The Iran-Israel conflict in the light of regional and global geopolitical antagonisms

The Iran-Israel conflict in the light of regional and global geopolitical antagonisms

In this paper we present an approach to the current crisis in the light of regional and global power shifts. The game of “tit for tat”, of power, escalation, retaliation, propaganda, disinformation, more or less painful strikes that Israel and Iran are engaged in continues and everyone, enemies and friends alike (?) are waiting to see how it will end so that they can ... take advantage of any power vacuum created. In this calculating and ruthless game are directly and indirectly involved regional antagonists of the two parties involved and Major Powers of the two Global geopolitical blocs that reinforce and protect each one their regional ally. Namely Turkey and the Gulf Kingdoms, the main regional competitors of Israel and Iran on the one hand and the two now formed geopolitical blocs that are more or less covertly clashing for world domination with the ambition to define and control the New Multipolar (?) World Order: namely the Euro-Asian one under China and Russia and the Western one under the hegemony of the USA. Turkey, given its revisionist regional and global ambitions, is preparing to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself. It aspires to present itself as the hegemonic Muslim power regionally and globally at the expense of Iran and the Gulf Arab kingdoms, the only power that can defend the Ummah of Islam. In particular, a significant weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon may give Turkey the opportunity to project power in Lebanon, filling the gap of the Shiite organization with a possible dividing line (as a natural border) the Litani River in Lebanon where the northern part will be under its influence and perhaps gain a "border" with Israel and access from Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea and its wealth. It has therefore pushed forward anti-aircraft systems and radar along with the necessary logistics and transport facilities awaiting developments on the occupied ground of Northern Syria and the green light from President Assad, Russia, possibly the US and the Lebanese political leadership (also ensuring against a possible resumption of civil war). Turkey's advantage is its industrial infrastructure and its significant war industry and technology, unique in the Muslim world. It is also developing a high-profile, extreme, anti-Israeli rhetoric. With the power its industrial and defense base gives Turkey, it can and does exploit, by increasing its geopolitical foothold throughout the Middle East, the cultural and ethnological "remnants" (as in the Balkans, Caucasus, North Africa and the Turkic origins of Central Asian states that came to the geopolitical surface after the collapse of the former USSR) of the last Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottoman past is also the starting point for the significant inhibiting disadvantages of Turkish ambitions: Turkey's reduced credibility/trust in the Arab World due to the traumatic national experience of the Ottoman Empire's occupation of the Arabs and Turkey's organic integration into the post-war Western security system through its participation in NATO. And the Turkish revisionists, reminiscing about the era of Ottoman rule over the Arabs, like Western neo-colonialism and Israel, are committing the same mistake in this case: they underestimate the Arabs. They do not take into account that the past of the Arab Hegemony, through the vast Arab Empire/Islamic Caliphate, from the Arabian Peninsula to Iberia, gives them the "spirit" that seeks independence, but also sovereignty, "remembering" the Arab leadership and Arab "popular" soul its cultural, political, military, technological, economic superiority in the glorious past. And they may not be able to directly confront Israel at the present juncture, because of their technological inferiority and their economic and defense dependence, but they are in no way reconciled to this reality. The US has been a forced ally for the Gulf Kingdoms in the era of the unipolar moment (1989-2017) and in the period of the bipolar world between the West and the Warsaw Pact, because of the dominance of the US in the world economy, in World Trade, both as a key consumer of Kingdoms unique product, oil, and of its maritime trade routes, its extraction technology and its distribution and control system of key customer-buyers. But today, the time is strongly revisionist. Geopolitical power is now distributed among more players, key ones of which are outside the geopolitical area of the Western World. The Eurasian alliance (centered in particular on China but also Russia and a number of regional allies such as Iran, North Korea, South Africa and other countries of the African continent etc. ) that has formed against American sovereignty which through technology blockades, investment, markets, financial hegemony and military supremacy is an obstacle to their national and economic ambitions, has significantly counterbalanced Western power. There is now an alternative source of funding for economic and infrastructure development, military assistance and technology transfer. Iran is a reliable and indispensable ally of the Euro-Asian bloc: it is helping Russia considerably in the war against Ukraine. Similarly, Russia is strengthening Iran's security with critical weapons systems, information, diplomatic assistance and transfer of know-how. China also strengthens Iran which serves its revisionist ambitions by "resisting" Iran as a permanent opponent of US hegemony in the Middle East (or as the Euro-Asian geopolitical analysis that opposes the "European" worldview prefers West Asia as the term Middle East defines the region in terms of its proximity to Europe), it also buys Iranian oil, strengthening Iran's economy which the US is trying to bring to its knees and is implementing its own policy with the main axes of 1) mediation between Iran and the Gulf Kingdoms in order to normalize the "artificial" fomentation of religious and ethnic differences between two historical nations created by Great Britain first and then by the US, the Persian nation and the Arab nation and two main versions of Islam (Shiite Islam with Iran as its main centre and Sunni Islam with Arabs and I particular Saudi Arabia as its main centre - in ... to the dismay of the Turks - ) and 2) the inclusion of Iran, as a continuation of Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the southern Silk Road by strengthening partnerships in infrastructure and investment . For Russia, Iran is undoubly important. Iran's already very high geopolitical value for Russia was boosted by the eventual conclusion of the much sought-after Moscow-Baku-Tehran-Chabahar corridor (in the Iranian south port where investments are planned to deepen it to make it capable of receiving large container ships, bulk carriers, etc.). This very important agreement serves both Russia’s interests, which finds a way out to the Indian Ocean and, by extension, the Pacific Ocean, as well as Iran’s, whose geopolitical role is strengthened, gaining another "guarantee" of Russia's help in its competition with Israel. Also Turkeys interests, which, through its mediation in Azerbaijan, receives in return the Russian and probably also the Iranian consent to the creation of the Shunik (Zagezur) corridor: its road and rail link through Nakhichevan and the Armenian Shunik region connecting Turkey not only with Azerbaijan, but also with all the Turkic republics of Central Asia, realizing one of its key geopolitical ambitions of connecting Turkey (and thus influencing) with Central Asia. Accordingly: 1. the acquisition of the arsenal that Iran is using to try to change the facts in the Middle East (West Asia) is the result of the revisionist era and especially the diffusion of the missile and other necessary technology to produce such technologically advanced ballistic supersonic missiles that can deliver precision strikes to Israel at distances of more than 1200 km. It creates in the Iranian leadership, precisely because of Iran's significant and upgraded geopolitical importance and the credibility of the Euro-Asian bloc needed at the critical juncture of the final revision of the world system imposed by Western domination, the reasonable belief that it will be strengthened, if not protected, by Israel's countermeasures. The Gulf Kingdoms, conservative by nature, measure, calculate, distance themselves, and form partnerships. After all, their major customers are no longer in the West, but in East Asia and the Pacific. In the era of bipolarism and/or the "unipolar moment" that the planet went through, the Gulf Kingdoms could not directly confront Israel and the West that supported it, despite their economic power given by the petrodollar. This economic wealth was not enough to break the West's strategy of always keeping them one generation behind technologically, in relation to the weapons systems the West provided Israel. However, because of the existing and decisive "memory" of past domination (and of the petrodollar, of course), the Arabs decisively denied Western cultural imperialism, turning to their national and religious identity, often with extreme severity. They also managed to create and maintain an "underground" propaganda substrate that consumed the Western narrative (with their "subservience" to the West as an undercurrent) and denied the final solution sought by the US in the Middle East and in relation to the Palestinians by Israel. The Western arrogance and superiority "blinds" so much that this subtle strategy is not perceived, even today when, as we said before, the distribution of world power players is changing negatively for the West and Arab media have a global impact and shape international public opinion. But for the Arabs of the Gulf, the destruction of Iran no longer seems as tempting as it did in the past. In the context of the new world system (order) as promoted by the Euro-Asian bloc, they understand the importance of the Arabian Peninsula and Arab oil for China. The stabilization of Iran is likely to decisively upgrade the geopolitical importance of the Arabian Peninsula and the leader of the Gulf Kingdoms, Saudi Arabia, as the region that, by necessity, due to geography, will be the necessary corridor linking East Asia with the African continent, providing enormous opportunities to enhance the geopolitical role of Saudi Arabia and the prestige of the Saudi Royal House. Thus they are no longer as eager to take action or to support action, against Iran. The US in the midst of this whole Middle East world event seems confused. It has staked almost all its strategic potential on the success of Russian crushing and capitulation or its disintegration and change of political leadership leaving its main competitor, China to grow and challenge its world dominance during the unipolar moment. But now as shifts in power happened undeterred, even with the destruction of Iran by possible overwhelming Israeli strikes, it does not seem that the US will be able to benefit from its main challenge, that of confronting revisionist China. The pressures on the scattered military forces available in the region and the inability of the US Navy to operate in the Persian Gulf because of the many risks involved are very likely to amount to a major blow to US interests in the region. At the same time, remaining engaged both in Ukraine and the Middle East, may could give China the opportunity to “move” either in the South China Sea or against Taiwan itself. In this case the US would find itself involved in three simultaneous war resorts, in Ukraine, in the Middle East and in the (NW) Pacific. The obvious danger for Israel and Ukraine is that the US may be forced to choose to put additional emphasis on containing China in the Pacific rather than supporting them. The crisis in the Middle East will probably continue even after more or less successful countermeasures by one or the other, increasing the risk of even the most elementary interests of the actors. The arrogance created by the absence of an efficient balance of power in the region , before the emergence of the new regional and global developments, some of which we mentioned above, may even lead to unwise escalation actions (which do not take into account the new data). In this case the risks for the participants are indeed great but also are great for the world order and the maintenance of worlds peace. The most likely remains that, despite the extreme rhetoric and propaganda, the states staffs will realistically take into account the data and de facto limit their actions, taking into account on a realistic basis gains and losses. They all have the necessary information and data. Otherwise, the Middle East (West Asia) will follow the Ukrainian example and will become a much more violent "amplifier" of rapid geopolitical developments that will test the strengths of the global system, state and superstate structures, with very real threats to world peace, precisely because critical interests of all the major world powers, but also of important regional competitors, are involved. *Dionysis Pantis, Lawyer, geopolitical analyst