THE DARK CLOUDS OF WAR
CHETA NWANZE argues that the Gulf crisis is no more a distant spectacle as it has landed directly on Nigerian fuel pumps, and hit the dinner tables
For just over 80 years, the United States led a global order in which certain rules were understood if not always followed: international law constrained the behaviour of even the most powerful, and the United Nations provided a forum, however imperfect, for resolving disputes. Building on a principle agreed at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and codified into US law by Ronald Reagan in 1981, heads of state were not legitimate targets for assassination. That order is now dead.
The evidence is no longer ambiguous. During the course of the current war, Israeli Minister of Defence Israel Katz has issued a statement authorising the military to assassinate any senior Iranian official without additional approval. This is not a secret policy. It is a declaration, made in public, that the assassination of state leaders has been normalised. The US and Israel killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on 28 February, and in doing so made every head of state a legitimate target. What kind of world can we build with this kind of behaviour in the international arena? The answer is that we are not building. We are watching the old one burn.
A month into this war that was meant to last two days (World War I was meant to be over by Christmas), the United States and Israel have not achieved victory, instead, we’re reading about troops being deployed for a potential ground offensive. The killing of Khamenei on day one was supposed to be a knockout blow. Instead, it has become a case study in strategic hubris. While their country has been relentlessly pummelled, Iran’s retaliation has been awful for the global economy. On 21 March, Iranian strikes injured over 100 people in the southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona, targeting the nuclear facility complex. The Israeli Foreign Ministry called it “pure terrorism.” But the strikes tell a deeper story: for the first time, Israel is suffering a pounding at the hands of an enemy. That changes a lot of the perceptions, and reality almost always mirrors perceptions.
The more significant damage has been to America’s credibility as a military protector. Iran’s early strikes targeted US radar and surface-to-air missile staging posts across the region, blinding the very systems that would have provided early warning to Israeli targets. A couple of weeks ago, Arab countries quite openly complained that the US was more interested in protecting Israel than them. Despite a seeming hardening of postures against Iran especially by the Saudis and the Emiratis recently, when the smoke clears, that choice will be remembered. Those countries are more than likely to hedge their bets going forward.
Perhaps the most remarkable development has been the almost complete loss of the information battle. The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s posts on Twitter have been met with mockery rather than sympathy. Wars are won and lost in the information space as much as on the battlefield. When a country cannot control its own narrative, it cannot sustain domestic support, maintain alliance cohesion, or deter its enemies. While Iranian missiles strike Arab infrastructure and Israeli cities, President Trump has been preoccupied with domestic political enemies, mocking Robert Mueller’s death and calling Democrats the “greatest enemy America has.” Not a good look at all.
For us in Africa, the war is not a distant spectacle. It has landed directly on Nigerian fuel pumps, and based on preliminary data from a study that SBM Intelligence is currently conducting, will hit our dinner tables soon. At the beginning of 2026, Nigerians were paying around ₦774 per litre for petrol. Following the outbreak of regional conflict, prices have surged to ₦1,300 per litre. Despite being Africa’s largest oil producer, Nigeria remains vulnerable to global price shocks because crude oil is still priced in US dollars, despite the fiction we told ourselves when the Dangote Refinery opened in 2023.
Dangote’s refinery was meant to meet all local demand and export surplus to the rest of Africa. The refinery must still buy feedstock in dollars. What it does is to eliminate transportation and logistics costs from Europe or South America, which were previously a major driver of pump prices. Yet the refinery’s existence does not insulate Nigeria from global shocks. Prices for liquefied petroleum gas have risen sharply, driven by events such as force majeure declarations in Qatar, not by local government policies. The price hikes have hit commuters and those reliant on petrol and diesel generators for electricity, which is almost all Nigerians.
Zooming out meanwhile, strategically, Iran’s standing has grown as various countries are rushing to cut deals with it so their energy supplies can be guaranteed. The most recent is Thailand, which has reached a deal to allow Thai tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. “An agreement has been reached to allow Thai oil tankers to transit safely,” the Thai prime minister announced. In other words, Iran, for now at least, is a significant player.
Whether you like them or not, there are lessons for middle powers to learn from the Iranians. The first lesson is about how to structure your armed forces, what kind of weapons and strategies to adopt to conduct asymmetrical warfare against much more powerful adversaries. It’s a lesson that was learned by the Germans in Stalingrad, by the Americans in Vietnam, and by the Soviets and Americans in Afghanistan. But it appears that, perhaps because of no social media, the world didn’t really take note. In a world full of Venezuelas, great powers can go on the rampage, imposing their will by military force. But in a world full of Irans, they will think twice about the costs.
Second is that the world is going back to protectionism. All of the noise about green energy and industrial policy has gone out of the window as various Western countries pursue their interests more nakedly. A recent statement by the World Bank acknowledging three decades of failed industrial policy guidance will be interpreted in more coherent Global South countries as Western nations finding justification to, yet again, change the narrative when it suits them. This is unlikely to be forgotten any time soon, so multilateralism is dead.
Another lesson, and for me personally, the saddest one, is that the United States is no longer a reliable partner. The countries that survive this moment will be those that diversify their alliances and prepare for a world where American power is no longer the dominant force. The world of certainty we have known for almost a century is now gone. The doors that have been opened will not close. The real question now is what will walk through them.
Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence
