Africa and the deadly dust of Iran – Azu Ishiekwene

These are sad times. Who could have believed that after the United States and its allies destroyed Iraq in search of “weapons of mass destruction” and found none, history would repeat itself as a farce?
In neighboring Iran, 35 years after Operation Desert Storm, the United States launched a war with consequences, only this time without even the formality of UN resolutions.
How brazen could it be in the Middle East, especially after a fragile ceasefire since October 2025 has failed to stop the killing of some 600 Palestinians by Israeli forces, further hindering the region’s return to normality.
The devastation in Gaza has turned into a low-intensity conflict with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians occupied in refugee camps as Israel expands its footprint in the occupied territories.
Unfinished business
And while Gaza remains an unfinished business, the attacks on Iran and the simultaneous attacks on Lebanon have triggered a regional conflict, with Iran targeting US assets in the region. The reduction of civilian lives in this vortex of madness to mere collateral damage is a new low. Careful world leaders must not let this pass without holding those responsible to account.
Only the refusal of several traditional allies to join the US-Israeli offensive against Iran gives a small glimmer of hope that the whole world has not been infected by the madness of President Donald Trump and his accomplice, Benjamin Netanyahu.
In hindsight, it would appear that the ceasefire in Gaza was a façade to buy time while Israel opened up new frontiers of bloody adventures across the Middle East, in cahoots with the United States.
Are you still running for a Nobel?
What is the purpose of the Board of Peace, put together and led by President Trump, if the world is plunged into another war – larger and potentially devastating – even before the Board has fully gotten off the ground?
Trump recruited or co-opted oil-rich sheikhs from the Arabian Gulf into his multibillion-dollar council and tactically isolated Iran, pretending that the Iranian leadership was sleepwalking into negotiations to prevent the country from becoming a nuclear power.
While the US president pointed an accusing finger at Iranian leaders and also condemned the brutal crackdown on protesters in Tehran, four fingers pointed at Israel’s unconscionable expansion into the occupied territories and deadly crackdown on immigrants in many US states. However, when might is right, such blatant hypocrisy is obviously irrelevant.
Trump and Netanyahu have dragged the world into a conflict whose objectives are no more precise than what a “victory” might look like. The man who criticized President Joe Biden for letting the Russia-Ukraine war happen on his watch, and who coveted the Nobel Peace Prize for “ending eight wars” in one year, has targeted seven countries in one year, and still counting.
What this means for Africa
While Africa is out of reach of the ongoing bombings and explosions in America’s war on behalf of Israel, the long-term effects of the conflict on the continent are not far-fetched. As food prices escalate due to the Russia-Ukraine war, the vagaries of the ongoing Gulf crisis will also come home to roost. History bears witness!
I was a reporter during Operation Desert Storm – the violent war in which the United States, leading a coalition of allied forces from 42 nations, devastated Iraq, a monster the United States under Ronald Regan had created to contain Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Hungry for war with a formidable military force he had amassed after eight years of conflict with Iran, Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein tested his territorial ambitions by invading and annexing oil-rich Kuwait.
America, hungry for oil, didn’t want to hear of it and, after the deadline for withdrawal from Kuwait expired on January 15, 1991, with United Nations Resolution 678 it used “all necessary means” against Iraq.
A Nigerian story
The war caused global oil prices to rise sharply due to supply disruptions in the Gulf. This has benefited oil-exporting nations like Nigeria, while challenging importers across Africa and causing massive disruption.
Being Africa’s leading oil producer at the time, Nigeria saw crude oil prices rise from around $17 a barrel before the invasion to nearly $40 by the end of 1990, generating around $12–12.5 billion, which became known as the oil windfall that the government of military president General Ibrahim Babangida failed to explain.
African oil-importing countries faced higher import bills and balance of payments strains against a backdrop of average oil prices of $30 per barrel during the crisis from August 1990 to January 1991. Exporters such as Angola and Algeria benefited from higher prices, as did Nigeria, but paid even higher prices due to global disruption caused by the war.
Overall, the shock slowed growth in import-dependent economies without long-term structural changes. We’re there again, only this time the disruptions could be more severe for a world still recovering from supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
Costs beyond oil
Like previous Gulf wars, the current one poses serious economic risks to Africa, particularly for oil producers such as Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Libya. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, which handles 20% of global oil shipping, could push up energy prices around the world, benefiting producers in the short term with higher revenues but fueling inflation and import costs on the continent.
Beyond oil, the current U.S. shift in focus may have a negative impact on the war on terrorism in the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa, particularly recent bilateral counterinsurgency cooperation in Nigeria. These are some realities of the global economy, where disruptions can create remote shocks.
What should concern Africa and the rest of the world, in fact, is the way in which the United States, which poses as a model of the free world, is the main purveyor of conflict. Only in January did Trump kidnap Venezuelan President Nikolas Maduro and his wife and appropriate that country’s oil wealth for the United States
A new normality
In June 2025 he ordered missile strikes against Iran and later boasted that the country’s alleged nuclear enrichment program had been cancelled. Next, he turned his gaze towards Greenland, only to see his European and NATO allies reject his greedy hand with contempt and rejection.
Then he launched a Peace Council, whose agenda must be to implement the grand plan for Greater Israel, rather than the stated goal of rebuilding Gaza. Anyone who is deceived into believing that the United States and Israel collaborated to destroy Gaza only to rebuild it must be hopelessly naive.
That Trump undermines the United Nations and is willing to commit a global outrage in violation of international law is becoming the new normal.
Meanwhile, bombs explode in the Gulf, but the dust and shrapnel travel around the world, not thanks to the effective collaboration of the warmongers in Washington and Tel Aviv.

*Ishiekwene is the editor-in-chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book Writing for Media and Monetising It.