Iran's Calculus: The West Will Only Get Weaker Over Time

The calculus for China, Russia and Iran is that the West is in long-term decline so they win by not being dragged into a possibly disastrous conflict. Russia was forced into a war with the proxy Ukraine due to the impending invasion of the Donbass by the Ukrainian army (presaged by an intensifying artillery barrage and concentration of Ukrainian forces opposite the Donbass), but it had gained eight years in which to strengthen its ability to withstand the inevitable Western attempts to destroy it economically and financially. China has skilfully stayed out of a conflict over Taiwan while its strength builds and that of the US (and its Western vassals) declines.

Iran is in the same position with respect to its deepening alliances with both China and Russia, and its developing position as a major transport hub between east and west, and north and south. In the week before the Israeli aggression, the first train had run on the line connecting China and Iran. Work also continues on the north-south transportation corridor between Russia and Iran. The previous withdrawal of the West from Afghanistan greatly reduced the threat to Iran along its eastern border.

The West was caught in a colossal miscalculation in believing that a regime change in Iran could be triggered by their surprise attack that had been jointly planned (the US and UK fingerprints are all over it) for perhaps a year or more. Instead, as with Russia, war has greatly strengthened the regime. The Supreme Leader is more popular than ever, the people of Iran more behind their government than ever, and the liberal willing vassal fifth column isolated. The government will now be able to fix the shortcomings exposed by the Western surprise attack, and be able to root out the fifth columnists in its midst; a significant proportion of the Western intelligence agencies’ terrorist cells have already been exposed and shut down.

The Trump administration showed the economic and financial limitations placed upon it by the deep levels of both government and private indebtedness, the sclerotic and inefficient nature of its monopolistic, corrupt and rentier corporate sector, and the financial precariousness of the vast majority of the US population. It could not risk the escalation in oil and gas prices that would result from a wider war with Iran, which would also greatly damage its vassals while greatly strengthening Russia; while China would ride out any such oil shock in much better shape. So it carried out a meaningless strike upon Iran and has now “declared victory and gone home”; while not taking action against the Chinese purchases of Iranian oil. At the same time what was left of US soft power outside the West has been shredded, and its legitimacy even in the West undermined, while Iran has gained greatly through its strong but measured responses.

This is not Iraq in the 1990s, a much smaller, more exposed and internationally isolated country already weakened by eight years of war against Iran and low oil prices; further weakened by the extensive sanctions following the First Gulf War. At a time when the US was at its zenith of power, China was still a poor nation and Russia was experiencing the massive decline of the 1990s. Iran, and BRINCISTAN (Belarus, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, Iraq, and the Central Asian “Stans”), will only get stronger over time while the US and its Western vassals become weaker. Will the “cease fire” be a messy one given the Zionist regime’s lack of respect for any agreement? Yes, but it gains more time for Iran as the Zionist regime weakens along with its Western big brothers.

The reality of missiles raining down on them rather than the hapless Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians has been an existential shock to the worldview of most especially the liberal Zionists of Israel. The state can no longer guarantee the Brooklyn-On-The-Mediterranean project, where the messiness of the ethnic cleansing and genocide happen somewhere else out of sight and out of mind. While the liberal Zionists enjoy their high standard of living (heavily subsidized by the West), life in a big city like Tel Aviv, and the beaches of the Mediterranean. Domestically, they have already been confronted by the increasing power of the Haredi and Mizrahi to create a fundamentalist religious supremacist society that will not have any tolerance for their liberal values. A Zionist-ISIS-On-The-Mediterranean rather than a Brooklyn. This has already lead to a near civil war in the country between the liberals and the fundamentalists. And now the peace of “Brooklyn” has been shattered by the very obvious inability of the Israeli air defences to keep out Iranian missiles and even drones; an “Iron Sieve” rather than an “Iron Dome”. Such realities will not only affect the liberal Zionists but also the corporate planning processes that decide where corporations locate their activities; to the great disadvantage of Israel.

With the outgoing flights from Israel now being restored, we should not be surprised to see an ongoing emigration of the liberal Zionists back to their real homelands which are predominantly in Europe, North America and Russia. Together with an outflow of corporate offices and investments. Israel is now in a process of ongoing weakening, while its big brothers decline in stature with respect to BRINCISTAN and the wider loose coalition of nations that is growing around it. Less than ten years from now the geopolitical world will be a very different place, and Iran will stand stronger within it. Israel may be a shadow of its current self, even cast aside by a growing majority of the US Jewish population and further losing support as the US Christian Zionist population declines.