History is replete with a fair number of examples of stronger forces being matched and eventually being undone by nominally weaker , but craftier parties. In most of those cases there lies a chokepoint, sometimes geographical, sometimes economical, sometimes merely psychological. In all those instances the stronger aggressor eventually ends up trapped and has to either sue for peace, ideally without losing too much face, or be led to expend so much of his resources to ‘win’, that it ends up enfeebled and at least out of breath…

The Peloponnesian war dates back quite a bit and is often only a dim memory even for those of us whose school days included heavier doses of history and geography, as these were then deemed worthy of stronger teaching attention. But the lessons are clear. The city states of Sparta and Athens went to war for almost 30 years in 431 BC. Athens had been jockeying for dominance namely through the Delian Alliance, the vast naval alliance that allowed it to control the Mediterranean. However, Sparta also wanted to have it its own way. Hence the inevitable war. The Achilles heel for Athens turned out to be its dependence on grain from the Black Sea area. Sparta did not need to attack Athens itself and never did. Instead, they decided to sever Athens’ lifeline. The chokepoint was the narrow strait of Hellespont where their navy lay in wait and destroyed that year’s precious grain cargo and the fleet securing its passage! Having lost control of that chokepoint, Athens realised its predicament pretty fast and forcefully moved for peace. It had been trapped into an untenable position.

Talking of chokepoints; beyond Malacca, Suez, Bab El Mandeb, Panama and Gibraltar; today’s vital one is of course Hormuz, curtesy of Netanyahu and Trump, and Maureen Dowd of the NYT underlines this week how Hormuz has trapped the ‘stable genius’, even though he leads the greatest military on earth!

Iran has been clearly weakened militarily after weeks of bombardment but that may be the only American plus point of the Iran war so far. For weakened does not mean ‘obliterated’, whatever be the dictionary consulted. Wasn’t an F35 shot down, putting two airmen in harm’s way? Doesn’t the ‘obliterated’ army shoot at ships going through Hormuz, keeping it shut? Can’t missiles and drones still reach Israel and maim US allies in the Middle East? Even US bases have proved vulnerable! All this happens even before the Russian bear and the Chinese dragon get too heartily involved. And the split between the Emiratis and the Saudis, with the former even leaving OPEC, is another obvious rift coming to a head…

The fact of the matter is that the strait of Hormuz, happily open and free before the 28th February last is still closed, however much Trump repeats the contrary. Besides, the US, having burnt through almost half of the 2,300 or so long-range stealth missiles it had amassed as eventual ‘defence’ against China is now, for all we know, merely… blockading Iran’s blockade of Hormuz.

Not much to trumpet about here if you ask me! The ayatollah-Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) led regime is still in place, however much beheaded and still loathsome (*). The Iranians who thoroughly hated their leaders may be hating the ‘Satans’ from overseas even more by now! World and even American public opinion is squealing against this war. And neither the nuclear program, nor the nuclear stockpile look like being exactly tradeable at the bargaining table. Just getting back to the normal, free flowing Hormuz of pre-war days seems to be topping the list of Trump exigencies for now. Unless he should choose, in order not to lose face, a nuclear option involving either turning Iran back to the Stone Age or the ‘blood and sand’ option of boots on the ground that he so reviled in Iraq, and then Afghanistan… when he was not in charge.

There is little value in the present ‘as is’ situation of a cease-fire without a deadline as what is crucially on display meanwhile are Iran’s stranglehold on Hormuz and all its attendant consequences… Trump looks trapped like a rat! Little wonder that Epstein-Melania, an apparent WH correspondents’ dinner shooting and ballroom distractions look like comparative solace in the circumstances.

For as Henry Kissinger would remind us all in the 1969 aftermath of the Vietnam war: “We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process, we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.” And the guerrilleros of Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and the Revolutionary Guards of Iran have still not lost.

Navin Ramgoolam looks trapped too! In the main, none of his doing mind you… and any comparisons with the Peloponnese or Iran wars would, it is true, be stretching it far too much.

Nevertheless, he is stuck between a rock and a hard place and he is vulnerable to his Hellespont too, which in his case is of a financial nature.

Having discovered how irresponsibly profligate the previous regime had been, his dominant 60-0 coalition rightly chose to be responsible in its first budget, banking on getting out of the rut within three years. The second budget will be even tougher. The first-year budget outcome does not look good. The ‘changement’ promised has happened but only for the easier bits: the MBC, Île-aux-Bénitiers and parliament breathe better, so does the country. There are better laws. Transparency has made some progress. A fair number of scandals have been revealed, and arrests made. But full accountability and prosecutions await. The port is still its plodding self. Nepotism has not gone away. Bureaucracy is still rampant and slowing decisions down. The drug issue remains. The nanny state reform and the better labour laws and work ethic needed to get us out of the current production rut are still awaited. The Iran war is wreaking even more havoc with prices and the economy. Public opinion, at the receiving end, translates all this into cynicism in the absence of change and resentment at the laborious efforts at selfreform (on party political financing, walking back state expenses and privileges, giving the example and the like…)

So Ramgoolam has a very difficult choice indeed, looking forward. Either he continues to act responsibly, even now that his coalition has splintered Berenger off, putting the economy first, cutting off dead wood and useless bureaucracies, paring down government generosities, taking decisive action to favour growth and better jobs, removing universal subsidies whilst targeting help to the more vulnerable. Or he feels weak at the knees and tries to retrieve the popularity his alliance’s promises had generated during an electoral campaign where, lest we forget, the voters had actually chosen the less generous proposals to get rid of the stink…

The irony is that being responsible may be a sure way of having his party lose the next elections. At the same time, restoring enough sanity to national finances may actually help the current opposition credibly convince the electorate that more goodies can actually be handed out without any immediate consequences… Being responsible (and smart and equitable) will bring everlasting gratitude from the nation. Short term pain, long term gain is no mere slogan.

Being wobbly and spendthrift may score some immediate points with public opinion but will inevitably prove short-sighted in the end. Maybe even to the degree attained by the Rajapaksa brothers in Sri Lanka!

For public opinion is fickle and there is always a day of reckoning! Can the population be discerning enough to refrain from immediate delectables for longer term progress, even if at the cost of hard work and a measure of sacrifice? I am not a betting man, but I very much doubt it… Which makes it all the more necessary for leaders to lead! And perhaps re-read Marcus Aurelius?

And so, good day to you all and may the gods of wisdom, who seem to be so discrete these days, end up illuminating our menaced futures…

(*) The New York Times l Narges Mohammadi, Iranian Nobel Laureate, Is Hospitalized

PS: Dans la Kronik du 12 avril dernier, on évoquait un camion de wastewater en panne, perturbant tout le trafic à travers Port-Louis et on proposait des amendes. Un lecteur averti nous signale l’existence des Road Traffic (Removal of Vehicles) Regulations de 1962 qui prévoient une facture de Rs 1 000 (ou ce que cela coûte éventuellement), plutôt qu’une amende. Au vu des désagréments causés à tant de monde, les Rs 1 000 de 1962 méritent sûrement révision… ?