Peremptory Washington to blame for creating a cauldron of tensions

When the United States rebuked China and Russia on Monday for blocking a United Nations Security Council statement underscoring the inviolability of diplomatic premises it was being disingenuous.

The two countries blocked the statement, which was initiated by the US after its embassy in Baghdad was breached, with no casualties, on Dec 31, as it failed to explain the circumstances surrounding the incident.

It was US airstrikes on five targets in Iraq and Syria on Dec 29, which left dozens of militia fighters dead that prompted the storming of the embassy compound.

And it was the US assassination of several key military leaders of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, including Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, near Baghdad airport on Friday that escalated the regional tensions, spurring the UN Secretary-General António Guterres to warn on Monday that "geopolitical tensions are at their highest level this century".

If the UN Security Council issues a statement, it is duty bound to ensure it explains the full circumstances surrounding its release. Which in this instance should also include Iraq calling on it on Monday to condemn the US for staging the assassination on its soil.

Blithely ignoring the wounds it inflicts upon others, the US administration is always quick to seek revenge for even the slightest grievance, even if self-invited, and tries to shift any responsibility onto others.

Although both Iran and Iraq have exercised considerable restraint in their responses so far, the alerts the US administration and military have put themselves on, and the universal worries expressed by the international community, mean that further consequences are anticipated.

One outcome the world must expect and prepare for is that, thanks to the US' unswerving efforts, the Iranian nuclear pact, the fruit of years of hard negotiations between Iran and all five UN Security Council permanent members－China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US－plus Germany and the European Union is finally on the verge of being scrapped.

It took the lives of more than 4,500 US soldiers, and many times more local lives for the US to bring Iraq to what it is now. The question is how many more lives is it willing to sacrifice in its efforts to make the situation in the country even worse.

The UN secretary-general warned that we are living in dangerous times, with a cauldron of tensions leading to a profound risk of miscalculation. The prognosis is bleak unless Washington can be persuaded to get off its high America-above-all-others horse.