Middle East crisis, a lull before the storm
For all we know, the Iranian attacks may erupt at any moment, after the USA had been misled to lower its battle-readiness status. We have two million Filipinos in the Middle East. It’s our duty to protect them even against their will. Our president has enough wisdom and alertness to deploy a diplomatic contingent led by retired general Roy Cimatu and retired DFA undersecretary Rafael Siguez. Our OFWs should cooperate for their own survival.
We should never rely on the misleading lull before the incoming attacks expected by learned military strategists to be staged by the Iranian military forces any minute now. The statements of President Donald Trump that Iranian forces are standing down status isn’t being taken at face value by the Pentagon. Trump is facing a nasty impeachment and a precarious Republican primary and US elections. His statements are those of a politician and a president under impeachment. We should take them with many grains of salt. Trump ordered the assassination of well-loved general Qazem Soleimani. Iran will never let that be without commensurate or even greater revenge.
Contrary to our common belief, the US forces are still on war mode. In a second, US forces can be unleashed with a ferocity and speed never heard of in all history. The US has enough experience never to be caught off-guard. They learned their lessons from the treacherous attacks by Japan in Pearl Harbor. They learned from their war exploits in North Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Syria. At this moment, all the air, sea and land forces of the US are on full alert. Therefore, the order of President Rodrigo Duterte for the forced evacuation of thousands of OFWs in Iraq should be implemented based on the original assessment leading to Alert Level 4 of preparedness and pro-active actions.
Our government is deploying two battalions of armed forces elements, one from the army and another one from the Marine Corps, and also three planes and two ships, not to undertake military operation but to save millions of Filipinos. Two Philippine Navy landing platforms, namely BRP Tarlac and BRP Davao del Sur, are being ordered to support two C-130 transport planes, to be used in the evacuation of Filipinos from the gulf states. There will be forced evacuation, that is why we need two battalions to execute the orders of our commander-in-chief. We do not need to ask a Filipino if he wants to be rescued. We just have to do it.
First priority are the 10,000 OFWs in Iraq and the 2,000 in Iran itself. Then, if the conflagration extends to the larger areas of the gulf states, we will have a much greater task to do. We should never forget that we have 1,020,000 Filipinos in Saudi Arabia, 276,819 in Kuwait, and 679,819 in the UAE (that is Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and other Emirates territories), and 246,000 in Qatar. There are 60,000 in Bahrain, 40,000 in Oman, 31,000 in Israel, 30,000 in Lebanon, 28,000 in Jordan, 8,000 in Syria, 8,000 in Libya, (this is already North Africa, albeit it is just nearby), 5,000 in Egypt, and 5,500 in Turkey.
Families of OFWs here should decide now; should they advise their family members to cooperate or tell them to evade the rescue efforts of the government? My unsolicited counsel as a former Labor attaché to Kuwait, is to cooperate. This is a matter of life and death. We should never be lulled before the storm. Better be prepared than be sorry.
- Latest
