Alastair Crooke
Like a smashed
antique clock – with its elaborate cogs, ratchet wheels and innards splayed out
from the casing – so the mechanics of the Middle East lie similarly exposed and
broken. All the region is in play – Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt and
Iran.
The original
Obama strategic blueprint for containing and balancing the potentially violent
energies of West Asia was subsequently handed to Team Biden at the end of the
Obama term – and it still clearly bore the Obama imprimatur right up until its
collapse after 7 Oct 2023.
Netanyahu
deliberately smashed its mechanics: In acts of wanton destruction, he destroyed
the prevailing status quo, which he saw as an American straitjacket preventing
the attainment of a Greater Israel reaching out to its ‘Grand Victory’.
Netanyahu resented the American constraints – though by breaking the extant
mechanism, paradoxically, instead of liberating Israel, he may have unleashed
dynamics that will prove far more threatening (i.e. in Syria).
The cornerstone
to the Obama ‘balanced region’ was contained in a secret letter sent to Iran’s
Supreme Leader in 2014, in which, as the WSJ relates, Obama proposed to
Khamenei joint efforts in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (where ISIS
controlled territory). This joint action however, was made contingent on Iran
reaching a nuclear deal with the U.S.
The letter
explicitly acknowledged Iran’s ‘equities’ in Syria: To assuage Iran’s concerns
about the future of its close ally, President al-Assad, the letter stated that
the U.S.’s military operations inside Syria were not targeted at President
Assad or his security forces.
The Obama
understanding with Khamanei, it must be noted, thus implicitly extended to
Hizbullah who were joined with Iran in fighting ISIS in Syria:
“Among other
messages conveyed to Tehran, according to U.S. officials at the time, is that
U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria aren’t aimed at weakening Tehran or
its allies”.
Of course, the
Obama undertakings to Iran were lies: Obama had already signed in 2012 (or
earlier), a secret Presidential Finding (i.e. an instruction) for U.S.
intelligence support to Syria’s rebels in their bid to oust President Assad).
Were Iran to
participate in a nuclear ‘deal’, the 2014 letter proposed that its regional
‘equities’ would be respected and could extend to Lebanon as a geography of
international joint adjudication (as exemplified in U.S. Envoy Hochstein’s
mediation of the Lebanese-Syrian Maritime borders).
The purpose to
this highly complex blueprint was Obama’s primordial obsession: To arrive at a
proto-Palestinian State, albeit as another internationally administered
protectorate, supported internationally, rather than as a sovereign
nation-state.
Why did Obama
insist on a scheme that was such anathema to the Israeli Right and American
Israel-Firsters? It seems that he (with good reason) both distrusted Netanyahu
and knew well the latter’s determination to prevent any Palestinian State from
ever coming to fruition.
Obama’s balance
of powers initiative was an attempt indirectly to bind Iran and its allies to
Obama’s Palestinian ‘State’ concept – i.e. deliberately planned as an
escalating pressure point on Israel to concede a State. Without intense
pressure on Israel, it was clear to Obama that a Palestinian State was a dead
letter.
Netanyahu had
made his intent to see the complete emptying of the Palestinian presence in the
West Bank only too evident as far back as the 1970s (this was clear in the interview that he gave to author Max Hastings, who was writing a book on
Netanyahu’s brother).
Netanyahu
disliked and distrusted Obama – as much as Obama distrusted him.
In the wake of 7
October 2023, with the ‘ring of fire’ (seven ‘wars’) closing in on Israel,
Netanyahu determined to break the straitjacket restraints. And he did.
It’s not sure
however, whether Obama’s highly elaborated structure would ever have worked. In
any case, Netanyahu – by openly defying the White House – decided to override
the Obama-Biden ‘restraints’ and to smash the entire Iranian-centred project of
Obama.
The logic of the
Israeli serial destruction in the Region suggests to Netanyahu, as well as to
many Israelis and American Israel-Firsters, that Iran now is “staggeringly
vulnerable” (in the words of General Jack Keane), because of the loss of Syria
– the ‘central’ node to the Axis of Resistance.
Axios reports:
“Iran’s recent nuclear advances give President-elect Trump a crucial decision to make in his first months in office: to neutralize the [Iranian nuclear] threat through negotiations and [escalating] pressures; or order a military strike. Several Trump advisers privately concede Iran’s program is now so far along that this [early] strategy might no longer be effective. That makes a military option a real possibility”.
“After Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer met Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November, Dermer came away thinking there was a high likelihood Trump would either support an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities — something the Israelis are seriously considering — or even order a U.S. strike. Some top advisers to President Biden have privately argued in recent weeks for striking Iran’s nuclear sites before Trump takes office, with Iran and its proxies so badly weakened”.
Yet this may
prove to be wishful thinking. Trump reposted on 7 Jan 2025, a video on the
Truth Social platform featuring Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, in
which he discussed the CIA’s covert efforts to destabilise Syria’s government
and to overthrow Assad; the influence of Netanyahu; the Israeli lobby’s role in
pushing the U.S. into the Iraq War; and Netanyahu’s continued attempts to
involve the U.S. in a potential conflict with Iran. Sachs explained that the
wars in Iraq and Syria were manufactured by Netanyahu, and had nothing to do
with “democracy”.
“Netanyahu is
still trying to get us to fight Iran to this day. He is a deep dark son of a
bitch because he’s gotten us into endless wars”, Professor Sachs said in the
re-posted interview.
However, as
Barak Ravid notes, “Others close to Trump expect that he’ll seek a deal before
considering a strike”. When asked about the possibility of war with Iran in
November, Trump replied, “Anything can happen, It’s a very volatile situation”.
What then does
this mean for Iran?
Essentially,
Iran has two options: Firstly to signal to the U.S. its readiness to enter into
some sort of a new nuclear deal with the Trump team (a signal its Foreign
Minister already has given), and then to wait on a subsequent successful
Trump–Putin meeting to re-set the global post-war security architecture. From
that ‘big picture’ global deal, Tehran might hope to negotiate its own separate
‘big picture’ accord with the U.S.
Of course, this
would be optimal.
However,
Ambassador Chas Freeman has said that although a sustainable peace between the
U.S. and Russia (theoretically) is possible, it will be “very difficult” to
achieve. To which Ray McGovern has added repeatedly that Trump is ‘plenty smart
enough’ to know that he holds a weak hand with regard to Russia in the Eurasian
space, and that Trump, the realist, has “bigger fish to fry”.
Is this why
Trump and Musk are stirring the geo-political ‘pot’ so blatantly: On the one
hand, Canada, Greenland and Panama as part of the U.S.? These may be Trumpian
‘talking points’, but Greenland and Canada together could change the leverage
calculus with Russia: Is Trump planning to use added leverage via the Arctic to
threaten control over Russia’s northern borders? (It is the shortest flight
time for missiles targeted at Russia).
And on the other
hand, Musk, in parallel, has started a firestorm in Europe with his Tweets –
and his invitation to a livestream with Alice Weidel of AfD. Germany is the
heart of NATO and the EU. Were Germany to ‘flip’ away from war with Russia – in
company with other European ‘flips’ already in the works – then Trump plausibly
could end a major economic burden (troop deployment in the EU) weighing on the
U.S. economy. As Col. Doug Macgregor says, how many times do we have to tell
people: “Americans don’t live in Europe – we live in the Western hemisphere!”.
Musk effectively
has lobbed a (free speech) grenade into the European media hegemony that both
tightly controls discourse across the continent, and is in the pay of the Anglo
Deep State.
Will this bring
the settlement with Russia and the Asian Heartland that Trump seeks? We must
see.
The alternative
option for Iran is higher risk (and is contingent on the Iranian Intelligence
assessment of the likelihood of Israel attempting a pre-emptive strike on
Iran): i.e. Iran has the option of a further ‘Operation True Promise’. No
longer meant to deter (unlike in earlier versions of True Promise), but rather,
as Shivan Mahendrarajah explains, through exposing the ‘improbability of
victory’ and demonstrating the ‘unacceptable cost’ of conflict, to dismantle
Israel’s illusory narrative of perpetual ‘victory’.
In 2003, as
Mahendrarajah has noted, Iran proposed the U.S. a ‘grand bargain’. It was
rejected by the Bush Administration. Can it be revived – not through nuclear
talks, in which Iran has the weaker hand – but by the calibrated use of force.
It would be an audacious, and big, bet.
(This is the
second part of the piece ‘Can Trump Save America From Itself?’. Part 1 can be
read here).
After
the meeting, the presidents will sign the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership
Agreement between Russia and Iran and will then meet with media to provide
statements.
Pezeshkian
last traveled to Russia in October to attend the BRICS Summit in Kazan. The
Kremlin said at the time that relations between Iran and Russia were “on the
rise,” and that they would reach the level of a “comprehensive strategic
partnership.”
Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated at the end of October that a treaty
setting out this partnership was being prepared, and that it would enable
“closer cooperation in the field of defense” between Moscow and Tehran.
The
two countries have been working on the agreement since 2022. In July, the
deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Andrey Rudenko, told TASS that the
Russian side had completed the approval of the document. According to reports,
the signing was initially planned for the Kazan Summit, but the leaders of the
two countries later decided to finalize it during one of their bilateral
visits.
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