“7 countries in 5 years”: Regime change in Iran coming soon?

December 17,2024

Gavin O’Reilly

In the early hours of last Sunday morning, a seismic geopolitical shift occurred when the 24-year Presidency of Syria by Bashar al-Assad came to an end in dramatic fashion.

 

Beginning just eleven days previously, an offensive led by the Western-backed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group resulted in the capture of vast swathes of government-controlled territory, including, perhaps most notably, the key city of Aleppo. One of the first major cities to be captured by opposition groups amidst the outset of the conflict, Aleppo would be liberated in December 2016 in an offensive by the Syrian Arab Army, with Russian air strikes playing a key role in support. Thus, for the city to once again fall into the hands of insurgents was a foreboding sign.

As the militants subsequently began to close in on the capital Damascus, it soon became apparent that Assad’s fate was sealed. Leaving the country alongside his family on a chartered flight shortly afterwards, the former Syrian President would be granted asylum in Moscow, bringing to an end a 13-year coordinated attempt by various powers to topple his government.

In March 2011, following Assad’s refusal two years prior to allow U.S.-ally Qatar to build a pipeline through his country, citing his relationship with Russia as a factor, a plan was put into action to remove the Syrian President from power. Amidst the wider Arab Spring protests taking place at the time, the CIA and MI6 began a covert operation to arm and train Salafist militants opposed to Assad’s secular rule. Joining Washington and London in this endeavour would be Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who would have been the starting points for the proposed pipeline, Turkey, who would have been its entry point to Europe, and Israel, owing to Syria’s membership of the Axis of Resistance and its key role as a conduit between Iran and Hezbollah.

Indeed, two years into the proxy war on Syria, both Iran and Hezbollah would launch a requested intervention in the hopes of preserving Assad’s government, as would Russia another two years later, again at the request of Damascus. Though both interventions undoubtedly played a key role in extending Assad’s far longer than had he acted in isolation amidst the beginnings of the conflict, it would ultimately be the militants, centred in a stronghold in the northwest city of Idlib, who would claim victory last Sunday, leading to a situation that historically does not bode well for either Syria or the wider region.

In 2003, following the U.S.-Anglo invasion of Iraq and subsequent overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the country would be plunged into chaos, creating a power vacuum that, combined with the subsequent destabilisation of neighbouring Syria, would ultimately lead to the emergence of ISIS in 2013. In 2011, at the same time as the Syrian regime-change operation, a similar operation would occur in Libya, owing to Muammar Gaddafi’s proposed Gold Dinar currency. On top of the similar Western support for militant groups vying to remove Gadaffi’s rule, a No Fly Zone would also be imposed by NATO against Tripoli, causing the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, once the most prosperous nation in Africa, to collapse within eight months. Like Iraq, Libya would also be plunged into chaos, with the refugee crisis greatly exacerbated as a result. Syria, another Arab state now joining the list of having its ruler forcibly removed by Western interests, now looks set to suffer a similar fate of extreme instability and sectarian strife. The only noticeable difference being that Assad did not suffer a similar fate as his Iraqi and Libyan counterparts – Hussein being hanged in Baghdad in December 2006, and Gaddafi being lynched on a Libyan street in October 2011.

The removal of Assad from power now also signifies that a dramatic push from the West and Israel to enact regime-change in another long-time target may now be imminent – that target being Iran.

In a 2007 interview with independent media outlet Democracy Now! retired four-star General Wesley Clark would recount how on a visit to the Pentagon in the days following 9/11, an unnamed General informed him that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq in response, despite there being no evidence to link Saddam Hussein’s government to the attacks.

In a subsequent follow-up meeting a few weeks later, at which stage the United States had already begun bombing Afghanistan, the same official informed Clark that a plan had been put in place to take out “7 countries in 5 years”, which alongside Iraq, also included Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan, before “finishing it off with Iran”. A situation that, with the fall of Tehran’s Arab ally, now looks increasingly likely.

Indeed, a key donor to Donald Trump’s recent Presidential campaign would be Miriam Adelson, wife of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who donated $20mn to Trump’s 2016 campaign on condition that the U.S. Embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A move that the Republican candidate duly followed through with upon his 2017 inauguration. With Sheldon Adelson subsequently passing away in 2021, his wife would donate an even greater amount of $100mn to Trump’s 2024 campaign, this time on condition that the U.S. endorses a Gaza-style land grab of the West Bank. A recent report in the Adelson-family owned Israel Hayom outlet, just over a week after Trump’s election, would subsequently outline how the incoming administration is planning on toppling the Islamic Republic also.

In order to implement such an event, two strategies seem the most likely.

The first, would be to launch a “Persian Spring”-style regime-change operation in Iran akin to what occurred in Libya and Syria in 2011 i.e. the instigation of violent protests, and the use of the subsequent instability to funnel arms to opposition groups in a bid to escalate the situation even further. Indeed, such a scenario played out in the Islamic Republic from September 2022 until early 2023, when following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year old Iranian woman who passed away in a Tehran hospital after fainting following a verbal altercation with a female police officer, protests that began in response would soon escalate into extreme violence.

Despite being portrayed as an organic response to the rule of the Ayatollah, it would soon become apparent that external actors were playing a key role. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian exile in New York who had previously met with former U.S. Secretary of State and long-time supporter of Iranian regime-change Mike Pompeo, became one of the most vocal supporters on social media of the Iranian protests. Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, another notorious Iran-hawk, would subsequently admit in an interview with BBC Persian that arms were being supplied to opposition groups in Iran amidst the disturbances. Within days of the fall of Assad, Israeli President Benjamin Netayahu released a video, ostensibly directed at the Iranian population, in which he repeated the “Women. Life. Freedom” slogan of the 2022 colour revolution, indicating that plans are in place to attempt a repeat in Iran.

The second strategy, would be a false flag event, blamed on Iran, and used as a pretext for Washington to go to war with Tehran. A strategy that led to the initial “7 countries in 5 years” plan in the first place.

On the morning of September 11th 2001, as chaos unfolded in New York and the world was irrevocably changed forever, a New Jersey housewife noticed another alarming sight from her apartment window. Three young men, kneeling on the roof of a delivery van parked in the car park of her apartment complex, appeared to be in celebratory mood, dancing and high-fiving one another, in spite of the surrounding scenes of the collapsing Towers.

Reporting this incident and the vehicle registration number to the authorities, the van would be stopped by gunpoint later that afternoon, with 5 men aged between 22 and 27 detained at the scene. To the puzzlement of the arresting officers, it would transpire that the men were Israelis, with one of the men – Sivan Kurzberg – announcing upon his arrest “We are Israeli. We are not the problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem”. $4,700 in cash was found on one of the men, one had two foreign passports, and traces of explosives were detected in the van by sniffer dogs.

Following the arrests of the five men, who would later be dubbed the “Dancing Israelis”, the office of their employers – Urban Moving Systems – would be raided by the FBI the next day, who concluded that there was little evidence to suggest a legitimate business was being operated from the building, owing to the disproportionate amount of computers and electronic equipment present for such a supposedly small company. Returning to the office a month later to conduct a follow-up search, FBI agents would find the building completely abandoned, and that company director Dominick Suter – another Israeli – had fled the United States for Israel two days after being questioned by the FBI on the day of the first raid.

The five Israelis arrested on 9/11 would be continued to be held in detention, with the FBI coming to the conclusion that at least two of them were Mossad operatives. Sivan Kurzberg’s brother Paul had initially refused to take a lie detector test while in custody, and would subsequently fail it when he eventually did. One of his legal team would later state that his reluctance to take part was due to his previous involvement in Israeli intelligence activities in other countries. After 71 days all five would be released on the order of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who would later set up a consultancy firm that would count the Israeli government as one of its first clients.

Upon their return to Israel in November 2001, all five would be interviewed on the talk show Inside Israel, with one of the men, Oded Ellner, confirming foreknowledge of the attacks by declaring “our purpose was to document the event”. It would later transpire that more than 200 Israelis were arrested in the United States following the attacks, with many posing as arts students and granted special documentation that allowed them access to sensitive government buildings.

One year prior to the attacks, in March 2000, the World Trade Center would play host to the World Views artists in residence programme, which saw walls opened up and windows removed for a planned lighting exhibition that was due to take place on the 90th and 91st floors. In stunning coincidence, this would be where the planes would strike a year later. In even further coincidence, the same year saw the publication of the Rebuilding America’s Defenses document by the Project for the New Century think-tank, which in line with General Wesley Clark’s revelations, envisaged Washington capitalising on its position as the world’s sole superpower following the end of the Cold War and taking a dominant role in world affairs through military force. The document would admit however, that such a policy could only be implemented slowly and incrementally, save for a “catastrophic and cataclysmic event” such as a “new Pearl Harbor”. Such an event would conveniently occur the following year in New York and Virginia, and now looks likely to occur again in the not-too-distant future, with a war on Iran being the intended result.

 

Iran:America’s next war of choice

Douglas MACGREGOR, James W. CARDEN

Peace is not at hand in the Middle East, and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu remains determined to expand the war. Syria’s de facto partition into Israeli and Turkish territories is the prelude to wider war with Iran. As the Times of Israel reported last week, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has “continued to increase its readiness and preparations” for “potential strikes in Iran.”

Netanyahu’s top priority is the destruction of Iran before Russia wraps up its victory in Ukraine and Syria becomes a new battleground for Turks and Israelis. It’s not simply the end of Washington’s “rules-based international order.” It’s the onset of chaos. Israeli forces and Turkish auxiliaries (i.e. the Islamist terrorists who sacked Syria) are already staring at each other across a demarcation line that runs east–west just south of Damascus. Netanyahu harbors no illusions about the conflict between Ankara’s long-term strategic aims in the region and Jerusalem’s determination to claim the Syrian spoils of war.

In addition to serious financial trouble and societal discontent on the home front, President-elect Donald Trump now confronts the dangerous distraction of wars he did not start, wars that will bring his administration and his country no strategic benefit. America’s underwriting of Netanyahu’s expanding war in the Middle East will endanger U.S. national security and guarantee that Washington, its armed forces, and the U.S. economy will be hostage to whatever strategic direction Netanyahu decides to take.

Starting the war sooner, rather than later, is critical for Netanyahu. War with Iran presents Trump with a strategic fait accompli. In case Trump decides to distance the United States from another bloodbath in the Middle East, Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran and Turkey’s potential confrontation with Israel will make disengagement impossible.

American policy planners need to understand the larger context in which this is all unfolding—and why a war on Iran will ultimately bring us and our alleged Israeli friends to grief. The principal aim of U.S. foreign policy planners ought to be the adaptation of the American economy and military establishment to the multipolar world and the development of new markets, not new enemies. Washington’s refusal to acknowledge the fundamental shifts in power and wealth lie at the heart of much of the Biden administration’s foreign policy failure.

A successful management of change would avoid a conflict with Iran; it would peacefully reconcile competing claims to regional hegemony, as the Chinese recently did with their brokering of the historic rapprochement between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would revitalize such multilateral organizations as the UN Security Council and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. These actions would cultivate the emergence of new constellations of power along the lines of Metternich and Castlereagh’s 1815 Concert of Europe. Just as no question of strategic security in Europe can be solved without Russian participation, Washington cannot create stability in the Middle East by unconditionally backing Israel’s territorial ambitions.

An American failure to manage its own transition to multipolarity will create more chaos and ignite a major war in the Middle East, not to mention a full blown war with Russia, and, eventually, China. An outlook that prioritizes avoiding conflict, not starting new conflicts, must replace nearly three decades of feckless leadership in foreign affairs. New thinking in defense and foreign policy should rank diplomacy and peaceful cooperation first over the use of military power.

Bonaparte quipped that in war, truth is the first casualty. Nothing has changed since then. Washington is a veritable fountainhead of lies feeding an unending stream of false narratives regarding the true character of the jihadist hordes raging across Syria. For our purposes, however, it is important to note the alignment of powers behind the Islamist factions now pillaging and terrorizing Syria.

Washington seems blithely oblivious to Syria’s destruction and the emergence of joint Israeli-Turkish hegemony across the Near East. The disintegration of Syria does, however, open up a short window of opportunity for Tel Aviv to attack Iran. As the Times of Israel report noted, while previously the “IAF would not fly directly over Damascus when carrying out strikes on Iran-linked targets in the capital, it now can.”

Netanyahu believes he has the wind at his back: Emboldened by the collapse of the Assad regime, he will turn his attention to Lebanon, southern Syria, and the West Bank. One predictable consequence of an attack on Iran will be a solidifying of the Chinese-brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement—and a hardening of the blocs in the Greater Middle East, which will see Iran, backed by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, set against a temporary Israel-Turkish bloc backed by Washington and its European vassals.

Iran is not Iraq: At 90 million people, it is double Iraq’s population, has a more developed economy, and has more powerful allies than Saddam Hussein ever did. Contrary to neoconservative expectations, there are no cake-walks in the greater Middle East.

The only certainty amid the chaos is that, thanks to the connivance of Biden, Netanyahu, and Erdogan, a wider war in the greater Middle East is only just beginning. It is one we will come to regret.

 

The geopolitical evolution of Pentalasia

Lorenzo Maria Pacini

December 15, 2024

Essential regional planning for balance

As we have seen, Iran’s strategic importance cannot be overestimated. The so-called ‘sanctions of the international community’ actually have the effect of pushing Iran into the arms of China, Russia, Turkey, and India (who ignore the sanctions), and represent nothing more than Atlanticist fears that Iran will be able to rebuild its former sphere of influence, get along well with Europe, and stabilise vast land areas that harbour vital routes that can play an important role away from the Atlanticist-dominated sea routes.

Washington’s paranoid reactions against Iran have always been aimed at a number of objectives, which we discuss below.

Protect, destabilise, surround

– To protect the state of Israel from Iran as an economic, energy and general geopolitical rival. In the words of US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barak Hussein Obama, ‘Israel’s security is sacrosanct’, consistent with the will of the American Zionist lobby.

– Destabilise all Iranian borders and prevent Iran from connecting territorially with Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, India, Russia and China, especially through energy projects (oil and gas pipelines, etc.). As an ‘intermediate empire’ between the Roman and Chinese empires, the Persians have always needed ports on the Mediterranean and routes to East Asia to prosper. Atlanticism must counter this by preventing, for example, the consolidation of projects such as the IPI pipeline.

– Surrounding Iran with a ring of Atlanticist military bases (Iraq, the Emirates, Bahrain, Afghanistan) and Atlanticist satellite states (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia), as well as massing troops around the country to exert pressure and perhaps force it to defend itself, which would serve as a pretext to attack it militarily. The United Arab Emirates seems to be the country where this concentration of troops will be strongest, with several US facilities (drone base, naval base, CIA intelligence centre and training complex of the private military company Academi – formerly Blackwater/Xe Services). Azerbaijan also serves as a proxy for Israel in the region. Together with the Taliban office in Qatar and other facilities, an infrastructure is being formed in the Gulf for recruiting, training and financing jihadist mercenaries to do the dirty work for Atlanticism in Syria, Pakistan, Chechnya, Libya, Somalia, the Maghreb and wherever else it is needed.

– Prevent Iran from connecting to China, especially through a pipeline through the former Soviet space of Central Asia, or simply by extending the IPI.

Close off access to the Mediterranean

– Block any Persian attempt to approach the Mediterranean, including Syria. This implies destabilising Iraq as a staging area and Syria and Lebanon as its main allies in the Mediterranean. The uprisings promoted in Syria by Atlanticism can largely be interpreted as Israel’s and Turkey’s desire to appropriate Syrian natural gas (the entire eastern Mediterranean is full of natural gas – it was recently estimated that 3.5 trillion cubic metres could be found off the coasts of Egypt, Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey), of the Arab gas pipeline (note the important ramifications in Homs, a city where there have been very serious clashes and atrocities by the ‘rebels’) of the Arab gas pipeline (note the important ramifications in Homs, a city where there have been very serious clashes and atrocities by the ‘rebels’), as well as preventing the construction of two oil pipelines (agreed in September 2010) and a gas pipeline called the Islamic Gas Pipeline (July 2011) that would connect the Iraqi oil fields of Akkas and Kirkuk and the huge Iranian gas field of South Pars with the Syrian port of Baniyas (a city close to the Russian naval base of Tartus and where there have also been heavy foreign-funded conflicts), Damascus and even Lebanon. This would be tantamount, among other things, to re-establishing the route of the destroyed Kirkuk-Baniyas oil pipeline, which was bombed by the US when it invaded Iraq in 2003. The aim of all these ‘heretical’ Iran-Iraq-Syria pipelines: to supply Europe with energy without passing through Atlanticist-controlled waters or lands and, moreover, following ‘logical’ geographical routes in full harmony with the ancient Silk Road. The small but influential Qatari petrol-monarchy sees these projects as rivals to its ideal, which would be Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Gulf of Aqaba-Gulf of Suez-Mediterranean, and which would also increase Israeli influence in the Pentalasia.

Until shortly before the recent events of 7 December 2024, with the fall of the Arab Republic of Syria, the creation in Syria of large coastal energy hubs such as Russia-sponsored Baniyas would compete directly with the US-sponsored Turkish port of Ceyhan. Lebanon has over the years taken the form of an Iranian protectorate and realised the Persian desire to reach the Mediterranean. Both Syria and Lebanon have outstanding territorial disputes with Israel, largely revolving around offshore natural gas, aquifers, and mountain dominance, particularly in the Golan Heights.

The formation of the Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah axis (the so-called Resistance) has always found blessing from Moscow. It is worth mentioning that in early 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Damascus to ‘distance itself from the Resistance’. The provocative response of (former) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was to meet in public with Ahmadinejad (at the time president of Iran) and the late Hassan Nasrallah (secretary general of Hezbollah), sign with them a document humorously titled ‘Distance Reduction Treaty’ and declare that he must have misunderstood the translation of Clinton’s words. The Syrian president’s humour must not have amused Washington: Obama responded by extending sanctions against Syria for two years.

The reason why the ‘international community’ (i.e. the US-dominated countries) has always been so interested in eliminating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is that since May 2009 it had been promoting the so-called Four Seas Strategy: turning Syria into a crossroads of energy routes from the Caspian, Black Sea, Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. In reality, through the Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP), Syria would also put a foot in the Red Sea, exercising more of a Five Seas Strategy: the Pentalasia domination strategy. Assad had declared: ‘When the economic space between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq is integrated, we will connect the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Black Sea and the Gulf (…). Once these four seas are connected, we will become the obligatory intersection of the whole world for investment, transport and more (…). We are talking about the centre of the world. Syria, like Iran, is also surrounded by a ring of Atlanticist bases’.

Diverting trade and rewriting financial zones of influence

– By promoting ‘trade routes’ (i.e. oil and gas pipelines) that explicitly avoid passing through Iran, Armenia, Russia and Syria, they promote other geopolitical actors such as Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Israel. In these spaces, Israel is actively involved in providing security and surveillance services, effectively militarising the region. Israel, which wants to become Europe’s energy spigot (which it can hardly do without dominating the entire Pentalasia in an Eretz Israel strategy), intends to rebuild an oil pipeline (the old Mosul-Haifa pipeline) and build a new gas pipeline from Iraq to the port of Haifa, which is currently blocked by the strong Iranian influence in the region. Should this project be completed (and the occupation of Iraq had much to do with this), Israel would be interested in a free Kurdistan, dependent on Tel Aviv for oil revenues and giving Israel decisive influence in the greater region. Israel also intends to connect the important Turkish energy hub of Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon via an undersea pipeline that explicitly avoids passing through Syria. Tel Aviv’s strategy is to have all oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf and Sudan pass through its territory. – Preventing Iran from torpedoing the petrodollar business with its financial initiatives to undermine the role of the petrodollar as the currency of international trade: Iran has been accepting euros in exchange for oil since 2003.

In 2007, Tehran stopped billing oil in dollars, feeling strong about Hezbollah’s victory in the 2006 Lebanon war. In 2011, it opened the Kish exchange and recently India started paying for Iranian oil in gold, while China is expected to follow suit. It is worth mentioning that the US dollar is used not only in the US, but also in El Salvador, Ecuador and Panama, and that the currencies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain), Jordan, Lebanon, Eritrea, Djibouti, Belize and several Caribbean islands are linked to the dollar, as they have a fixed exchange rate with it. As well as being used in the EU eurozone, the euro is used in Montenegro and the Serbian province of Kosovo, while the currencies of Bosnia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Cape Verde, Comoros, Morocco, Sao Tome and Principe, the two African Franco-CFA zones (French African colonies), the Franco-CFP zone (French Pacific colonies), Greenland and other island dependencies have a fixed exchange rate against the euro. These areas of financial influence are supported, among other things, by trade in oil and natural gas in their respective currencies. Countries getting out of petrodollars or petro-euros sabotage this global network and Iran tends to create its own financial hunting ground.

Preventing Iran from becoming the second nuclear power in the Middle East (after Israel, a country that has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty) in order to safeguard Atlanticist hegemony in the region and to prevent greater energy autarky from allowing it to export more hydrocarbons. The sabotage of Iran’s nuclear programme also provides the perfect pretext for covert operations on Iranian soil: kidnappings and assassinations of scientists, politicians and senior military officers, usually with the help of the Mossad. On 28 September 2012, Obama removed the MKO (Mujahedin e-Khalq Organisation), a fundamentalist militia based in Iraq that has been acting against Iranian interests with US support since the 1980s, from the list of terrorist organisations. – Sabotaging Iran as a vital water passage for Central Asia. Plans are underway to build an aqueduct from the aquifers of the Persian ethnic group of Tajikistan to the thirsty Arab countries. The aqueduct will necessarily pass through Iran and give it enormous power over the desert petrol-dictatorships of the Persian Gulf.

Preventing unity and cooperation

– Prevent Iran from giving a strong structure to all Persian ethnic groups, e.g. through the Alliance of Persian Speaking Countries, created in July 2006.

– Isolating Iran from the ‘international community’, so far unsuccessfully, given Iran’s relations with the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa), Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, all of Central Asia, Armenia, Serbia, Sudan, Nigeria, Eritrea, Côte d’Ivoire, Yemen, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, and many others who have refused to adhere to sanctions against Tehran.

– Prevent Iran from promoting dissent in the West as the US does in the East.

– Prevent Iran from becoming the EU’s ‘energy tap’ (which, before sanctions, bought 20% of its oil) and from forging lucrative ties with our continent, especially Germany (which, before the last round of sanctions, was Iran’s second largest trading partner after China), Austria (which, according to the president of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, was ‘Iran’s gateway to the EU’, also thanks to the business of the oil company OMV), France (important business for the oil company Total before the penultimate round of sanctions), Spain (Repsol had important interests in the country and Iran was our first oil supplier, before Libya; the latest round of sanctions has had the effect of making fuel more expensive and handing us over to the Arab petro-regimes, which have made inroads into the world of football and advertising), Italy (Iran’s fifth largest trading partner) and Greece. By allowing themselves to be blackmailed by Washington and London, these European countries, joined by Japan, South Korea and the GCC countries, have shown that they lack sovereignty and are not free to defend their true national interests within a logical and coherent geostrategy. The EU, with its subservience to Atlanticism, missed an opportunity to get along with Iran and form a petrol-euro that would assert it against the US.

– Prevent Iran from undermining the petrol-dictatorships of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Jordan, backed by London and Washington. – Exacerbate sectarianism and religious radicalism everywhere between Western Sahara and Indonesia. Provoke conflict between Shias and Sunnis to destabilise the region and possibly provoke a macro-civil war. Shia faith and cohesion must be contained with Sunni radicalism financed by Washington and Riyadh. To avoid the sectarianisation (and thus the balkanisation) of the Middle East, the model should be that of Hezbollah: a Lebanese-nationalist rather than a sectarian-religious movement. Iran should rely on ethnic and religious groups that offer a link to the West, such as Christians (Orthodox, Armenian, etc.).

Christians (Orthodox, Armenians, Copts, Catholics, Maronites, etc.), Alawites, Ismailites, Sufis, Druze and others. Washington, on the other hand, desires the eradication of many of these communities, which tend to prevent the divorce between West and East and are perfectly valid partners for peaceful and orderly relations between Europe and the Middle East. This would very well explain the Pope’s recent visit to Lebanon (without forgetting that the Vatican remains an international power to be reckoned with on the chessboard).

– Fuelling ethnic hatred and separatism in Iran, in particular using ethnic Belucians and Azeris.

– Using the Persian-Shia threat to convince the Gulf Cooperation Council of the need for a NATO presence and a regional anti-Iranian mini-alliance in the region, including a joint missile defence (a euphemism for ‘both offensive and defensive missile facilities’). These exercises complement the integration of US-Israeli military and intelligence command structures in the Middle East, as well as the deployment of thousands of US troops in Israel.

In conclusion, it is clear that the evolution of the Pentalasia has been and continues to be central in defining the Middle East and the entire geopolitical Rimland. To whom the control of Pentalasia will go, will probably go the control of the entire Rimland or, from a different perspective, the control of an entire global pan-area.