Pause or peace? Iran's resilience, resistance and rebooted revolution

PRESIDENT Trump's dramatic ceasefire announcement was against the backdrop of a triangular stand off. Iran hit several US bases in the region, having telegraphed its punch. There were zero human casualties, just as there were none in the US strikes on Iran's three sites of nuclear enrichment.

- By Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

On the Israel-Iran front, Israel's attacks were far deadlier, but Iran's missile hits on Israeli cities had established a balance of terror.

The underlying issues, emotions and dynamics seem to be deeper than that which can transform this ceasefire --even if it holds—into a permanent cessation of hostilities, let alone peace. Given the extremist-maximalist character of the Netanyahu administration, what Trump dubs the 12-Day War is unlikely to be the last.

What is needed for peace in the Middle East is not regime-change in Iran, but in Israel.

Does Trump's ceasefire declaration mean there is no Trump-Netanyahu or US-Iran axis? No. It only means that the US-Israel pincer sometimes opens, sometimes closes. Or to change the metaphor, it is a piano accordion which stretches and contracts.

To my mind, the single most important reality that revealed itself is that of Iran's resilience. As a state and as a people, Iran absorbed attacks by Israel and the USA, survived unbowed but hardly passive, and exercised its right and capacity for asymmetric retaliation.

Iran's resilience under dual battering—America's hammer blow and Israel's savage strikes-- deserves respect. Its resistance has also helped the cause of a multipolar world. The moment of essential equilibrium it created has bought it well deserved time and space, which it should use to rectify all the weaknesses that Israel's blitzkrieg has revealed.

American attack, Trump-Netanyahu axis

What was more shocking than President Trump's unprovoked, unilateral attack on Iran, was his discourse that immediately followed it.

What is most significant about the US attack on Iran is not the escalation that will ensue, but rather:

■Tremors and shifts in the tectonic plates of global geopolitics and consciousness.

■The consequences over 'la longue durée', the long run of history.