‘AND so here we are in week three of a new war – with not only India and China but also at least two European countries (France and Italy) frantically dialling the Deputy Assistant Under-Ayatollah in whatever ICU he’s weekending in order to secure Iran’s consent to their safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So the principal consequence of the first phase of this war is that Iran has leverage in Europe, Asia and beyond that it didn’t have a month ago.’
Thus ended Mark Steyn’s latest dose of pessimism on the US-Israeli war against Iran. Not because he is unpatriotic but because he seems to have as much faith in the Pentagon as we have in our Ministry of Defence. Depressing, since the rest of the traitorous West is already providing too much comfort to the murderous revolutionary guard theocracy of Iran.
Right now, Steyn says ‘Tehran thinks it can run out the clock’. But that may be to misjudge the combination of interests in Iran’s defeat. Jonathan Sacerdoti is more upbeat in the iPaper article headed, ‘It may not look like it, but Trump has a grand strategy – and it might be working‘.
He writes: ‘Many have missed just how the war unfolding between the United States, Israel and Iran is not merely a Middle Eastern conflict, but part of a much wider contest over power, ideology and the future balance of the international system. But Operation Epic Fury could have as big an effect on China, Europe and the future of Western civilisation as it will on the Middle East itself.’
I can pat myself on the back for not missing it completely. The proof is here! In reply to one of the below-the-line comments on my review of my TCW week (linked above), I wrote: ‘My fear is that it has been left late in the day while talks were extended that were getting nowhere and while Iran was building up its arsenal from China and Korea and US hadn’t yet succeeded in wiping out its nuclear capacity . . . China is a loser in this war (and hopefully the belt and road project) and that is a good thing . . . Whether that was part of Trump’s strategy, as it clearly was with Venezuela, who knows?’
Just one day later it was not just Sacerdoti spelling out this strategy, but Gordon C Chang making a similar case for the Gatestone Institute. I am not taking credit of course! Gordon’s was the first of the two pieces I read. Under the heading, Trump’s Iran War Ending Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’, Chang writes that Xi, China’s leader, had supreme confidence that China would dominate the rest of the century and it was shared by many in Washington who accepted the narrative of America’s managed decline. Not however, he says, by President Donald Trump, evidenced in his spectacular move that ‘extracted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife from Caracas on January 3 and (who) is now in the process of taking down Iran’s theocracy’.
His article, which focuses on the crisis in Chinese politics and Xi’s precarious position, ends with a confident assertion that ‘Xi’s grandiose visions of Chinese supremacy eclipsing US dominance now look increasingly empty’. It is well worth reading in full.
Sacerdoti begins from a similar premise, noting also that in the ‘just over two weeks since the United States and Israel launched their joint war against Iran, critics in parts of the media and political commentariat insist that Trump has no strategy at all’.
He writes: ‘They argue variously that he has been blindsided by a sophisticated and resilient Iranian regime which has outsmarted him, that he acted rashly, or that he launched a war without any coherent plan for how to prosecute it or bring it to an end. At the same time, others claim the opposite: that he hesitated too long, amassing forces in the region for weeks without acting, only then being forced to strike for fear of projecting weakness by withdrawing.’
They accuse him of ‘pursuing grandiose and unrealistic goals while also being vague and sheepish about his objectives. He is denounced for American bullying and cultural supremacy, yet in the same breath, he is accused of being dragged unwillingly into the war by Israel’.
The reality, Sacerdoti writes, is far less theatrical. ‘Trump is nobody’s fool,’ he wrote. ‘Tiny Israel, however formidable, cannot trick or blindside the United States into fighting wars against its own interests. Nor did hubris lure it into a path of suicide or self-harm. A US President who won power with promises of peace does not accidentally stumble his way into a far-off military engagement without the prospect of strategic gain.
‘The more plausible explanation is that two reliable allies reached a moment when their interests, abilities and mutual understanding aligned almost perfectly. When that happens, coordination becomes not only possible but logical . . .’
Sacerdoti goes on to argue that the war with Iran ‘has the potential not just to redraw the landscape of the Middle East but also to reset the balance of power globally’.
The alignment of those with interests in a Trump victory extends beyond Israel to most of the rest of the Middle East: ‘The Gulf states that quietly fear Iranian hegemony have found themselves aligning, at least for now, with Washington’s campaign after Iran lashed out at them in response to the war,’ he wrote.
The strategic objectives of the United States, which so many doubt, are clear: it ‘weakens a persistent adversary that has challenged its influence and threatened global trade routes for decades’. As well of course to de-nuclearise it. (Anyone who thinks that Iran has not been in Trump’s crosshairs for years should read this article by Lee Smith.)
Sacerdoti does not forget the Iranians themselves, who ‘gain a unique opportunity to overthrow a brutal theocratic regime that has killed many thousands of protesters and crushed dissent’.
He goes on to set out in detail the Iran-China axis starting with energy partnerships, technology transfers and military cooperation that have all deepened over the past decade. More, or as significant, is that ‘Iran offers China a useful strategic partner positioned near some of the world’s most important maritime choke points’.
Sacerdoti writes that even a limited ability to disrupt them has global economic consequences. That for me is exactly why Iran must not be allowed this stranglehold. Only the left-wing, progressive Islamic-appeasing governments in the West fail to see where their real interests lie!
Does Keir Starmer not care, along with those social media keyboard warriors I mentioned on Sunday, if China and Iran secure their leverage over critical arteries of global trade? This is about far more than freedom of navigation. Sacerdoti argues that China, Iran’s economic lifeline, gives Tehran a way to survive Western sanctions while offering China a strategic foothold near some of the most important energy routes on earth.
And finally on Trump. Sacerdoti is right. He is no fool. Obfuscation is part of his method: ‘By refusing to signpost his intentions too clearly, he preserves operational flexibility, keeping adversaries and sometimes even allies guessing what he will do, when he’ll do it, and why. His critics reveal more about their own strategic illiteracy than his.’
Amen to that.
Jonathan Sacerdoti’s article published in the iPaper is well worth reading in full.
