Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: Iran Page 1 of 2

Israel’s Gunning To Lose US Support

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On April 6, 2024

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When you lose Nancy Pelosi:

Israel went too far. Dems love celebrities and the NGO workers they killed were essentially Democratic party affiliated.

Then there was the attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus. A blatant violating of centuries old immunity of embassies. This is so bad that…

Through a series of messages exchanged via third parties, the United States and Iran have come to an understanding. Iran assured the Americans it will not target U.S. facilities, and in turn the U.S. says it will not get involved if Iran retaliates against Israel. Israel carried out the attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, without consulting the United States.

We’ll see if the walk gets walked, but this looks bad for Israel. To be fair, Israel once sunk a US warship and got away with it, so I suppose they can be forgiven for thinking there’s nothing the US won’t swallow, but they appear to have misacalculated.

As for Iran, the news is that they will retaliate, and that they will do it directly, not thru proxies. Israelis are paralzyed with fear: GPS has been jammed for days, and store shelves are bare as Israelis stock up.

This is a bad situation. If Iran hits too hard, Israel will hit Iran. If they do that, Iran will retaliate again.

Can you say “escalation spiral?”

And if war breaks out, well Hezbollah and Syria will likely join in. Once that happens, no matter how pissed the US is at Israel, well, they may feel they must intervene. Why? Well…

Nuff said.

Let’s hope this isn’t the start of WWIII, because China and Russia are not likely to let Iran be taken out by the US, and if Iran starts winning conventionally against Israel (and if the US doesn’t intervene, that’s where my money is), well the Israelis have always claimed to be trigger happy with their nukes.

All because some Zionists wanted to steal land and have now decided to commit a genocide.

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Iran’s Likely Response To The Attack On Their Embassy

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On April 3, 2024

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So, in violation of red letter international law and norms, the Israelis bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus. This is a literal causus belli as a consulate is the land of the nation occupying it.

What will the consequences be?

Well, the best take I’ve seen is this, from Elijah J. Manjier (part behind a subscriber wall):

the 2020 assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani was a pivotal moment, marking a significant escalation in the conflict. Before his death, Yemen’s arsenal was relatively limited, lacking medium and long-range surface-to-surface precision missiles, advanced drone technology, accurate hypersonic missiles and long-range capabilities. However, under the leadership of Major General Ismail Qaani, Soleimani’s successor, the Al-Maqtumah axis has acquired a wide range of advanced long-range missile systems in significant quantities. These improvements have significantly enhanced Ansar Allah’s military capabilities in Yemen and imposed new limits on the freedom of action of the US and British navies, as well as Israel, within the constraints set by Hezbollah – a key player in initiating the conflict in support of Gaza.

The targeted assassination of Hezbollah Shura member Iranian Major General Abu Mahdi Zahedi raises questions about his replacement and the possible development of Hezbollah’s military capabilities under new leadership. The future of Hezbollah’s arsenal and strategic posture remains a subject of speculation, with the arrival of a new leader likely to increase the capabilities and intensity of the conflict.

In other words, give Hezbollah (and, I would suggest, Iraqi militias) more advanced weapons and let them use them. Syrian/Iraqi militias firing on Israeli bound ships would expand the Israeli blockade significantly, wouldn’t it?

The point, of course, is that assassinating Soleimani led directly to the current humiliation of the US by Yemen, and the blockade against Israeli ships in the Red seas.

Poking the lion, just like poking the bear, has consequences.

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China Leads A Successful Middle East Summit

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On March 16, 2023

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Something which has slipped past most people’s radar is that China recently acted as the intermediary for peace talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The two countries have been at each other’s throats for decades, funding and running operations and proxies against each other. Elijah Manjier has a decent summary (part is behind a subscriber wall) from a pro-Iranian point of view.

It’s also interesting that in this conference no English was used!

Now it’s obvious why the US couldn’t be involved: it hates Iran and doesn’t intend to change that any time soon. But that China was reached out to indicates that it has good relationships with Iran and Saudi Arabia and that it’s considered powerful and prestigious enough to be involved a region far from its core.

On the Saudi side this shows the continued movement away from being a US ally. It suggests continued movement towards China, and that the petro-dollar really is under significant threat.

For Iran, it suggests that the days of the US being able to coordinate sanctions over it are likely numbered. If the Sauds break out of the US bloc, one can expect the Gulf States to follow if Iran is also in the Chinese bloc: these are the regional and cultural great powers. As Chinese/Russian payments expand and with petrochemicals priced in Yuan or Rubles, and with the most important Middle Eastern powers friendly to China, the US is reduced to its core allies. These are important countries, no doubt—Europe, Japan, South Korean, Taiwan and so on, but it is a minority of the world and is filled with countries terrified of US sanctions, looking for a way out under the potential hammerlock.

I don’t want to over-state how important this mediation by China was, but it was important and it’s one of those milestone moments. It wasn’t the US or Europe who the Sauds and Iranians went to, and just as importantly, they didn’t feel they needed US approval. Saudi Arabia using China, whom the US has declared an enemy, to move towards peace with a country the US has been hostile to for about 45 years is an earthquake.

Whether the peace will really happen is more dubious, but if movement, even hesitant 2 steps forward, one step backwards movement continues, it will be worthwhile. I am most interested to see if this will mean some sort of peace can be worked out in Yemen, or if it means the Iranians will abandon the Houthis, which would be sad.

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Iran Isn’t Going to Let Itself Be Kicked to Death Without Fighting Back

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On January 7, 2020

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As expected, and very cleanly and clearly. No attempt to obfuscate:

At least two airbases housing US troops in Iraq have been hit by more than a dozen ballistic missiles, according to the US Department of Defence.

Iranian state TV says the attack is a retaliation after the country’s top commander Qasem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Baghdad, on the orders of US President Donald Trump.

As I noted when Iran general (and war hero) Qasem Soleimani was assassinated, Iran pretty much had to retaliate.

Soleimani was effectively the most powerful General in Iran. Think of him as a combination of Eisenhower and someone who fought on the front lines: to Iranians, a genuine hero. The man who actually was most responsible for defeating ISIS, among other things.

You could regard him as the second most important man in Iraq.

If the US could kill him without consequences, no one in Iran’s leadership was safe, except possibly Khameini (the Supreme Leader) and maybe not even him.

Retaliating is a matter of personal survival for Iran’s leadership. Personal.

But Soleimani was also tremendously popular. So, as often happens when attacked by outsiders, even Iranians who dislike the Iranian regime have rallied around. (Americans may remember something similar after 9/11.)

I note that Iran has retaliated by hitting military targets. Which is to say: The US killed someone in their military, they have retaliated by attacking the US military. I would say that this is legitimate.

Only bullies think that their victims are obligated to sit still while being hit and not punch back. Oh, and a lot of Americans.

Trump threatened that if Iran retaliated he would hit multiple targets, including cultural ones. Iran has said that if he does so they will escalate, including hitting Israel and Dubai.

What they are trying to indicate is that they are not going to be Iraq. It isn’t going to be some nice clean war where the victim sits still while bombed to shit by US forces and only a few American soldiers die, which no one actually cares about who matters. (No, no, don’t pretend that American leaders actually care about American casualties, their actions indicate they do not and you’ll look like an idiot and a fool.)

Remember that Iran is an ally of both Russia and China. China needs Iran in order to complete its Belt and Road Initiative (the centerpiece of both their economic and alliance strategy and Xi Jinping’s signature policy, upon which his legacy rests). Russia is run by Putin, who has made not allowing the US to destroy any more Russian allies the centerpiece of his foreign policy. It’s why he went into Syria, and it’s why he hates Hilary Clinton so much, as he regarded her as the prime US actor in destroying Libya.

So this war has a real chance of serious escalation. Iraq was isolated and had no friends. Iran is somewhat isolated, yes, but it does have powerful friends who believe it is in their self-interest to keep Iran from being blown into failed state status by the US.

Again, the logic here is the same as Iran’s as regards escalation: If Russia (and China) let the US take out their allies whenever the US wants, then what is to stop the US from just doing that until these countries have no allies left?

This is a dangerous moment, and the US is not in the right here. The US unilaterally caused this problem by assassinating a senior government official. All the whinging on about how Soleimani has been involved in Iranian proxy attacks on the US is ludicrous: The official US policy is to fund and aid terrorists attacking Iran (look it up.) US officials, certainly including every President since Bush, have made decisions leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and other countries’ military personnel.

This is realpolitik, not some morality play. There are no good guys here, there are just people who are acting on orders or in what they think are the interests of their country. (Or, in Trump’s case, his own interests.)

The correct action right now is to not escalate again. Escalation will lead to a lot of dead people, for no gain for either Iran or the US.

Note that I despise Iran’s regime. I am a left-winger who believes in the equality of men and women, kindness and universal humanity, not in theocratic government. If Iran’s government were to fall tomorrow, I’d be OK with that.

But that’s internal Iranian business. It’s not America’s business to start a war with Iran. It will not make anything better, any more than attacking Iraq did, or attacking Libya (which now has its famous open air slave markets).

It should also be noted that, if the war happens, the Europeans are going to get slammed with another bunch of refugees. Perhaps they should pre-empt this by sending some troops to Tehran, so that if Trump attacks, he has to kill Germans and French.

Kidding, kidding. I know that the EU has no actual morals and not enough guts to do this. But, y’know, in an alternate universe where they actually had the bravery to stand up to the US either in their own interests, or in something approaching a desire to do the right thing…

We’ll see how this plays out.

But remember, Iran isn’t planning on sitting still and taking it. This isn’t going to be Iraq of Afghanistan. If this turns into a real war, they will hit back with everything they have, rather than hoping that if they just lie there and let the US kick them, the US will stop before kicking them to death.

And China and (especially) Russia don’t want them kicked to death.

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Is Trump Trying to Start a War with Iran?

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On January 2, 2020

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Qasem Soleimani

And maybe with Iraq, too.

Trump has had the second most powerful man in Iraq, the leader of the Qods force, Qasem Soleimani, killed. This is like someone assassinating the Joint Chief of Staff combined with the Leader of the House.

Qasem Soleimani was also very close to Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader–a personal friend.

On top of this, US forces in Iraq have arrested the leaders of two of Iraq’s most important militias.

These are, well, acts of war. Iranian sources are saying that there will be retaliation, no question.

Iran has far more power and influence than the US in Iraq, if a real war starts, it is very likely that it will be the US against Iran, Iraq,, and possibly Syria.

Iran and Syria are, effectively, allies of Russia.

Iran, like everyone else who fears the US and has enough resources, has spent the last 20 years preparing specifically for war with the US. They have built a fearsome missile force, designed to hit US ships and bases, and to be too large to shoot down and stop. They have stated that, in war, they will shut down the Gulf, meaning that oil prices around the world will soar, likely causing a financial crisis and severe recession–possibly a depression.

Putin is determined, moreover, to not allow the US to destroy any more Russian allies. One of his huge regrets was allowing Libya to be destroyed. He will want to keep Iran from being defeated.

The funny thing about this is that killing and arresting leaders will make far less difference than the US imagines: In organizations where everyone believes in the mission (like militias and Qods), those leaders will just be replaced. The person who replaces them will be competent, and will want revenge. The US always overestimates the importance of leaders, because a US leader’s job is to get people to do things they don’t really believe are worth doing.

This is an amazing clusterfuck. The Iranians are in a bind: If they do not launch some sort of savage reprisal, then the message is clear, the US can kill any Iranian they want–if they can kill the second most powerful man in Iran, who’s off the table?

Iraqi militias and the government face a similar quandry: If they do nothing, it is clear their independence is a complete sham, and they are still ruled by America.

On the other hand, if they escalate at a symmetrical level, they will have to do so much damage that the US will rally around Trump and scream for Trump to strike them again–and even harder. Various American Rambo-patriots are already flexing their muscles and making threats.

It isn’t hard to see how that could quickly lead to war, but the other option for both Iran and Iraq is essentially to lick the boots that just kicked them.

Fun stuff.

If Trump doesn’t walk this back, hard, there may well be the most serious war in decades. At the far end, though I think it’s unlikely, it certainly isn’t impossible for this to escalate into a war involving both Russia and the US, on opposite sides.

This is a profoundly dangerous moment. Don’t underestimate just how badly this could turn out.

(And remember that Obama normalized this idea, seeded by, Bush Jr., that the US had the right to kill foreigners anytime, anywhere, subject only to the President’s discretion. Not only an evil idea, but a profoundly dangerous one. The US’s entire drone assassination program needs to be shut down, now and permanently.)

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Khameini’s Three Directives for Iran

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On July 22, 2019

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From the useful Elija Mangnier,

1 – Adherence to Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment and everything related to this science at all costs. Nuclear enrichment is a sword Iran can hold in the face of the West, which wants to take it from Tehran. It is Iran’s card to obstruct any US intention of “obliterating” Iran.

2 – Continue to develop Iran’s missile capability and ballistic programs. This is Iran’s deterrent weapon that prevents its enemies from waging war against it. Sayyed Ali Khamenei considers the missile program a balancing power to prevent harm against Iran.

3 – Support Iran’s allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and never abandon them, because they are essential to Iran’s national security.

Now, basically, this is an extended riff on the sad joke that Hussein’s Iraq and Gaddafi’s Libya were destroyed after they were disarmed. Libya’s case is particularly sad: Gaddafi disarmed in exchange for safety and inclusion, and instead was attacked.

Everyone with sense knows this: You can’t disarm in the face of the US or its core Western allies, France and England. All three nations are rabid dogs who believe that, though they have the right to invade or fuck up other nations (the psychology behind this is beyond messy), no one has the right to harm them.

(And yeah, France is bad. Almost certainly worse than Britain at this point in its constant interference, especially anywhere they had colonial interests. The French know they are special and civilized, and that other nations need their bayonets.)

Other nations which completely can’t be trusted include Israel and Saudi Arabia, both key American allies.

All these countries, having been sheltered under the superpower’s skirts since the end of the Cold War, feel entitled to fuck up nations which are out of favor with the big bully, the US.

The dynamic, while messy, isn’t very complicated.

As for the Iranian situation, with the seizure of tankers, and the “maximal” sanctions, and with Europe doing basically nothing to help rescue the nuclear deal, I have to say the prospects for this spiralling out of control are high.

I don’t think that Trump wants war. He wants Iran to disarm, then another President will take them out (or their local enemies).

But Iran isn’t going to do that, and the sanctions are so harmful that they amount to war by other means. And as Trump’s administration ratchets up the pressure, and Iran responds, it won’t take much for it turn to hot war. All it will take is one mistake, one miscalculation and Trump deciding he needs to act tough.

The entire situation is very tiring and very stupid. This mess in the Middle East isn’t the US’s problem, everyone is willing to sell them oil (and the US is the world’s largest producer now anyway, thanks to Obama), and they have very few actual strategic interests which are served by meddling.

Even the argument that they must be there to keep the oil flowing is obvious BS, since their meddling is increasing the probability of a huge disruption, and over the past 30 years sanctions and war have tended to reduce oil supplies rather than increase them. (Some will argue that’s been the point. But reducing oil supplies is not in the US’s national interest even if some Americans want it.)

Go home, Yankee. You aren’t needed in the Middle East.

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Why Would Iran Attack Tankers?

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On June 19, 2019

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Well, if it did.

Let me tell a story, possibly apocryphal. Back in the 1970s, the Russian (USSR) ambassador supposedly had a talk with the Pakistani leader of the day. This is what he is reputed to have said.

” I do not know who will be in charge in Moscow in ten, twenty, or even 50 years. But what I do know is that whoever is there will want the same things then, that we do today. You can trust us, not because we pretend we are your friends, but because we are consistent.

Anyway, remember, that we’ll come back to it.

In the meantime, on June 13th there were reports that two tankers had been sunk in the Gulf. Claims were made they were sunk by Iran.

I shrugged. Important people want war between Iran and the United States, and in such a situation it’s hard to know what’s true and what’s not. I moved on with my day.

(I am fundraising to determine how much I’ll write this year. If you value my writing and want more of it, please consider donating.)

But yesterday I discovered an interesting fact. Before the two tankers were sunk, something else happened:

On June 5, 2019, a huge fire consumed a storage facility for oil products at the Shahid Rajaee port in the southern Hormozgan Province. Located west of Bandar Abbas, the Shahid Rajaee port is Iran’s largest container shipping port. Reportedly, a vehicle used for transporting shipping containers exploded and caught fire. Since there were oil products near the site of the explosion, the blaze spread quickly to several tanks and storage sites and caused heavy damage to the port. The spreading fire set off huge explosions which shot fireballs and heavy smoke high into the air.

On June 7, 2019, six Iranian merchant ships were set ablaze almost simultaneously in two Persian Gulf ports.

First, five ships “caught fire” in the port of Nakhl Taghi in the Asaluyeh region of the Bushehr Province. Three of these ships were completely burned and the two others suffered major damage. Several port workers and sailors were injured. As well, at least one cargo ship burst into flames and burned completely at the port of Bualhir, near Delvar. The fire was attributed to “incendiary devices” of “unknown origin.” The local authorities in the Bushehr Province called the fires a “suspicious event” and went no further.

Oh hey.

So, assuming the Iranians did attack the ships, they were retaliating.

Iran has long said that if they can’t get their oil to customers, no one will get oil to customers through the Gulf.

Yeah.

But this has bigger consequences. The real problem is simpler: The US made a deal with the Iranians, under Obama, then repudiated it when the President changed.

The US has arrogated to itself the right to impose sanctions on anyone it wants, for any reason, with no recourse by the victim. It is using this “right” in an attempt to remove Iran’s government.

The US cannot be trusted. Every few years, it changes. You can’t make a deal and be sure it will be honored for any length of time, let alone 10, 20, or 50 years.

Americans who squeal about Trump being an aberration both miss the point (your system allowed him) and are wrong: Bush attacked Iraq based on lies, and everyone knows it. Hilary Clinton promised the Russians that Qaddafi would not be removed, then removed him and gloated about him being killed after being raped by a knife.

The US can’t be trusted.

So the larger consequence is that a coalition of countries, including multiple oil producers, China and Russia are moving to sell and buy oil in a bundle of currencies which does not include the US dollar, and where no payments go through the payment system which the US can control (systems like SWIFT, to slightly oversimplify).

Dollar hegemony is one of the main supports of American hegemony. Misuse of dollar hegemony to attack other countries has brought us to this point.

I’ve been a bit of a broken record on this issue, but that’s because it’s been the obvious consequence of the US Treasury’s misuse of its powers.

Other great powers and their allies can put up with a cruel, even an evil, hegemon. What they will not put up with is a capricious one whom they cannot predict.

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Who Do You Want to Win an Iranian/American War?

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On May 9, 2019

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Yeah, so let’s say it does happen. Who do you want to win?

I’ll lay my cards on the table. I don’t like the Iranian government. Their policies, generally speaking, are abominable to me. I believe in full equality between the sexes, don’t believe in religious states, and so on. Ideologically, these people are my enemies.

But the fact of the matter here is that it’s the US that has far more responsibility for starting a war here. Iran has not attacked the US. There is no legitimate case for war. The US tolerates far worse regimes if they are its allies (Hello Saudi Arabia!), so they aren’t doing it because they care about the Iranian population.

Even if the US did care, well, any war they wage will make the population far worse off, as it did in Iraq and Libya.

The US is by far and away the bad actor here. So, yeah, I hope it loses any war it starts. That’s unlikely, of course, but the next best outcome, that it further overstrains the US, and leads to its continued economic and political weakening, eventually leading to an outright collapse, is not.

The US is the world’s foremost rogue state. Russia doesn’t come close, despite all the squealing. The US attacks other countries all the time, constantly assassinates people, and imposes massive crippling sanctions for bogus reasons, which kill millions.

The US is evil.

So long as it is evil, it needs to either stop being evil, or lose its power.

Sooner rather than later.

The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

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