First word
THE metaphor of a sports game in the title is not meant to make light of an armed conflict that is in every way earth-shaking and so devastating that it has plunged the world into turmoil and anguish.
This column seeks to discuss the practical difficulty of following a war thousands of miles away from home with neither our government nor our witness to what is happening. The war is between Iran and the United States, and Israel in between, and it has the potential to throw the world into chaos and unending destruction for a long time.
What do we Filipinos do, given our country’s non-involvement in the conflict, and the total absence from the war zone to keep track of the hostilities and how each side is faring.
I will answer that we have no choice but to rely on foreign media organizations (mostly Western) who deploy considerable time, personnel and resources to covering the war up close and giving the world an objective picture and assessment of the conflict and its prospects of resolution by ceasefire or conflict resolution on the battlefield.
This is to say that we Filipinos, including our media, do not have much choice but to rely on the reportage and analysis of foreign media organizations to bring the war home to us.
Given this state of ignorance of events firsthand, I have completely turned to the internet and to Google for information and guidance on the Iran war. It is a blessing and a boon to have ever-ready at one’s fingertips the service of a machine that can give me access to reports on the war as it is reported and analyzed in all corners of the globe.
The quickest way is to use Drudge Report, a news aggregation website which provide links to top newspapers and news agencies all over the world. Using Drudge, I was able to find and read revealing reports and analyses of interesting developments in the war.
Among my latest discoveries are the following reports:
– The Washington Post reported in an article published on March 24 by Michael Birnbaum that President Trump may be getting ready to declare victory in the war against Iran.
He wrote: “After two weeks of war against Iran, President Donald Trump may soon be ready to declare victory. But he confronts a challenge: Tehran also gets a vote.
"With most of Iran’s navy eliminated, much of its missile stockpile destroyed and top leaders killed, Trump is nearing the goals his military leaders set at the outset of the war.
"But two weeks of conflict have not achieved the broader aims Trump has sometimes declared. A hardened regime in Tehran remains in power, and it is roiling global oil markets by choking off the vital shipping lane that allows oil and gas out of the Persian Gulf.
"Iran’s leaders may be more eager than ever to race toward a nuclear weapon, diplomats and analysts say. Iran retains control of what the United States and allied nations believe is 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, giving it another chip as the regime battles to defend itself and endure the US and Israeli onslaught.”
– In a contrasting analysis for The Telegraph in London, on March 24, chief foreign correspondent David Blair declared that “Iran now has a clear path to victory.”
Blair wrote: “For more than three weeks, American and Israeli jets have rained bombs from Iran’s skies with seeming impunity. Their intelligence agencies have spent years undermining the Islamic Republic from within. Yet, incredible though it may sound, Iran’s remaining leaders now have a clear path to what they would see as victory in this war.
"That route, paved with Donald Trump’s hubris, carries four vital signposts: survival, control, revenue and capability.
"Survival – Iran’s regime regards its own survival as victory. As Trump launched the war on February 28, he promised Iranians that the ‘hour of your freedom is at hand’ and ‘now is the time to seize control of your destiny,’ adding: ‘This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.’
"Brutally effective air strikes suddenly dispatched Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the late supreme leader, and an array of his senior commanders and ministers.
"Yet the regime clung to power and replaced its figureheads. So far, there has been no sign of the popular revolution that remains the only way of causing its downfall, assuming that America does not invade Iran with hundreds of thousands of troops.
"Instead, its enemies have changed their rhetoric. Trump no longer talks of regime change except in the narrow sense of finding a supposedly pliable figure from inside the Islamic Republic willing to deal with America.”
Usually leading US media opinion, the New York Times was surprisingly late in coming in with its view of the war. It belatedly declared that President Trump may have miscalculated in his decision to attack Iran.
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