Whatever the fate is of the putative two-week ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran, it remains historically significant due to novel dynamics that the war just revealed and that portend important new power relations regionally and globally.These include both positive and negative developments that are epic in their magnitude and historic in their implications for the future.Most analysis in the West has spoken of Trump searching for an “off ramp” to escape the danger he had painted himself into – using the analogy of how drivers on highways seek an exit ramp to enter a rest stop or a lower-intensity side road. But what Iran has actually done is to instead offer Trump and Israel a chance to press the ejection seat button to escape their damaged fighter-jet – and survive without achieving their war aims.The war’s critical new dynamics have included the massive destruction of essential civilian infrastructure and military facilities across the region, by the US, Israel, Iran and Tehran’s allies.This includes the American threat of Iran’s annihilation alongside Israel’s actual genocidal destruction of all life-supporting mechanisms in Gaza and much of south Lebanon. This disrupted vital global supply chains that impact every life and economic dimension – food, energy, water, technology, travel — and …
