The United States’ decision to carry out new strikes against a military site in Bandar Abbas has threatened the possibility of peace between nations.
New attacks on Iran follow US claims that the Iranian base has posed an active threat to US naval and air forces.
In a recent cabinet meeting, the US President Donald Trump said that pending peace treaties are the result of major points of difference in negotiations.
“We will be either that [satisfied] or we’ll have to just finish the job,” President Trump said.
Whilst the April 8 ceasefire was extended indefinitely, the US-Iran truce remains incredibly fragile as uncertainty hovers over the Strait of Hormuz.
University of New South Wales Senior Lecturer, Dr Gavin Mount has recommended conflict transformation as a method for resolving deeper social and political issues within the Middle East.
“There’s two things to say about conflict generally,” Dr Mount said.
“One, most conflict in the world is intrastate rather than interstate and two, most conflict in the world is recurring.”
Interstate conflict refers to affairs between two or more different states whereas intrastate conflict refers to the internal affairs of a single nation.
Dr Mount said that the conflict dynamic shared between US/Israel and Iran is predominately led by Trump’s belief in peace through strength.
“Peace treaties often are representations of an imbalance of power between the victor and the defeated,” Dr Mount said.
“They often have clauses in them which generate a lot of resentment.”
Current peace negotiations are being mediated by US and Iranian representatives as well as neighbouring Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries.
In nearly 100 days since the commencement of the conflict, US-Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 1,500 and wounded more than 20,000 civilians, including 175 schoolgirls under the age of 12 in a targeted attack.
Based on current military expenditure trends, the US is set to cost American Congress more than $100 billion since February 28.
According to the Iran War Cost Tracker and a Pentagon media release, the majority of the US Operation Epic Fury expenses have funded airship and missile artillery and drone technology.
Since February 28, more than 4,000 attacks have been executed by the US-Israeli and Iranian militaries.
Despite calls for a ceasefire significantly decreasing the rates of attack, US and Iranian governments have been unable to reach an agreement regarding US blockades of the Strait of Hormuz and the management of Iranian uranium.
Dr Mount said that a deeper conflict transformation might include a shift in the world’s dependency on oil.
“The more we move towards green energy, the less dependent we become on shipping fossil fuels,” Dr Mount said.
While senior US and Iranian officials claim that a peace deal will be reached in the coming days, Trump has confirmed that the US proposal includes a nuclear weapons clause – a known dealbreaker for Iranian uranium enrichment missions.
