Akinterinwa International politics is necessarily a conflict system because the international community comprises nation-states considered to be sovereign and equal.
Sovereignty is about supreme power or supreme authority.
When a nation-state is considered to have national sovereignty, it is not above or below any other nation-state.
All sovereign states are at par.
This equality does not extend to development capacity, economic or military strength.
While the United States can pride itself as the leader of the world in various ramifications, Nigeria or Belgium cannot claim the same pride.
There is no disputing the fact that the United States has the biggest defence budget in the world.
not only has the most advanced technology and the greatest global capacity outreach, but also has the most highly trained personnel.
This is the first dynamic of the U.S.
diplomacy of braggadocio and its foreign policy attitude.
China and Russia are following the lead of the United States in that order.
However, the United States is increasingly becoming drunk under President Donald J.
Trump, and therefore, less clairvoyant in its foreign policy dealings with the world.
We have no qualms with anyone singing the songs of pride for his or her achievements.
There cannot but be qualms when the manifestations of the pride engender the destruction of the pride of others.
Besides, killing others for the exclusive purposes of self-preservation and self-interest in international relations is indecent and most unfortunate, but this is precisely what obtains in contemporary international relations.
States often have very conflicting national interests and no state wants its own national interests to be subsumed under the interests of others.
This is why there is a conflict of interest and why there are conflicts between the United States and Israel, on the one hand, and Iran, on the other.
This is why Irano-Israeli relations began with a diplomacy of duplicity in 1948.
And more importantly, this is why the quest for international peace and security remains far-fetched and pointing to an end to U.S.
global hegemony.
Polemology of Israelo-U.S.
Conflict with Iran From a polemological approach, Israelo-American conflict with Iran has distant or remote causal factors, accidental causal factors, and immediate causal factors.
In many, if not in most cases, the interests of political leaders are taken as national interest and are vigorously pursued as such.
Consequently, the Israelo-US conflict with Iran cannot, stricto sensu, be really considered as a reflection of the American or Israeli national interests.
The war against Iran is more of a resultant from the whims and caprices of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The same is true of the Supreme Leader of Iran, the killed Ayatollah Khomeini.
Leaders, who often engage more in self-projection than in nation-projection, are generally responsible for global insecurity that has come to characterise international relations.
In terms of remote causal factors, the genesis of the Israelo-United States conflict with Iran can be partly dated to the partitioning of Palestine by the United Nations into two in 1947 and partly to the Ayatollah Khomeini following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
As regards the partitioning of Palestine, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, on November 29, 1947 Resolution 181 which partitioned Palestine, which had been under the British Mandate since the end of World War I.
The partitioning plan was quite interesting because of its unfairness and injustice.
More important, the plan clearly showed how diplomacy is largely predicated on duplicity, insincerity.
Duplicity wise, the partitioning plan allotted 55-56% of the land to the Jews who only accounted for one-third of the total population, and the rest, 42-43%, to the Arabs.
In the eyes of the Arabs, this was most unfair, even though the plan also provided for an economic union between Israel and the Arab State.
The Union was to include a customs union and a joint management of infrastructure.
Additionally, the plan provided for a corpus separatum, which made the city of Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, including Bethlehem, an international city to be placed under an international administration.
The Arabs rejected the partition plan while Israel accepted it.
As a result of the controversy, the United Nations came up with the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to investigate the situation.
What is noteworthy here is that Iran opposed the UN partition plan.
Along with Yugoslavia and India, Iran offered an alternative plan according to which a federal state was the solution, as it would enable keeping Palestine as a single unit in which there would be a balanced relationship with the West, the Zionist movement, and neigbouring Arab States.
As a result of the disagreement, the first Israelo-Arab war broke out in 1948.
Iran was vehemently opposed to Israel but would not only gave a de facto recognition to the new state of Israel but would also serve as the transit point for Jewish refugees seeking to leave the Arab countries and go to the new State of Israel.
It is against this background that a polemology of the conflict with Iran is much thought-provoking.
The conflict has raised, on the one hand, the question of existential threat, and therefore, the need for a pre-emptive attack at the level of Israel, and, on the other hand, the question of legitimate self-defence at both the levels of Israel and Iran, on the other.
It is useful to note that the problem of existential threat exists because the Arabs wanted to push Israel to the sea or wanted ‘death for Israel.
This compelled Israel to also adopt a policy of pre-emptive attack, which involves the taking battles directly to the door steps of the enemy before the enemy can even prepare for an attack.
In this regard, Israel has fought several wars, beginning with the 1948 war, started by 7 Members of the Arab League: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
They were defeated by Israel.
Then came the 1967 Six-Day War or the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which was provoked primarily by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in defence of the Palestinian Arabs.
The war lasted from 5 June 1967 to 10 June 1967.
Israel’s victory prompted the occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza strip, West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights.
This was the beginning of Israeli occupation of Palestinian Arab land to which the international community has been opposed.
As part of an enduring solution to the Israelo-Arab conflict, Israel has been told to return to the pre-1967 war boundaries.
As advised by Von Clausewitz, if you want peace, prepare for war.
Israel appears to have actively imbibed this philosophy of Clausewitz by permanently preparing for war and engaging in excessive pre-emptive attacks on perceived enemies.
1973 not only witnessed the Yom Kippur war, but also the October war and the Ramadan war.
It was the first Lebanon war in 1982 and second Lebanon war in 2006.
The Israelo-Hamas war took place in 2023 while the year 2026 is currently playing host to the Israelo-American war against Iran.
Why war against Iran? The war began with Iranian support for the Palestinian Arabs, especially because of the unfairness in the allotment of the larger part of the Palestinian territory to Israel.
Besides, Iran had an alternative proposal, federal system.
Iran, which gave support to Israel, as well as gave a de facto recognition to the State of Israel from 1948 to 1979, changed its attitudinal disposition towards Israel after the revolution, contesting American hegemony and Israeli aggressions.
In anticipation of possible nuclear attacks by both Israel and the United States, Iran began the development of nuclear capability for self-protection.
The United States is vehemently opposed to it.
This is the accidental and immediate causal factor of the war with Iran.
Without any whiff of doubt, all the nuclear powers acquired their nuclear capability through competitiveness and cooperation.
On attainment of a nuclear power status, they do not want any other state to have the same nuclear status under the whims and caprices that new aspirants are not trust worthy, as it is the case with Iran, or that they may not have the capacity of control in the event of any nuclear disaster.
And true, when the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferations Treaty (NPT) was to be done, France and China refused to sign it because they were still making efforts to perfect the intellection processes of their nuclear weapon development.
It was after the perfection that they eventually acceded to the NPT.
Since then, the so-called Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) are also the Five Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council, P-5 (Britain, China, France,....
