is his effort to preserve the memory of a lost civilisation governed by excellence and culture, its democracy and human rights replaced by authoritarianism, extremism and evil nationalism that marched Jews into gas chambers. Sinking into pessimism, Zweig finished his manuscript, posted it to his publisher, and, then, together with his wife, committed suicide.
Brute force of hegemons arouses global helplessness, even depression. But, historically, patience is an antidote to pessimism. Just three years after Zweig overdosed on barbiturates in 1942, Nazi Germany collapsed and World War II ended. A repaired and rejuvenated Europe rejoiced. The European Union chose Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ as its anthem. Europe became a rags-to-riches fairytale. History does not end; it merely metamorphoses. In poverty and in prosperity, in victory and in defeat, the story of humanity continues—in new forms.
Cities everywhere are a constant reminder of this civilisational continuity driven by humankind’s sheer grit to survive, even thrive. Take Delhi for example. Its trauma includes partition, assassinations, riots, bomb blasts, Covid. But, today, billion-dollar deals are negotiated in glass-and-chrome offices. In its grungy neighbourhoods, hustlers hustle and bustle, talking in lakhs, not thousands. Over the decades, Delhi’s streets have become even wider, the vehicles bigger, better, broader. Old majestic trees line affluent Delhi’s avenues, while new plastic-and-brick hutments jostle in slums.
What’s next for the world? Blood, sweat and tears, perhaps. Blood, flowing with happy hormones, for progress created, sweat for dread of destruction, tears for all that remains undone. This paradox, this primal tandava is the yin-yang wheel of life… spinning towards the future.
Pratap is an author and journalist.