January 20, 2026
Mauricio Metri
The attack occurred shortly after Donald Trump indicated “that the Ukraine peace process was nearing its conclusion, following his meeting with Vladimir Zelensky and a phone call with Putin on Sunday.” According to Russian authorities, the attack was not limited to an assassination attempt on the Russian president, but “against President Trump’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict.” As Belarusian President Lukashenko stated, Kiev did not act alone. London also has responsibility for the attacks.
Second, in Southwest Asia, also at the end of December 2025, due to devaluations of the Iranian currency and significant inflationary effects, amid a severe economic crisis in Iran that has dragged on for years because of sanctions imposed by the United States, merchants in Tehran began peaceful demonstrations. To the surprise of analysts and the Iranian government, these quickly turned into a wave of highly violent protests across the country.
Openly, the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, admitted involvement, applauded the events, and “claimed it has agents embedded with the protesting crowds.” Tehran acknowledged that foreign forces seek to transform legitimate protests into violent urban battles. In turn, on January 2, 2026, Donald Trump announced on his social media that the United States was ready to act at any moment to defend the protesters. On the same day, Tehran responded by threatening all US positions in the region in reaction to “any potential adventurism.” The strong offensive capability of Iran anchored this position, developed by the country, based on hypersonic missiles, whose destructive power came out in the Twelve-Day War against Israel and the United States. As reported by Israeli Channel 12, in response, Tel Aviv is considering launching a simultaneous war against Iran, Lebanon, and the West Bank.
Third, in the early morning of January 3, 2026, a United States aircraft violated Venezuelan airspace and carried out a significant attack on different points in the capital, Caracas. Their main target was the military base where President Maduro and his wife were located. They were kidnapped and taken to New York and, in practice, became prisoners of war. In this operation, more than 100 people died, including 32 Cubans who were part of the Venezuelan president’s personal guard. Subsequently, Trump demanded full access to Venezuelan oil, in addition to stating that the US would govern Venezuela until a proper transition was implemented. The following day, he broadened the scope of his targets. He made direct threats to three other countries, Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia, which, along with Brazil, condemned the US action, denouncing it as a violation of international law and a threat to regional stability.
In response to the US violence, on January 4, the Venezuelan Supreme Court recognized Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as interim president to guarantee the continuity of the government in the face of the kidnapping and imprisonment of President Maduro. Delcy is an essential figure in Chavismo. She was Minister of Communication and Information, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and, most recently, Minister of Economy and Petroleum.
These three serious events of the current situation, concentrated in time but dispersed across the global space, must be interpreted in light of the new US geo-strategy, whose parameters had already been indicated by Donald Trump during the 2024 election process; made explicit at the beginning of his new term through some pronouncements and actions; and finally, systematized in the latest National Security Strategy (NSS), published in December 2025.
As described in another article, there is an ongoing attempt to redesign Grand Strategy of the United States by redefining its most important challenge in the international arena. In detriment of Russia, the United States has come to view China as the main threat to its security and global interests and, consequently, seeks to create distance between Russia and China. It is an effort to reconfigure the central core of the great powers.
Pursuant to the NSS 2025, the United States’ failure to address Chinese projection over the past few decades, due to excessive preoccupation with Russia, constitutes a historical error. “President Trump single-handedly reversed more than three decades of mistaken American assumptions about China (…) China got rich and powerful, and used its wealth and power to its considerable advantage. American elites – over four successive administrations of both political parties – were either willing enablers of China’s strategy or in denial.” (NSS 2025, p. 19).
In practice, the Trump administration is not inventing anything new. It is reviving a vision structured by Nixon-Kissinger in the context of Triangular Diplomacy, inaugurated in 1969, when they took advantage of the radical Chinese initiative to redefine the main threat to their society, from the United States to the Soviet Union, in the midst of the Cold War. It was in this context that Washington pursued a policy of strategic rapprochement with Beijing to pressure Moscow to advance its agenda and to reinforce divisions within the communist bloc.
What is generally overlooked is that, in 1972, Kissinger himself warned Nixon of the need to reverse the equation from Washington’s perspective: to get closer to Moscow to bring Beijing into line. “I think, in a historical period, they [the Chinese] are more formidable than the Russians. And I think in 20 years, your successor, if he is as wise as you, will wind up leaning towards the Russians against the Chinese. For the next 15 years, we have to lean towards the Chinese against the Russians. We have to play this balance of power game totally unemotionally. Right now, we need the Chinese to correct the Russians and to discipline the Russians.”
The 2025 NSS is moving in the direction the former Secretary of State suggested. When addressing the Asian chessboard, the main threat to the United States becomes clearer. It identifies China as its greatest geopolitical and geo-economic challenge. “Indo-Pacific is already and will continue to be among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds. To thrive at home, we must successfully compete there – and we are.” (NSS, 2025, p. 19). As will be seen, this is the point that effectively organizes and conditions what the United States intends in other continents, therefore giving meaning to the most recent events in Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.
From a military standpoint, the NSS reinforces the longstanding concept of a Chinese sea blockade, structured around island chains, formulated during the Korean War by John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration. It consists of two belts of military bases surrounding China, with the power to prevent its maritime access. It is for this reason that Taiwan is the central point of contention. “Taiwan provides direct access to the Second Island Chain and splits Northeast and Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters. Given that one-third of global shipping passes through the South China Sea each year, this has major implications for the US economy. Hence, deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.” (NSS 2025, p. 23).
In addition, the new NSS reinforces the need to militarize the South China Sea by strengthening the first island chain. “We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain. (…) America’s diplomatic efforts should focus on pressing our First Island Chain allies and partners to allow the US military greater access to their ports and other facilities, to spend more on their own defense, and most importantly to invest in capabilities aimed at deterring aggression.” (NSS 2025, p. 24). Finally, the document compels the militarization of the region’s strongest allies, Japan and South Korea, to deter adversaries and defend the island chains.
From an economic standpoint, the NSS 2025 confirms, on the one hand, China’s recent and significant projection onto much of the world and, on the other, the current need for the US to guarantee access to critical supply chains and materials. Combining these two points, the result for the United States becomes, first, to remove and obstruct Chinese access to strategic regions and, second, to build privileged, unlimited, monopolistic insertions. In effect, it proposes a redesign of China’s relations with other countries and territories. “(…) the United States must protect and defend our economy and our people from harm, from any country or source. This means ending (among other things): threats against our supply chains that risk US access to critical resources, including minerals and rare earth elements.” (NSS 2025, p. 21).
For Europe, the document follows the direction Kissinger suggested in 1972, of rapprochement with the Russians to pursue Chinese isolation. This aim, however, necessarily involves the reintegration of Russia into the international system; in other words, the end of both the Ukrainian War and NATO’s expansion policy, therefore the recognition of Moscow’s victory on the battlefield and, in effect, the need to negotiate a peace treaty according to Russian interests. It, in turn, implies, among other things, the neutrality of Ukraine, its demilitarization and denazification, the recognition of the Russian conquest of Crimea, and the independence or annexation of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions by Russia.
It is surprising that this proposal, radical from the perspective of US foreign policy tradition, appears explicitly in the NSS 2025. “As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant US diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states. It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia (…).” (NSS 2025, p. 25).
It is clear that, from the United States’ point of view, the core of the problem is not exactly “making deals with the Russians,” as the star player Garrincha of the Brazilian national team would say in the 1958 World Cup, but rather making deals with its main European partners. The possibility of reinserting Russia in these terms constitutes a bomb of tectonic proportions for Europe, especially for England, France, and Germany. It is because: the US threatens to undermine NATO, weakening Europe; Europe, tutored for decades by the US via NATO, has low capacity for initiative in the military field; Russia has defeated NATO’s armaments on the battlefield and enjoys a significant strategic advantage; and there is no common threat among Russians, Americans, Chinese, and Europeans that dilutes their rivalries, apprehensions, and fears.
It is in this context that it should analyze the drone attacks on Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region. The continuation of the war in Ukraine, the collapse of peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, mediated by Washington, and even the military escalation on Ukrainian territory, are of particular interest to the British, French, and Germans to keep the United States trapped in the war effort against the Russians. Therefore, the accusations made by President Lukashenko of Belarus, based on Russian intelligence, pointing to London as sharing responsibility for the attempted assassination of the Russian president, make sense.
Similarly, regarding the Americas, Washington’s policy is conditioned by the Chinese challenge. In this sense, the NSS could not be more explicit. “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors [China] the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.” (NSS 2025, p. 15).
In general terms, the United States conceives its global projection from a position of hemispheric insularity. Dominating the American continent, especially the Greater Caribbean and its interoceanic connection – a key condition for the integration of its Pacific and Atlantic navies – is the pillar upon which it expands globally, particularly towards the fringes of the Eurasian continental landmass, the famous Rimland mentioned by Spykman. One could say this is an expansion, on a continental scale, of the old English strategy, when, in the historian Fernand Braudel’s words, England became an island after its defeat in the Hundred Years’ War in 1453. Since then, the English have embraced the insularity of the British Isles as the basis of their global projection.
What is most important to understand in this type of geostrategic conception, structured on an insular vision, is the implication for other peoples and countries present in the same fundamental spaces from which the maritime power projects itself. It is because any autonomous insertion of a country or an alliance of countries compromises the capacity of the insular powers for global expansion. Here is the primary reason, for example, for the centuries-long British violence against the Irish and Scots, as well as the various interventions and coups by the United States in Latin American countries. These spaces cannot rival or serve as a “bridgehead” for global geopolitical adversaries. It is not a matter of political-ideological, ethno-religious, or economic issues per se, but geopolitical ones. Ultimately, one could say that Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution (1953-59), in the heart of the “Greater Caribbean,” and Michael Collins in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), in the heart of the “British Inland Sea,” fought and were successful against violence of a similar nature.
Beyond natural resources, it is in this sense that the rationale behind some of the US threats to countries in the region can also be understood, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil, due to their non-aligned foreign policies, and Canada and Greenland (Denmark), due to their relevant geographical positions.
In the case of Venezuela, in addition to being in the “Greater Caribbean,” the country holds the world’s largest oil reserves, 303 billion barrels, surpassing Saudi Arabia (267 billion). Additionally, following the expansion of sanctions in 2019, China became the leading importer of oil, displacing the United States. In 2023, the Chinese accounted for 68% of the country’s crude oil exports, and the Americans, 23%.
Furthermore, Venezuela has been drawing closer to Iran, Russia, and China on sensitive issues. For example, according to the Washington Post, in October 2025, Venezuela requested military assistance from Russia, China, and Iran to improve its defense systems. Caracas requested radar detectors from Beijing; radar jamming equipment and drones capable of flying up to 1,000 km from Tehran; and new missiles, as well as assistance for Su-30MK2 fighter jets and radar systems already acquired, from Moscow. A week earlier, Russia had ratified the strategic partnership treaty with Venezuela, negotiated in May of the same year, and at that time also expressed support for Venezuela’s national sovereignty and a commitment to help “overcome any threats, regardless of their origin.”
It is not difficult to see that, in addition to Chinese projection over Venezuelan oil, Caracas had been trying to develop significant defensive and deterrent military capabilities with the support of the United States’ main adversaries in other arenas. In any case, the kidnapping of President Maduro revealed the country’s vulnerability and backwardness to violence from foreign powers.
In the Middle East, the 2025 National Security Plan points to the same issue: ensuring that oil and gas reserves are available to the West and off-limits to its enemies. It also expresses concern about access to the Strait of Hormuz. “America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, that the Strait of Hormuz remain open, that the Red Sea remain navigable (…).” (NSS 2025, p. 28).
Like Caracas, Tehran’s rapprochement with Beijing and Moscow is quite delicate. In addition to possessing the second-largest gas reserves and the fourth-largest oil reserves, Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2023; the BRICS in 2024; signed a strategic partnership with Russia in 2025; and had its diplomatic relations reactivated with Saudi Arabia in 2023 through Chinese mediation. Furthermore, Iran is structuring the axis of resistance in Southwest Asia against US and Israeli violence (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, the Iraqi Resistance, and Hamas in Palestine). Therefore, promoting a hybrid war against Iran to overthrow the government is a priority for the United States. Not surprisingly, the award-winning and well-informed journalist Seymour Hersh recently wrote that: “The next target [after Venezuela], I have been told, will be Iran, another purveyor to China whose crude oil reserves are the world’s fourth largest.”
Therefore, drone strikes, hybrid warfare, and the presidential kidnapping are directly or indirectly linked to the new Grand Strategy, whose main challenge is China. What the general public has not yet realized is that, throughout the history of the United States, every time a president has attempted a policy of non-confrontation with Russia, it has not lasted long – Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Something courageously pointed out by filmmaker Oliver Stone in an interview with the excellent journalist Abby Martin. Perhaps, for Trump, his main threat is not just China but the blowback of his policy of reintegrating Russia, victorious in the war, into the international system.
January 19, 2026
Alastair Crooke
To understand the background to events in Iran today, we need to retrace what I quoted U.S. commentator & Trump biographer Michael Wolff saying last July about Trump’s thinking in connection with the impending attacks on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan enrichment facilities:
Mauricio Metri
They are all directly or
indirectly linked to the new Grand Strategy, whose main challenge is China.
Three serious events dominated
the international news at the turn of the year. First, in the early hours of
December 29, 2025, the Ukrainian government attacked with 91 drones on the
residence of President Vladimir Putin in the Novgorod region, according to the
Russian defense minister. The national defense system intercepted all the
drones. One of them was hit in the tail, preserving the information from its
navigation system. The Kremlin shared the collected data with the US
authorities. Kiev denies the accusations.
The attack occurred shortly after Donald Trump indicated “that the Ukraine peace process was nearing its conclusion, following his meeting with Vladimir Zelensky and a phone call with Putin on Sunday.” According to Russian authorities, the attack was not limited to an assassination attempt on the Russian president, but “against President Trump’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict.” As Belarusian President Lukashenko stated, Kiev did not act alone. London also has responsibility for the attacks.
Second, in Southwest Asia, also at the end of December 2025, due to devaluations of the Iranian currency and significant inflationary effects, amid a severe economic crisis in Iran that has dragged on for years because of sanctions imposed by the United States, merchants in Tehran began peaceful demonstrations. To the surprise of analysts and the Iranian government, these quickly turned into a wave of highly violent protests across the country.
Openly, the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, admitted involvement, applauded the events, and “claimed it has agents embedded with the protesting crowds.” Tehran acknowledged that foreign forces seek to transform legitimate protests into violent urban battles. In turn, on January 2, 2026, Donald Trump announced on his social media that the United States was ready to act at any moment to defend the protesters. On the same day, Tehran responded by threatening all US positions in the region in reaction to “any potential adventurism.” The strong offensive capability of Iran anchored this position, developed by the country, based on hypersonic missiles, whose destructive power came out in the Twelve-Day War against Israel and the United States. As reported by Israeli Channel 12, in response, Tel Aviv is considering launching a simultaneous war against Iran, Lebanon, and the West Bank.
Third, in the early morning of January 3, 2026, a United States aircraft violated Venezuelan airspace and carried out a significant attack on different points in the capital, Caracas. Their main target was the military base where President Maduro and his wife were located. They were kidnapped and taken to New York and, in practice, became prisoners of war. In this operation, more than 100 people died, including 32 Cubans who were part of the Venezuelan president’s personal guard. Subsequently, Trump demanded full access to Venezuelan oil, in addition to stating that the US would govern Venezuela until a proper transition was implemented. The following day, he broadened the scope of his targets. He made direct threats to three other countries, Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia, which, along with Brazil, condemned the US action, denouncing it as a violation of international law and a threat to regional stability.
In response to the US violence, on January 4, the Venezuelan Supreme Court recognized Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as interim president to guarantee the continuity of the government in the face of the kidnapping and imprisonment of President Maduro. Delcy is an essential figure in Chavismo. She was Minister of Communication and Information, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and, most recently, Minister of Economy and Petroleum.
These three serious events of the current situation, concentrated in time but dispersed across the global space, must be interpreted in light of the new US geo-strategy, whose parameters had already been indicated by Donald Trump during the 2024 election process; made explicit at the beginning of his new term through some pronouncements and actions; and finally, systematized in the latest National Security Strategy (NSS), published in December 2025.
As described in another article, there is an ongoing attempt to redesign Grand Strategy of the United States by redefining its most important challenge in the international arena. In detriment of Russia, the United States has come to view China as the main threat to its security and global interests and, consequently, seeks to create distance between Russia and China. It is an effort to reconfigure the central core of the great powers.
Pursuant to the NSS 2025, the United States’ failure to address Chinese projection over the past few decades, due to excessive preoccupation with Russia, constitutes a historical error. “President Trump single-handedly reversed more than three decades of mistaken American assumptions about China (…) China got rich and powerful, and used its wealth and power to its considerable advantage. American elites – over four successive administrations of both political parties – were either willing enablers of China’s strategy or in denial.” (NSS 2025, p. 19).
In practice, the Trump administration is not inventing anything new. It is reviving a vision structured by Nixon-Kissinger in the context of Triangular Diplomacy, inaugurated in 1969, when they took advantage of the radical Chinese initiative to redefine the main threat to their society, from the United States to the Soviet Union, in the midst of the Cold War. It was in this context that Washington pursued a policy of strategic rapprochement with Beijing to pressure Moscow to advance its agenda and to reinforce divisions within the communist bloc.
What is generally overlooked is that, in 1972, Kissinger himself warned Nixon of the need to reverse the equation from Washington’s perspective: to get closer to Moscow to bring Beijing into line. “I think, in a historical period, they [the Chinese] are more formidable than the Russians. And I think in 20 years, your successor, if he is as wise as you, will wind up leaning towards the Russians against the Chinese. For the next 15 years, we have to lean towards the Chinese against the Russians. We have to play this balance of power game totally unemotionally. Right now, we need the Chinese to correct the Russians and to discipline the Russians.”
The 2025 NSS is moving in the direction the former Secretary of State suggested. When addressing the Asian chessboard, the main threat to the United States becomes clearer. It identifies China as its greatest geopolitical and geo-economic challenge. “Indo-Pacific is already and will continue to be among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds. To thrive at home, we must successfully compete there – and we are.” (NSS, 2025, p. 19). As will be seen, this is the point that effectively organizes and conditions what the United States intends in other continents, therefore giving meaning to the most recent events in Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.
From a military standpoint, the NSS reinforces the longstanding concept of a Chinese sea blockade, structured around island chains, formulated during the Korean War by John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration. It consists of two belts of military bases surrounding China, with the power to prevent its maritime access. It is for this reason that Taiwan is the central point of contention. “Taiwan provides direct access to the Second Island Chain and splits Northeast and Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters. Given that one-third of global shipping passes through the South China Sea each year, this has major implications for the US economy. Hence, deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.” (NSS 2025, p. 23).
In addition, the new NSS reinforces the need to militarize the South China Sea by strengthening the first island chain. “We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain. (…) America’s diplomatic efforts should focus on pressing our First Island Chain allies and partners to allow the US military greater access to their ports and other facilities, to spend more on their own defense, and most importantly to invest in capabilities aimed at deterring aggression.” (NSS 2025, p. 24). Finally, the document compels the militarization of the region’s strongest allies, Japan and South Korea, to deter adversaries and defend the island chains.
From an economic standpoint, the NSS 2025 confirms, on the one hand, China’s recent and significant projection onto much of the world and, on the other, the current need for the US to guarantee access to critical supply chains and materials. Combining these two points, the result for the United States becomes, first, to remove and obstruct Chinese access to strategic regions and, second, to build privileged, unlimited, monopolistic insertions. In effect, it proposes a redesign of China’s relations with other countries and territories. “(…) the United States must protect and defend our economy and our people from harm, from any country or source. This means ending (among other things): threats against our supply chains that risk US access to critical resources, including minerals and rare earth elements.” (NSS 2025, p. 21).
For Europe, the document follows the direction Kissinger suggested in 1972, of rapprochement with the Russians to pursue Chinese isolation. This aim, however, necessarily involves the reintegration of Russia into the international system; in other words, the end of both the Ukrainian War and NATO’s expansion policy, therefore the recognition of Moscow’s victory on the battlefield and, in effect, the need to negotiate a peace treaty according to Russian interests. It, in turn, implies, among other things, the neutrality of Ukraine, its demilitarization and denazification, the recognition of the Russian conquest of Crimea, and the independence or annexation of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions by Russia.
It is surprising that this proposal, radical from the perspective of US foreign policy tradition, appears explicitly in the NSS 2025. “As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant US diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states. It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia (…).” (NSS 2025, p. 25).
It is clear that, from the United States’ point of view, the core of the problem is not exactly “making deals with the Russians,” as the star player Garrincha of the Brazilian national team would say in the 1958 World Cup, but rather making deals with its main European partners. The possibility of reinserting Russia in these terms constitutes a bomb of tectonic proportions for Europe, especially for England, France, and Germany. It is because: the US threatens to undermine NATO, weakening Europe; Europe, tutored for decades by the US via NATO, has low capacity for initiative in the military field; Russia has defeated NATO’s armaments on the battlefield and enjoys a significant strategic advantage; and there is no common threat among Russians, Americans, Chinese, and Europeans that dilutes their rivalries, apprehensions, and fears.
It is in this context that it should analyze the drone attacks on Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region. The continuation of the war in Ukraine, the collapse of peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, mediated by Washington, and even the military escalation on Ukrainian territory, are of particular interest to the British, French, and Germans to keep the United States trapped in the war effort against the Russians. Therefore, the accusations made by President Lukashenko of Belarus, based on Russian intelligence, pointing to London as sharing responsibility for the attempted assassination of the Russian president, make sense.
Similarly, regarding the Americas, Washington’s policy is conditioned by the Chinese challenge. In this sense, the NSS could not be more explicit. “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors [China] the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.” (NSS 2025, p. 15).
In general terms, the United States conceives its global projection from a position of hemispheric insularity. Dominating the American continent, especially the Greater Caribbean and its interoceanic connection – a key condition for the integration of its Pacific and Atlantic navies – is the pillar upon which it expands globally, particularly towards the fringes of the Eurasian continental landmass, the famous Rimland mentioned by Spykman. One could say this is an expansion, on a continental scale, of the old English strategy, when, in the historian Fernand Braudel’s words, England became an island after its defeat in the Hundred Years’ War in 1453. Since then, the English have embraced the insularity of the British Isles as the basis of their global projection.
What is most important to understand in this type of geostrategic conception, structured on an insular vision, is the implication for other peoples and countries present in the same fundamental spaces from which the maritime power projects itself. It is because any autonomous insertion of a country or an alliance of countries compromises the capacity of the insular powers for global expansion. Here is the primary reason, for example, for the centuries-long British violence against the Irish and Scots, as well as the various interventions and coups by the United States in Latin American countries. These spaces cannot rival or serve as a “bridgehead” for global geopolitical adversaries. It is not a matter of political-ideological, ethno-religious, or economic issues per se, but geopolitical ones. Ultimately, one could say that Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution (1953-59), in the heart of the “Greater Caribbean,” and Michael Collins in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), in the heart of the “British Inland Sea,” fought and were successful against violence of a similar nature.
Beyond natural resources, it is in this sense that the rationale behind some of the US threats to countries in the region can also be understood, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil, due to their non-aligned foreign policies, and Canada and Greenland (Denmark), due to their relevant geographical positions.
In the case of Venezuela, in addition to being in the “Greater Caribbean,” the country holds the world’s largest oil reserves, 303 billion barrels, surpassing Saudi Arabia (267 billion). Additionally, following the expansion of sanctions in 2019, China became the leading importer of oil, displacing the United States. In 2023, the Chinese accounted for 68% of the country’s crude oil exports, and the Americans, 23%.
Furthermore, Venezuela has been drawing closer to Iran, Russia, and China on sensitive issues. For example, according to the Washington Post, in October 2025, Venezuela requested military assistance from Russia, China, and Iran to improve its defense systems. Caracas requested radar detectors from Beijing; radar jamming equipment and drones capable of flying up to 1,000 km from Tehran; and new missiles, as well as assistance for Su-30MK2 fighter jets and radar systems already acquired, from Moscow. A week earlier, Russia had ratified the strategic partnership treaty with Venezuela, negotiated in May of the same year, and at that time also expressed support for Venezuela’s national sovereignty and a commitment to help “overcome any threats, regardless of their origin.”
It is not difficult to see that, in addition to Chinese projection over Venezuelan oil, Caracas had been trying to develop significant defensive and deterrent military capabilities with the support of the United States’ main adversaries in other arenas. In any case, the kidnapping of President Maduro revealed the country’s vulnerability and backwardness to violence from foreign powers.
In the Middle East, the 2025 National Security Plan points to the same issue: ensuring that oil and gas reserves are available to the West and off-limits to its enemies. It also expresses concern about access to the Strait of Hormuz. “America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, that the Strait of Hormuz remain open, that the Red Sea remain navigable (…).” (NSS 2025, p. 28).
Like Caracas, Tehran’s rapprochement with Beijing and Moscow is quite delicate. In addition to possessing the second-largest gas reserves and the fourth-largest oil reserves, Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2023; the BRICS in 2024; signed a strategic partnership with Russia in 2025; and had its diplomatic relations reactivated with Saudi Arabia in 2023 through Chinese mediation. Furthermore, Iran is structuring the axis of resistance in Southwest Asia against US and Israeli violence (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, the Iraqi Resistance, and Hamas in Palestine). Therefore, promoting a hybrid war against Iran to overthrow the government is a priority for the United States. Not surprisingly, the award-winning and well-informed journalist Seymour Hersh recently wrote that: “The next target [after Venezuela], I have been told, will be Iran, another purveyor to China whose crude oil reserves are the world’s fourth largest.”
Therefore, drone strikes, hybrid warfare, and the presidential kidnapping are directly or indirectly linked to the new Grand Strategy, whose main challenge is China. What the general public has not yet realized is that, throughout the history of the United States, every time a president has attempted a policy of non-confrontation with Russia, it has not lasted long – Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Something courageously pointed out by filmmaker Oliver Stone in an interview with the excellent journalist Abby Martin. Perhaps, for Trump, his main threat is not just China but the blowback of his policy of reintegrating Russia, victorious in the war, into the international system.
Alastair Crooke
To understand the background to events in Iran today, we need to retrace what I quoted U.S. commentator & Trump biographer Michael Wolff saying last July about Trump’s thinking in connection with the impending attacks on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan enrichment facilities:
“I have been making lots of calls – so I think I have a sense of the arc that got Trump to where we are [with the strikes on Iran]. Calls are one of the main ways I track what he is thinking (I use the word ‘thinking’ loosely)”.“I talk to people whom Trump has been speaking with on the phone. I mean all of Trump’s internal thinking is external; and it’s done in a series of his constant calls. And it’s pretty easy to follow – because he says the same thing to everybody. So, it’s this constant round of repetition …”.“So, basically, when the Israelis attacked Iran [on 12 July], he got very excited about this – and his calls were all repetitions of one theme: Were they going to win? Is this a winner? Is this game-over? They [the Israelis] are so good! This really is a showstopper”.
The last weeks’
externally-orchestrated riots in Iran have almost completely vanished – upon
Iran blocking international calls, cutting international internet connections,
and most significantly, severing Starlink satellite connections. No unrest,
riots, or protests have been recorded in any Iranian city in the past 70-odd
hours. There are no new reports; rather, there have been massive demonstrations
of support for the State. The ongoing videos circulating are mostly old and
reportedly peddled from two main hubs outside of Iran.
The impact of cutting-off protestors from their external controllers was immediate — and underlines that the rioting was never organic; but planned long in advance. The suppression of the extreme violence practiced by an influx of well-trained rioters, together with the arrest of the ringleaders has cut away the main plank to this iteration of the U.S.-Israeli regime change strategy.
The CIA-Mossad strategy has been based on a series of planned surprises devised to shock Iran and disorientate it.
The surprise initially worked for the 13 January sneak U.S.-Israel attack on Iran. The ‘shock’ was grounded in a network of covert agents infiltrated by Mossad into Iran over a long time-frame. These covert small teams were able to inflict substantial damage on the Iranian short-range air defences, using smuggled small drones and Spike anti-tank weapons.
This in-country sabotage was intended as a stepping stone to an Israeli challenge to the full Iranian air defence ‘umbrella’. To the IRGC, the attacks seemingly appeared out of nowhere. They created shock and compelled the Iranian IRGC air defences to shift into a protective posture until they were able to understand and identify the origin of the attack. Mobile radar systems therefore were ordered to withdraw into Iran’s massive tunnel network for safety.
Activation of the third all-embracing air defence umbrella could not proceed safely until the threat to these mobile radar assets had been removed.
This initial sabotage allowed Israel to engage with the Iranian integrated air defence system which, whilst still in its protective posture, was operating at lower capacity. At this point, Israel entered the conflict using air-launched aero-ballistic missiles launched from stand-off positions outside Iranian airspace.
As a quick remedy, the internet connection of Iran’s mobile phone network was deactivated to cut the link to hidden operators feeding targetting data to the local drone launch placements, via the Iranian mobile telephone network.
The 13 June attack — premised to collapse what was said to be a ‘house of cards’ Iranian State — failed, but subsequently led into the ‘12-day war’ — which also failed. Israel was forced to ask Trump to negotiate a ceasefire after four days of multiple Iranian missile strikes.
The next leg to the U.S. Israeli ‘regime change’ project had a distinctly different blueprint — one rooted in an old ‘playbook’ intended to amass and incite mobs and trigger extreme violence. It began on 28 December 2025 and coincided with Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. A short-selling of the Rial (probably orchestrated from Dubai) crashed the value of the currency by 30 – 40%.
The devaluation threatened the business of the merchants (the Bazaar). Understandably, they protested. (The Iranian economy has not been well managed for some years, a fact that added to their anger). Young Iranians too, felt that this poor economic management had pushed them out from the Middle Class into relative poverty. The drop in the value of the Rial was widely felt.
The Bazaaris were protesting the sudden upending of the economic status quo, but served as the peg for the U.S. and Israel to propagandise wider grievances.
The ‘surprise’ in this chapter of the Regime Change playbook was the insertion of professional rioters into locations directed by their external controllers.
The modus was for the armed insurgents to gather in some well-frequented urban area, usually in a small city; to select a random passer-by, and for the men in the group to beat him severely, whilst the women film and scream to the gathering crowd for their colleagues to “kill him; burn him”.
The crowd, not understanding, becomes heated and violent. The police arrive, whereupon shots generally from an elevated site above the crowd are fired at the police or security forces. The latter fire back, and not knowing from whence the shots were fired, kill armed ‘protestors’ and members of the public. A violent riot thus is created.
The techniques are effective and professional. They have been used on many other occasions in other countries.
The Iranian remedy was two-fold: Firstly, thanks to Turkish intelligence support, many of the armed Kurdish fighters (trained and armed by the U.S. and Israel) were killed or arrested as they crossed the border into the predominantly Kurdish minority areas of Iran, arriving from Syria and Erbil.
The game-changer, however, was the cutting of Starlink connections to the estimated 40,000 satellite terminals that had been smuggled into Iran (most probably by western NGOs).
Western Intelligence services believed that Starlink was impossible to jam – hence its primary position in the Regime Change toolbox.
The Starlink cut off turned the tables. The riots vanished. And the State rebounded. There have been no defections from the army, the IRGC or Basij. The State remains intact and its defences augmented.
So what is next? What can Trump do? His mooted intervention was predicated on the narrative that the ‘régime was slaughtering the people’, amidst “rivers of blood”. That did not happen. Instead, there have been massive demonstrations of support for the Republic.
Well, Michael Wolff has been calling his White House sources again — “So, I went back to the people I speak to in the White House, to revisit this”.
Wolff relates, the notion of a new round of strikes on Iran seemed to his interlocutors to have taken root in late summer, early autumn. The start point was that Trump remains “delighted” by how his June strike on the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities had worked out: “It played; it really played”, Trump repeats.
But by Autumn, Trump had started to acknowledge that he faced a tough fight in the Midterm elections. He was beginning to say, “if we lose [the House], we could be finished; finished; finished”. And Trump would go on – with some almost self-awareness – Wolff says, to cite the problems ‘they’ are having, which are [lack of of] “jobs, the Epstein s—t and these ICE videos everybody is crying over”. Trump in these conversations implies that the Republicans could even lose the Senate, in which case, “I’m back in Court, which won’t be pretty”.
The day before he attacked the enrichment facilities in June 2025, Trump — in an insight into his mode of thinking in calls to his buddies — was constantly repeating: ‘If we do this, it needs to be perfect. It needs to be a ‘win’. It has to look perfect. Nobody dies’.
Trump kept saying to interlocutors: “We go ‘in-boom-out’: Big Day. We want a big day. We want [wait for it, Wolff says] a perfect war”. And then, out of the blue, after the June attack, Trump announced a ceasefire, which Wolff suggests was ‘Trump concluding his perfect war’.
The extreme violence used by rioters against Iranian police and security officials (up to the peak on 9 January 2026); the burning of banks; buses, libraries and the sacking of mosques, most likely was devised by western Intelligence services to show a crumbling, decomposing state that, in its death agony, was killing its own people.
This likely — in coordination with Israel — was being presented to Trump as the ‘perfect’ lead-in to a ‘Venezuela-type scenario’: We go for decapitation, ‘in-boom-out’’.
Trump this week told his advisers (for the second time), Wolff reports, that he wants a “standout thing; a whole big deal – all headlines. It has to ‘play’ well”. Despite the riots having been dissipated, he still insists on a guarantee from his team of ‘victory’ in any action taken.
But where is the ‘in-boom-out’ scenario to be found? The riots have ceased. After the 12 June 2025 strike and the Maduro kidnapping, Tehran is all too well aware of Washington’s obsession with decapitation.
So what can Trump do? Bomb Iranian institutional buildings like the IRCG headquarters? Iran almost certainly will respond. It has threatened to respond by striking U.S. bases across the region. In such a situation, a Trump-authorised attack may not have the look of a ‘big deal win’ at all.
Maybe Trump will stay with a smaller ‘win’: “We have a big stick”, he continues to say.“Nobody knows if I’ll use it. We’re freaking everybody out!”.
The impact of cutting-off protestors from their external controllers was immediate — and underlines that the rioting was never organic; but planned long in advance. The suppression of the extreme violence practiced by an influx of well-trained rioters, together with the arrest of the ringleaders has cut away the main plank to this iteration of the U.S.-Israeli regime change strategy.
The CIA-Mossad strategy has been based on a series of planned surprises devised to shock Iran and disorientate it.
The surprise initially worked for the 13 January sneak U.S.-Israel attack on Iran. The ‘shock’ was grounded in a network of covert agents infiltrated by Mossad into Iran over a long time-frame. These covert small teams were able to inflict substantial damage on the Iranian short-range air defences, using smuggled small drones and Spike anti-tank weapons.
This in-country sabotage was intended as a stepping stone to an Israeli challenge to the full Iranian air defence ‘umbrella’. To the IRGC, the attacks seemingly appeared out of nowhere. They created shock and compelled the Iranian IRGC air defences to shift into a protective posture until they were able to understand and identify the origin of the attack. Mobile radar systems therefore were ordered to withdraw into Iran’s massive tunnel network for safety.
Activation of the third all-embracing air defence umbrella could not proceed safely until the threat to these mobile radar assets had been removed.
This initial sabotage allowed Israel to engage with the Iranian integrated air defence system which, whilst still in its protective posture, was operating at lower capacity. At this point, Israel entered the conflict using air-launched aero-ballistic missiles launched from stand-off positions outside Iranian airspace.
As a quick remedy, the internet connection of Iran’s mobile phone network was deactivated to cut the link to hidden operators feeding targetting data to the local drone launch placements, via the Iranian mobile telephone network.
The 13 June attack — premised to collapse what was said to be a ‘house of cards’ Iranian State — failed, but subsequently led into the ‘12-day war’ — which also failed. Israel was forced to ask Trump to negotiate a ceasefire after four days of multiple Iranian missile strikes.
The next leg to the U.S. Israeli ‘regime change’ project had a distinctly different blueprint — one rooted in an old ‘playbook’ intended to amass and incite mobs and trigger extreme violence. It began on 28 December 2025 and coincided with Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. A short-selling of the Rial (probably orchestrated from Dubai) crashed the value of the currency by 30 – 40%.
The devaluation threatened the business of the merchants (the Bazaar). Understandably, they protested. (The Iranian economy has not been well managed for some years, a fact that added to their anger). Young Iranians too, felt that this poor economic management had pushed them out from the Middle Class into relative poverty. The drop in the value of the Rial was widely felt.
The Bazaaris were protesting the sudden upending of the economic status quo, but served as the peg for the U.S. and Israel to propagandise wider grievances.
The ‘surprise’ in this chapter of the Regime Change playbook was the insertion of professional rioters into locations directed by their external controllers.
The modus was for the armed insurgents to gather in some well-frequented urban area, usually in a small city; to select a random passer-by, and for the men in the group to beat him severely, whilst the women film and scream to the gathering crowd for their colleagues to “kill him; burn him”.
The crowd, not understanding, becomes heated and violent. The police arrive, whereupon shots generally from an elevated site above the crowd are fired at the police or security forces. The latter fire back, and not knowing from whence the shots were fired, kill armed ‘protestors’ and members of the public. A violent riot thus is created.
The techniques are effective and professional. They have been used on many other occasions in other countries.
The Iranian remedy was two-fold: Firstly, thanks to Turkish intelligence support, many of the armed Kurdish fighters (trained and armed by the U.S. and Israel) were killed or arrested as they crossed the border into the predominantly Kurdish minority areas of Iran, arriving from Syria and Erbil.
The game-changer, however, was the cutting of Starlink connections to the estimated 40,000 satellite terminals that had been smuggled into Iran (most probably by western NGOs).
Western Intelligence services believed that Starlink was impossible to jam – hence its primary position in the Regime Change toolbox.
The Starlink cut off turned the tables. The riots vanished. And the State rebounded. There have been no defections from the army, the IRGC or Basij. The State remains intact and its defences augmented.
So what is next? What can Trump do? His mooted intervention was predicated on the narrative that the ‘régime was slaughtering the people’, amidst “rivers of blood”. That did not happen. Instead, there have been massive demonstrations of support for the Republic.
Well, Michael Wolff has been calling his White House sources again — “So, I went back to the people I speak to in the White House, to revisit this”.
Wolff relates, the notion of a new round of strikes on Iran seemed to his interlocutors to have taken root in late summer, early autumn. The start point was that Trump remains “delighted” by how his June strike on the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities had worked out: “It played; it really played”, Trump repeats.
But by Autumn, Trump had started to acknowledge that he faced a tough fight in the Midterm elections. He was beginning to say, “if we lose [the House], we could be finished; finished; finished”. And Trump would go on – with some almost self-awareness – Wolff says, to cite the problems ‘they’ are having, which are [lack of of] “jobs, the Epstein s—t and these ICE videos everybody is crying over”. Trump in these conversations implies that the Republicans could even lose the Senate, in which case, “I’m back in Court, which won’t be pretty”.
The day before he attacked the enrichment facilities in June 2025, Trump — in an insight into his mode of thinking in calls to his buddies — was constantly repeating: ‘If we do this, it needs to be perfect. It needs to be a ‘win’. It has to look perfect. Nobody dies’.
Trump kept saying to interlocutors: “We go ‘in-boom-out’: Big Day. We want a big day. We want [wait for it, Wolff says] a perfect war”. And then, out of the blue, after the June attack, Trump announced a ceasefire, which Wolff suggests was ‘Trump concluding his perfect war’.
The extreme violence used by rioters against Iranian police and security officials (up to the peak on 9 January 2026); the burning of banks; buses, libraries and the sacking of mosques, most likely was devised by western Intelligence services to show a crumbling, decomposing state that, in its death agony, was killing its own people.
This likely — in coordination with Israel — was being presented to Trump as the ‘perfect’ lead-in to a ‘Venezuela-type scenario’: We go for decapitation, ‘in-boom-out’’.
Trump this week told his advisers (for the second time), Wolff reports, that he wants a “standout thing; a whole big deal – all headlines. It has to ‘play’ well”. Despite the riots having been dissipated, he still insists on a guarantee from his team of ‘victory’ in any action taken.
But where is the ‘in-boom-out’ scenario to be found? The riots have ceased. After the 12 June 2025 strike and the Maduro kidnapping, Tehran is all too well aware of Washington’s obsession with decapitation.
So what can Trump do? Bomb Iranian institutional buildings like the IRCG headquarters? Iran almost certainly will respond. It has threatened to respond by striking U.S. bases across the region. In such a situation, a Trump-authorised attack may not have the look of a ‘big deal win’ at all.
Maybe Trump will stay with a smaller ‘win’: “We have a big stick”, he continues to say.“Nobody knows if I’ll use it. We’re freaking everybody out!”.
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