Death’s dominions

THE first casualty in the Israel-US war against Iran was not truth. It was the slaughter of 165 children and their teachers in an unprovoked act of infanticide. On Feb 28, the Israel-US coalition destroyed an elementary girls’ school in Minab (southern Iran). Neither Israel nor the US has admitted to that heinous war crime. Instead, Trump has suggested that Iran, like some viper, murdered its own young.

Those Iranian girls will never grow up or go to university to learn (even in a Farsi translation) Dylan Thomas’ haunting poem: ‘And death shall have no dominion.’ They will never recite the lines: ‘Where blew a flower may a flower no more/ Lift its head to the blows of the rain’.

The last lesson they learned on that fateful day was that Death does have Dominion — over us all. Infanticide, though, is Man’s unique insolent repudiation of God’s gift of life.

The poignant inconsolable grief of 165 sets of Iranian parents is shared by all Pakistanis. We have not forgotten a similar trauma here in Peshawar, when, on Dec 16, 2014, 134 students and 15 teachers were massacred in a brutal attack on the Army Public School. Their bones have been since ‘picked clean and the clean bones gone’. Their absence is the only evidence left of previous presence.

How long will the present war in the ME last?

Some analysts regard the present war not so much as a Clash of Civilisations as a Clash of Religions, an Abrahamic discord between Zionist Judaism, right-wing Christianity, and Shia Islam. Others would contend that the present confrontation between Sunni sheikdoms and a Shia theocracy has shown that (in Dylan’s line) ‘Faith in their hands shall snap in two’.

The 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June last year, in retrospect, served as a dress rehearsal for the present conflict. Today, Donald Trump has moved from prompting from the wings to appearing centre stage. Fortified by his ‘success’ in achieving a regime change in Venezuela in January 2026, Trump believes that he can perform an encore in Iran. He has misread the resolve of the Iranians. They may be ‘strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break’.

How long will the present war in the Middle East last? Forever, if Trump has his way. On March 6, he instructed major military suppliers (among them Boeing, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman) “to quadruple the production of ‘exquisite class’ weaponry”. He then revealed that they had in fact begun expansion “three months prior to the meeting”.

Neither Israel nor Iran has an inexhaustible supply of weaponry. Israel will need to rely on the US and Europe for replenishments. Iran will have to turn towards Russia, China and North Korea. Russia is already overstretched in its war to recover Ukraine. Only China and North Korea have unused armouries, fattened over decades of a cold peace.

Kissinger’s ideas about waging a war against a smaller stubborn enemy come to mind. Like the Vietnamese, Iran will win if it can withstand the onslaught and not collapse. Trump and Netanyahu will lose, if they do not win. They could also lose their jobs.

Where does Pakistan stand in this international mayhem?

On March 3, it was reported that “Islamabad reminded Iran of its strategic mutual defence pact with Saudi Arabia”, signed in September last year. A day later, Pakistan formally requested Saudi Arabia to provide an alternative oil supply route, through Yanbu.

This was followed by a meeting in Saudi Arabia between the Chief of Defence For­ces Field Marshal Asim Munir and the Saudi Defence Minis­ter Khalid bin Salman Al Saud. The Saudi minister later discl­o­sed that they “discus­sed Iranian attacks on the kingdom and the measures needed to halt them”. Together, they hoped that “the Iranian side will exer­­ci­se wisdom and avoid miscalculation”.

If Saudi vulnerability to Iranian attacks continues, will the Saudis ask Pakistan for something more lethal than troops on the ground? Will Pakistan dare to refuse? And, if it accedes, how will that affect its own security?

In 1965, during Pakistan’s war with India, the US ambassador asked president Ayub Khan to halt hostilities. “Why?” Ayub Khan asked. The envoy replied: “Because you will precipitate a world war.” Ayub’s aide M.M. Ahmed retorted: “For us, our world is already at war. What you mean is that now you will be involved.” Ironically, 60 years later, Pakistan finds itself involved in America’s world war.

In the 1940s, Hitler boasted: “Today I am at the head of the strongest army in the world, the most gigantic air force, and of a proud navy”, adding, “We shall only talk of peace when we have won the war.”

Those bombastic words have found a new mouthpiece.

The writer is an author.
www.fsaijazuddin.pk

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2026

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