The world has been sitting on tenterhook with fears of a looming war as tensions between Iran and the United States of America continue to soar following the killing of Qadem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force by the USA on January 3, 2020 in Baghdad.
The late Soleimani, 62, was considered the second most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, underscoring the importance of the personality at the centre of the rift between the two countries.
Already, Iran has vowed to avenge the death of the army general in charge of the country’s military division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations.
General Esmail Ghaani, the late Soleimani’s successor, told Iranian state TV on Monday that “God the Almighty has promised to take martyr Soleimani’s revenge. Certainly, actions will be taken.”
True to his word, Iran on Tuesday carried out a ballistic missile attack on two air bases housing US forces in Irbil and Al Asad, Baghdad, in neighbouring Iraq.
The US President, Donald Trump, before Iran struck, threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites if the gulf country tried to avenge the death of Soleimani by attacking Americans or US assets.
In a tweet, Donald Trump said Iran “is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets.”
“The US has targeted 52 Iranian sites,” Donald Trump said revealing that some were “at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, will be hit very fast and very hard”.
As it stands now, nobody knows what actions the U.S., without doubt, with the world’s most sophisticated military, would take.
It is in this regard that the Ghanaian Times urges restraint and appeals to the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and individual world leaders to call for calm as the tension between the two antagonists continue to rise with evidence showing that Iran has indeed fired the first shot since the killing of Soleimani.
We urge Iran and U.S.to back down on their threats of reprisal attacks and commit to the world systems to find an amicable solution to the impasse.
The signs on the wall are not good for world peace. It is said in an African parable that ‘when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.’
This was underscored by the Dean of Academic Affairs at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC), Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso, that no one was safe should the tensions reach a tipping point of no return as he called for calm.
“The whole world is at risk. No country is safe if Iran decides to attack American interest so the world system must be used to stop the tensions from escalating,” Dr Antwi-Danso told the Ghanaian Timesin Accra on Tuesday.
We fully associate with the call by Dr Antwi-Danso that the world has come far and a third world war or a war involving the US and arguably the strongest country, military wise, in the Middle East, would not be in our interest.
Any aggression between the two countries would give terror groups, who are predominant in the gulf region, a field day to carry out their nefarious activities.
We call for restraint and appeal to all sides to step back and find a peaceful solution to their differences.
