By Kingsley Omose
Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control. Proverbs 25:28
What happened? The decision of Iran to forewarn and to coordinate with Qatar on the missile attacks it launched on the largest US military in the Middle East in Qatar with over 10,000 US military personnel, happened.
What happened? The decision of Iran to launch the attacks against only the US military bases in Qatar and Iraq using short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles that could easily be interpreted by US military interceptor missiles.
What happened? The fact that aside from the psychological impact, no Qatari or Iraqi, nor any foreign national in Qatar or Iraq was killed or injured during the Iranian missile attacks, including there being no damage to any infrastructure or buildings.
What happened? The fact that the Iranians decided not to close the Straits of Hormuz that accounts for 20% of world oil supply flow from the Gulf to the rest of the world to be disrupted, which would have shot up crude oil prices and increased the price of petrol dispensed at the pumps causing global inflation to spike.
What happened? The decision of the Iranians to not simultaneously launch missile attacks against other US military bases in the Middle East that are in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Syria except those in Qatar and Iraq.
What happened? The decision of Iran to not inflame the Sunni and Shia divide across the Muslim world by targeting US military bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, all Sunni dominated Muslim countries.
What happened? The decision of the Iranians to provide an off-ramp opportunity for Donald Trump by its very measured missile attacks on US military bases in Iraq and Qatar without loss of American lives, to claim obliteration of Iranian nuclear facilities without war between the US and Iran.
What happened? This decision of the Iranians allowed the world to dodge for now the fullscale implications of a full-blown war in the Middle East that would have sucked in the Chinese, Russians, NATO, Pakistan, India, the EU etc.
What happened? Restraint happened and this why Iran, the US, and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire in the 12-Day War that the rest of the world is hoping endures so as not to progress into a world war with its attendant huge loss of human lives, and accompanying torpedoing of the global economy.
Omose, a public analyst contributed this article from Lagos
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