By Hussein Lumumba Amin

I gain nothing by contributing my personal thoughts to this matter. But despite all the hullabaloo, another Middle East war doesn’t help the daily lives of the people from the countries involved, or any others in the region, nor the rest of us around the world.
Let’s ask ourselves in whose interest would a new war be? Surely not the people, the children or the countries of the region whose populations might die again in the millions like in recent times. Not even the people of Europe and the US who do not want any new brown refugees and migrants from these very Middle Eastern countries or the black ones from Africa. Nobody wants to see lone wolf revenge attacks in Europe’s streets either. Therefore both sides must stop all escalation, especially in their public rhetoric.
From Kenya to Israel, and from the Middle East to Europe plus the US itself, people and security services in high risk countries the world over are now on “high alert” ever since that US airstrike. Terrorists who were seeing their trade shrink in meaning are now emboldened again. Check what happened to the Kenyan military camp.
Is that world peace?
What could happen next in the Sahel?
The reality is clear: For many people, one drone attack and all sense of peace has gone.
For people in high risk countries, an old sense of anxiety is probably back, looming in the back of people’s mind.
In other words a sense of possible terror.
And recent terrorism history shows that traditional US allies like Britain and some EU nation’s always find their citizens caught in the crossfire of revenge attacks. Even their journalists get abducted in the war torn countries. Some killed in a most horrendous way, and on video.
While some of us are imagining that revenge will come in the form of a military/state response, aren’t we all aware that it can also come from some radicalized lone wolfs?
Let us be clear about where radicalization comes from and who is actually radicalizing who?
Individuals can get angry after simply watching such international developments in the usual global news channels plus their social media timelines. Possibly responding to “the red flag of revenge”, and thereby taking it upon themselves “to do the needful” by picking a knife or meat cleaver from their kitchen and heading out for the streets, or ramming a vehicle into innocent pedestrians.
So let us stop being naïve about the full possible scope of the problem. All the above has happened before in recent years, and we have all seen it in the news.
That is why leaders should all get in touch with President Donald Trump himself, and ask him to refrain from such attacks in the future before having an extensive discussion with the security experts of all US allies in the war on terror about a wholistic approach to any possible problem he might be interested in dealing with militarily. The drone strike is not the end of any problem. In fact it seems to have disturbed a hornet’s nest. At least that’s the general feeling.
Therefore there must be an effort to maintain the painstakingly achieved peace and security that peoples around the world had started enjoying without any new worries about global terrorism.
On the economic front, while oil, the military industrial complex, and gold are almost the only sectors that see higher share values/prices, and therefore increased profits for a few people under such circumstances, the broader economic growth across all other sectors only happens favourably when terrorism anxieties have dissipated. Clearly sectors like tourism, the housing market, innovation, air & marine transport in Europe, America, Asia and the Middle East are much more vibrant when nobody is worried about possible terrorist attacks. Now leaders and key financial policy actors need to reassure both local and international financial markets.
So despite what US politics says about the attack, the natural instincts of people around the world, particularly the American people themselves, seem to indicate a sudden feeling of being abit unsafe again. And this feeling of terror is developing after the air strike, not before it.
To conclude on a pragmatic point, let us remember that Mr. Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal. He didn’t say what deal he would rather have instead. Therefore it is his responsibility to put a new agreement on the table. It is not productive to trash what you found on the table, and then just walk out without suggesting any replacement proposal of your own for others to evaluate it’s merits. This I mentioned back then when the US pulled out of the deal, and I repeat the same message again today.
The two sides have to start talking again. It is the only sensible thing that responsible adults do. Especially leaders who are responsible for the welfare, health and future of millions of their peoples, men, women and children, young and old under their respective leadership. There has to be talks that are productive, constructive, and which benefit the people’s of all sides. Not just nothing, or mere multinational corporation deals, or the current threats of more violence. This they have to start for the sake of global peace & security, but also for global economic/financial stability as nation’s focus on all the other pressing priorities that the world needs to come together to resolve, as we start this new decade of greater promise for all peoples to enjoy together.