No wars in the time of Corona and after it
Written by Nasser Kandil,
Nowadays there are analyses about a hypothesis that is called by its owners “ The escape forward”, its content is that the administration of the American President Donald Trump makes a major external war that disregards the failure resulted from confronting Coronavirus and allows the American President to get better opportunities electorally and to have control over the campaign of his opponents internally by depending on the concept of the national spirit in the state of war. This includes a talk about a major war on China and once on Iran and once on Iraq against the resistance forces which is the most popular one among the hypotheses, because it is in conformity with the American threats and some procedures as the deployment of Patriot missiles in the American bases in Iraq.
The problem of these analyses is that they are based on a classical approach that belongs to pre-corona stage; they assume implicitly that the war will lead to a better situation for those who wage it especially when we talk about an American war. But who said that it will achieve the hypotheses which were being justified, and who said that the results of the war will be in favor of Trump whether on China, Iran, or Iraq, and who said that it will improve Trump’s electoral terms or it will enhance the situation of Trump against his internal opponents. All of these hypotheses are still doubted, rather it is likely that the consequences of the war may be opposite in all these axes.
Why did we say that these analyses belong to pre-corona stage, because the war must have four elements: First, the intentions and will. Second, the capabilities and considerations. Third, the popular and political consensus. Fourth, the political climate and the international and regional circumstances or the degree of the ability to impose legitimacy. In these four elements many things have changed; if there is intention, the will has been affected, and if the military capabilities are found, the ability to allocate the financial resources has regressed, moreover the popular and political consensus which was weak and could be strengthened, it has become now1za nonsexist and thus cannot be manipulated, furthermore, the political climate which was confused has become closed due to the whole domination of corona on the scene as a priority on the international and regional levels.
In the post-corona stage the world will enter a stage of economic and political confusion, the weakness of resources, and the priority of finding plans for the economic revival and reassessment of the concept of politics, especially the theories of war, its costs and its possibilities. The world will witness not only America a re-discussion of all internal and external concepts and their priorities even the forces which oppose Washington as the resistance forces will not find it easy to mobilize their popular environment or to reserve the necessary capabilities to wage legitimate wars that recently were granted popular and political consensus.
Next weeks will witness conflicts of the involved forces whether those who launch aggressive wars or those who resist them whether in direct and indirect mechanisms for announced or implicit formulas to cease-fire and calm, during which there will be endeavors for settlements on the table and under it. The war is no longer a commonplace in the time of corona, and the fool who will initiate it will lose it because his opponent will have the necessary consensus to deter him as shown in the events of Yemen nowadays. On the contrary, the rational is the one who initiates the negotiations as the prime minister of the Iraqi reigned government Dr. Adel Abdul Mahdi is doing.
Translated by Lina Shehadeh,
