President Trump’s late-night, all-caps Tweet of Mass Destruction threatening Iran is bound to be enshrined in the Art of Diplomacy annals.
But let’s go back to how this all started. After unilaterally pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration has issued what amounts to a declaration of economic war on Iran and will go no holds barred to squeeze the Islamic Republic out of the global oil market – complete with threatening allies in Europe with secondary sanctions, unless they cut all imports of Iranian oil by November 4.
This past weekend, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said he would support blocking all Middle East oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz if Iran’s European trade partners succumb to pressure from Washington and stop buying Iranian oil altogether.
Then President Hassan Rouhani followed Khamenei and warned the US about “playing with the lion’s tail.”
Rouhani, as his record attests, has always behaved as the epitome of cool diplomacy. Contrary to predictable US media spin, he never “threatened” to attack the US. His premise was that Tehran was pleased to offer Washington the “mother of all peace.” But if Trump instead decided to attack Iran, then (italics mine) that would open the way to the Mother of all Wars.
Ultimate goal: Regime change
The fact remains that the Trump administration ditched a UN-sponsored multilateral treaty and has now launched serious covert ops with the ultimate goal of regime change in Iran.
Trump’s explosion of rage, coupled with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s touting of the interests of “the long-ignored voice of the Iranian people” has been met with derision and scorn all across Iran.
Geopolitically, Russia-Iran relations remain extremely solid, as shown by the recent meeting between President Putin and Khamenei’s top foreign policy adviser Ali Akbar Velayati. As Professor Mohammad Marandi at the University of Tehran told me: “The Putin-Velayati meeting went very well. Velayati plans to go to Beijing in a few weeks. People in Iran hate Trump, and all political parties and factions have become much more united. Rouhani’s speech was widely watched and very well received.”
Khamenei and Rouhani are on the same page – and that’s very significant in itself. They now agree any negotiation with Washington is futile. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif provided the coup de grace, tweeting that Iran had lasted millennia and had seen many empires fall. He wrapped up with an all-caps Trumpism: “BE CAUTIOUS!”
The whole soap opera is ridden with pathetic overtones as US “experts” posing as extras digress that there are only two outcomes left for Iran: capitulation or implosion of the “regime”.
Anyone claiming Tehran will capitulate shows an utter ignorance of the overall mood of defiance and scorn among the Iranian people, even as they are faced with massive economic hardship. And anyone stating there will be regime change in Tehran basically parrots a US “policy” that is just wishful thinking.
The US neo-conservatives that brought the world the failed, multi-trillion-dollar Iraq war should have been buried not six feet, but six miles under. Yet, like the Walking Dead, they will never give up.
But, in the Middle East, at the moment there are three characters who are singin’ and dancin’ like everything is going according to plan: Saudi Arabia’s Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS), his mentor, the United Arab Emirates’ Mohamed bin Zayed, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Surely they are not heeding the expert advice of former Mossad head Meir Dagan, who stated that a military attack on Iran was “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
Deliberate distraction?
It’s always possible that Trump’s all-caps spectacular may be a ruse to distract Americans from the Helsinki “treason” scandal. That gets traction when associated to the looming mid-term elections and Trump’s absolute need to sound tough and keep the Republicans in line. Call it a brilliant Trump strategic maneuver. Or was it Putin’s?
Back to reality, the stark options would come down to either Iran becoming a US satellite or closing the Strait of Hormuz – something that for all practical purposes would collapse the global economy.
I have been assured that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has the technological means to block the Strait and would not flinch to go for it rather than yield, if the going gets tough. President Rouhani cannot resist the IRGC. The Trump administration has, in fact, forced Rouhani to show his cards. All branches of the Iranian government are now united.
War hysteria, already on, is extremely irresponsible. In the worst Strait of Hormuz scenario, the US Navy would be impotent, as Russian-made SS-N-22 Sunburn missiles could wreak havoc. Washington could only bomb from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar or Incirlik in Turkey. Neither Qatar nor Turkey is inclined to antagonize Iran.
The Pentagon would have to bomb coastal missile sites on Iran’s Persian Gulf shoreline. But these are heavily camouflaged; missiles are portable, and there’s no reliable on the ground intel. Iran only needs to fire one missile at a time. No oil tanker would possibly try to get through.
Things don’t even need to degrade towards a shooting war. All Tehran needs to do is to make the threat credible. Insurance companies would stop insuring oil carriers. No oil carrier will navigate without insurance.
Breaking Russia-China-Iran
The geopolitical game is even more complex. Velayati was in Moscow only a few days before Helsinki. Diplomatic sources say Iran and Russia are in synch – and closely coordinating policy. If the current strategy of tension persists, it raises the price of oil, which is good for both Russia and Iran.
And then there’s China. A tsunami of sanctions or not, Beijing is more likely to increase oil imports from Iran. “Experts” who claim that Iran is becoming a pawn of Russia and China are hopelessly myopic. Russia, China and Iran are already firmly aligned.
Short of war, the Trump administration’s top priority is disruption of the New Silk Roads – the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – between China and Europe. And the key economic connectivity corridor goes across Iran.
The fundamental “enemy” is China. But to make any divide-and-rule plan work, first, there’s got to be an attempt to lure Russia into some sort of entente cordiale. And in parallel, Persian destabilization is a must. After all, that’s what the Cheney regime used to describe as “the great prize”.
The US unipolar World order has shown to be a total failure and devastating to the World. It’s big time the World tries something else. The US should go along the World without losing anything but gaining.
If something breaks out in the region don’t think for a second that Iran has put the hellhole——knowing as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the cross hairs——-a few missiles lobbed into the oil region of the Wahhabist hellhole would wake up the evil Kingdom———-and then their is the Saudi Shites that are treated like garbage——–a war with Iran is not going to happen under President Trump———–now that would destroy his Presidency——–and he knows it!!
it is impotant to consider, in addtion to global deep thinkers, what the Iranian people want. Call me crazy but I’d guess a functioning infrastructure would be at the top of the list
I have oftne agred with your articles, but you are way..way off on this one. If you think for a min the Russians are holding hands with the Iranians out of something other than a manipulitive game, then you don’t understand Russia to a level to write about them. An anti Trump viewpont cannot be the baseline for an story about Iran and the US. Do better next time. You do good work.
If Iran is provoking US expecting Russia and China to help her then they are making the gravest mistake of the century.Have they the Vietnam War of how the US used a naval blockage of N Vietnam and the mighy USSR did nothing!! China is too self centred to bother abt Iran…only interested in its oil and selling substandard merchandise!
Trump 2018 anti-Iran tweets have a 2,400 year long history.
Then in Athens the Demos (5% moneyed males) ruled the 95% rest (women, plebs) and controlled trade for their benefit. Socrates opposed big business, bankers, and wanted free trade. He was hemlocked.
1,000 years later Mohammed in Mecca faced the same battle lines, but was more lucky. He soundly trounced Big Business Ummayads, Bankes banu Abbas, and trade monopolist Yehud and founded a secular Socratic Republic of Medina with free trade and rights for all.
As soon he died, Muslim neocons reversed his revolution, founded a theocratic Kaliphate that imposed Tariffs and went on to gore, glory, conquest, and colonialsm. For 1,000 years they were a menace to civilization – killing the Silk Road that destroyed industry in Europe, China, India until Christians expelled them (and their allies the yehud) from Spain and were free to find new routes to Asia.
Today, as China with BRI wants to revive the Silk Road with help of Iran and Russia, the Anglo-West breaks alliances with Europe and North America, and with India, Australia, Japan, and with yehud and Muslim Saudi neocons wants to continue its monopoly on trade by owning sea lanes.
Regime change in Iran is part of the same old plot. It will fail.
It actually depends on what is the real intention behind toppling Iran. You are right in that Iran, itself, may not worth China or Russia risking their own interests. However, if toppling Iran is the major step of controlling the whole ME and next the World, then it is a matter of time,it becomes an issue on China and Russia themselves if they just sit and wait. IMHO, it would the latter case.
Russia cannot be so stupid as to allow FURTHER ENCIRCLEMENT BY THE US from its south now if Iran were to go to the US. The Iranians already have plans tocapture the US Green Zone in Iraq and take 10k Americans hostage. There is nothing the great satan can do.
85% saud crude can be stopped in 30 minutes by missiling Qurayyay 14.5mbpd salt water injection plant and power supply. Game over.
Jackson Henry, you must be kidding us all here. Iran has long won all its battles with the US. It owns Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, and soon enough Yemen too. There is nothing Trump can do about it, other than mouth off on twitter. Russia and China are sharing giggles with Iran, on how things have turned out, you on the other hand seem clueless. How come?
WHAT THIS ARTICLE IS MISSING IS THE ISRAELI NETANYAHU AGENDA AND IT S THE SAME AS THE US. TRUMPS ADM PLAN A CARRY OVER FROM THE PERVIOUS 3 ADM. ONLY TRUMP IS MORE ZIONIST THAN OBAMA WAS .OBAMA HATED NETANYAHU AND LET IT BE KNOW SO AT LEAST IT SLOWED DOWN THE COMING DRAMA OF A WAR. PEPE IS TO CONFIDENT THAT TRUMP WILL NOT ATTACK IRAN. ONE MORE WRONG WORD FROM IRAN COULD SET THIS MANIAC ABALZE WITH A MILITARY ATTACK. AND THE PROPAGANDA IS HUGE AND HEAVY ,POMPEO MET WITH THE SHAHITES IN THE US. SIMI VALLEY ,THE ONES WHO FLED IRAN IN 1976 WITH THE GOLD AND WEALTH THEY STOLE AND HAVE LIVED THE LIVES OF LUXURY IN THE U.SSINCE. BUT THEY AS THE CUBANS AND VIETNAMESE IN THE U.S ARE HELL BENT TO RETURN AND RULE AGAIN.IS NOT OVER!!!
Pepe sure knows how to put the salient facts on paper, and with horses’
asses like Drump and Pompeo representing our self-serving government, it gets a tad embarressing.
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Another Vietnam for America?
Look, Trumper is one to allow “PSYCHOLOGY” to do its job…
I’d settle for the Trumper anytime over “the Benghazi Cartel” so to speak, latter being much much more deadly and much much more venomous than the slimes coming from the mouth of a Komodo dragon…
With the Benghazi Cartel, your kids and mind, likely, would be sent off to some far yonder’s as sacrificial offerings, if not now, then sometimes during their rein. Iran and DPRK comes to mind in this respect and, “agreements inked with “Benghazi Cartels’”, any Benghazi Cartel, are never ever binding”.
“With the Trumper, given time and leeway, he is likely to be one to hold Lady America by the hand and lead her out of her nuclear hell hole by committing her to total world disarmament of WMD.
Wana bet on the latter? I’m wagering on it anyway if you guys are not.
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