Trump will be extremely wary of getting into a shooting war with Iran. Trump knows only too well that a war with Iran will have regional ramifications and can hurt his presidency. His game plan through this year and the next will be to ensure that his “maximum pressure” strategy deters Iran from causing any serious political embarrassment during his campaign in 2020.
Trump provocatively pledged to keep US troops in Iraq. The President said in a recent interview with CBS that “…I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch. We have an unbelievable and expensive military base built in Iraq. It’s perfectly […]
If the ‘Newton Effect’ in physics has an equivalent in international diplomacy, we can describe what is happening to India-Iran relations as the ‘Gadkari Effect’. Like in the case of the 18th century English scientist Isaac Newton’s optical property of physics, the minister in the Indian government Nitin Gadkari – […]
The confrontation which recently occurred in Lattakia may result in a complete global redistribution of the cards. Now we have to find out whether President Trump, currently in the middle of his election campaign, is capable of supporting his Russian counterpart, in order that the United States and Russia may sanction the colonial powers as they did in 1956, during the Suez crisis.
Iraq has intimate socio-economic and energy links with Iran that are impossible to sever without dealing disastrous damage to the country, though the US is nevertheless trying to pressure it into complying with its sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Trump and his allies are trying to push Iran into a corner and provoke it to lash out at US forces that are poised around it. A navel clash in the Gulf is the obvious pretext for war.
The world’s silence on Israel’s desire to see the Iranian government “disappear entirely from this world” is proof of the double standards inherent in International Relations when most of the same actors felt compelled to condemn Iran for wishing that the Israeli government would “vanish from the pages of time”, which essentially means the exact same thing.
Direct western intervention in a major ground campaign seems unlikely. But the US and Israeli war plan would aim to totally destroy Iran’s infrastructure, communications and transport (including oil) crippling this important nation of 80 million and taking it back to the pre-revolutionary era.
Khamenei’s speech makes it clear that in the pursuit of national interest, Iran will have to navigate its path on its own steam, as has been the case during its past 4-decade old history. The diplomacy will be supple but purposive (“wise and oriented”).
Trust Russian diplomacy to work on an approach that somehow connects the various dots in the jigsaw puzzle – Iran nuclear deal, sanctions against Iran, Syrian conflict, Israel-Iran tensions, US-Iran standoff, energy security and so on. The point is, Russia is uniquely placed – on talking terms with both the US and Israel on one side and Iran and Syria on the other side.
Clumsily attempting to manage a multinational war effect at the spur of the moment after an unexpected outbreak of hostilities might even hold the US back from its full potential, with it being much more effective just “going it alone” with its massive military instead of wasting time trying to get insignificant countries to jump on board with it.
Europe cannot cave in to US pressure, but it cannot realistically break ties with Washington when rejecting it, much less lay a claim to the mantle of global leadership. Europe simply wants more independence, which is already asking a lot, given the current state of world affairs. To achieve this, Europe needs to develop a more favorable balance of forces and interests.
The Peace Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and its Consequences for International Relations
The Betrayal Of Brexit Is A Mix Of Social Engineering And Mock Elections
Who Orchestrated The Breakup Of Yugoslavia And How?
West Destroying The Orthodox Church As An Obstacle To Its Expansion
An ISIS fighter: ‘I was forbidden at the Gates of Heaven…’ (163,089)
Grandmaster Putin’s Trap (47,069)
A New Twist in the Investigation into Flight MH17 (39,372)
The Peace Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and its Consequences for International Relations (32,202)
Pakistan’s Asymmetrical Response To Trump Is A Clever Way To Flip The Tables On Afghanistan (28,612)
Andrew KORYBKO 
Vladislav SOTIROVIC 
M. K. BHADRAKUMAR 
Eric MARGOLIS 
Nikolay STARIKOV 
Vladimir KOZIN 
Thierry MEYSSAN 
Gulam ASGAR MITHA 
Fr. Lawrence FARLEY 
Binoy KAMPMARK 
Fr. Stephen FREEMAN 
Michael AVERKO 
Nafeez AHMED 
Leonid SAVIN 
Peter CHAMBERLIN 
Iqbal ALIMOHAMED 
Fr. Andrey TKACHEV 
Nauman SADIQ 
Adam GARRIE 
Rick STERLING
Comments