by Salman Rafi Sheikh, with New Eastern Outlook, Moscow, …and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a research institution for the study of the countries and cultures of Asia and North Africa
[ Editor’s Note: Geopolitical watchers have kept a close eye on Trump wanting to play the war commander card at a politically advantageous time, where Iran would be the number one scapegoat target on his list.
Depending on the target inside Iran, or seizing its vessels, the Iranian military has always promised a forceful response as a way of discouraging any such attacks, and it has the right to do so under international law.
The deflection for that defense is the often deployed false flag attack on US forces, where the planned offensive attack is masked as a retaliatory one. The most current example is the alleged Aleksei Navalny poisoning in Russia, which seems to have been staged as a tool to kill the Nordstream II pipeline completion.
This was a horribly concocted psyop, because it left out once again the all-important factor of motive for Russian actors to have poisoned the former Russian dissident. I say former dissident because his profile has greatly declined after US NGOs flagrantly interfering in Russian elections using Navalny as their standard-bearer was thrown out of the country.
That vastly reduced the Russian opposition clout from 35 percent back down to 15 percent, which it had been prior to the US assault on Russian elections. Navalny is just a figurehead now, and the idea that Moscow would poison him is ridiculous.
All that said, Trump might not need an Iran attack diversion in the month before the election. As his losing margins increase in some of the swing states to 8 and 10 points, he seems to be betting all of his chips on claiming a fraudulent mail-in ballot scenario, where he calls himself the winner on election night and tries to stop the “fraudulent” mail in votes being counted.
Several thousand lawyers are said to be standing by to assist the Trump Hail Mary pass to stay in office, something which could blow up in their faces with eventual charges of conspiracy to steal an election.
Already Republican activists are publicizing several ways that the presidential election would be determined without ‘voter participation’. The stakes are high because the political lives and reputations of the losers might never be the same for them after November 3… Jim W. Dean ]
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– First Published … September 26, 2020 –
While the actual arena of electoral politics is always domestic, the US has a different case where international geopolitics, too, plays a significant role to the extent that a reference to what a given president/administration is doing or has done overseas to deal with the threats to the US national security becomes the most important point of the electoral debate.
While this may just simply seem to be the case of how foreign policy impacts domestic politics, threatening to start a war with an avowed enemy just before elections becomes more of a part of electoral politics than just an issue of foreign policy.
Indeed, the Trump administration’s decision to unilaterally impose sanctions on Iran, projecting them as ‘UN sanctions’, and its re-deployment of warships in the Persian Gulf indicate how this issue will become a hot topic of political debate at a time when elections are just few weeks away. There is no gainsaying that Trump, in order to boost his political position, may even start a limited war.
On September 18, the US announced that USS Nimitz passed through the Strait of Hormuz with the guided-missile cruisers USS Princeton and USS Philippine Sea and guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett. The statement also said that “The [Carrier Strike Group] will operate [in the Persian Gulf region] and train alongside regional and coalition partners, and provide naval aviation support to Operation Inherent Resolve [in Iraq and Syria].”
This incident reported widely across the media in Iran as well, comes as a part of the US decision to impose arms embargoes on Iran. The US obviously does not want to just have sanctions on paper; it wants to enforce them as well, and enforcement would possibly entail US warships attacking and confiscating Iranian cargo ships in international waters — as well as non-Iranian vessels suspected of carrying Iranian good; hence, the most recent deployment.
Indeed, the US has already taken similar actions off the coast of Venezuela where the former seized Iranian vessels. While these vessels were seized in Latin America and did not invite a direct Iranian response, such seizing in the Persian Gulf—particularly in the Strait of Hormuz—would possibly invite a direct reaction from Iran (the way Iran responded to the killing of General Soleimani).
While the deployment of US warships can be seen as a part of the enforcement mechanism, it also indicates a concerted US effort to virtually impose a naval blockade of Iran, threatening oil shipments as well.
It is, therefore, not just a coincidence that a strike group is being deployed in the Persian Gulf after a gap of ten months, during which US-Iran tensions remained high as usual when the Trump administration wants to enforce the sanctions, create tensions and thus generate a scenario that it can use for political gains.
However, while this appears to be the scenario that the Trump administration seems to be building, there are strong chances that it can backfire in a significant way, or that it may not work at all.
First of all, given Iran’s substantial missile strike capability, it can inflict serious damage to the US, a scenario that might very well accelerate Trump’s decline at a time when elections are only two months ahead.
Secondly, Iran, sensing the trap here and realizing that a war with the US at this stage will add to Trump’s political position, may very well decide against retaliation and exercise restraint. A restraining Iran will make Trump the aggressor and create political difficulties for him as well.
As such, while Iran has threatened retaliation, it has also toned-down itself. This is particularly evident from the fact that it took no retaliatory step for what has been called and widely reported in the international/US media as an ‘Israeli attack’ on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.
Exercising restraint appears to be a calculated move given that the Iranian policymakers understand that a Biden presidency will be more amenable than the Trump administration. For instance, Biden’s foreign policy advisor Anthony Blinken recently told CBS News:
“We disagree fundamentally with the approach the administration took on Iran… If Iran comes back into compliance with the deal, then yes, Joe Biden said we would do the same thing, but we would use that as a platform to try to build a stronger and longer deal working with our partners.”
Iran, therefore, has strong reasons to thwart the US plans to ignite tensions in the Persian Gulf. However, it may not have any option but to militarily retaliate if the Trump administration, facing a weak political position, imposes a war just as it has imposed sanctions with UN approval.
In other words, while Iran itself may not take an aggressive step in the Gulf, such as attacking the US warships, the US can always manufacture incidents to justify its own offensive.
As such, while the war in the Gulf would entail an extremely high risk, the Trump administration, surrounded by hawks as it is, might be willing to take the risk to secure four more years in the White House.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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Iran’s aged Air-Force is the only real hole in her Defenses and as Russia appears to be accelerating it’s delivery of new Aircraft, I wonder whether those retiring from service are quietly flying to Iran to serve the Iranian People against the rabid neo-Zionist Criminals in Jerusalem (and Las Vegas), in Moscow (still) and in the White House & Capitol Hill where they are bedded down with Kashner, Pimpeo, dEsper(ate) and sTrumpet!
Dumbass that might be Old Aircraft but that’s multi layered impenetrable Air defense and they can override American Drones too
Ray, I’ve been told that you aren’t a real person. Is that true?
An obvious target for the US are the Iranian tankers that are regularly making the trip to Venezuela.
One has to wonder if Iran had ‘hardened’ them in anticipation of trouble by putting on them detachments of Marines armed with anti ship and aircraft missiles.
If an attack were to take place, and fail, we might never hear about it.
A good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bad fruit. “You will know them by their fruit”. Who will start the war? Not Iran! Who’s been causing chaos in every country they’ve been? Not Iran! Who starts wars and then tries to get out of them? Not Iran! Who’s fanatically supporting injustice in ME and Yemen, pushing an apartheid regime in Israel to expand, using Isis and Al-Qaeda as partners in crime? Not Iran!
So let them start another war – the outcome will be the same for US with much more body bags and ending in defeat. But this time Saudi Arabia and UAE will sink too and Israel will cry like an (illegitimate) baby when it get hit with real fire power. Iran has the just cause of defending its land, US is involved in an unjust war, with its slave army being used for Zionist regime.
It may have escaped their notice in Washington but by far the biggest beneficiary of any interruption in oil and gas supply out of the Gulf will be Russia as they will be the largest potential supplier left shipping, making huge increases in revenue, most of it not sold in US$.
With the US still importing 10mbpd or so is this what they want?
Depending on what happened this could last for years, being the catalyst that wiped out the US$ as the reserve currency. The oil Ruble anyone?
Trump’s rock-solid base is Christian Zionist. Pompeo and Pence are Christian Zionists, too. They view conflict with Iran and Russia as the apocalyptic world war that will bring the return of their warrior messiah to Jerusalem. They will not be dissuaded by reason and logic, that billions will die as the result of this war and that the planet would be rendered uninhabitable by a nuclear holocaust. Trump is playing to these nut jobs and sees them as his only hope for reelection, if indeed we even have an election in November.
So true
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHCdS7O248g
“Joe Biden said we would do the same thing, but we would use that as a platform to try to build a stronger and longer deal working with our partners.”
As Zarif clearly said to Fareed Zakaria of CNN GPS yesterday there is absolutely no further re-negotiations of the deal.
This re-negotiation of the JCPOA was a delusional tactic of Israeli Likud to put pressure on Iran and ultimately start a war but likudniks don’t know that the Iranian mullahs have ten times more their tenacity and know the art of the deal better than any cabaret owner selected as a president.
And if Trump wasn’t a gutless pathological liar he would answer you that since Adelson paid for my campaign in exchange for me cancelling the JCPOA and starting a war with Iran I have to deliver or he will ruin the future of me and my family.
If Mr. Lavrov was being straight-up, Iran can’t get those Su-57s and S-500s soon enough. Then, we will see who wants to pay, and who wants to play.
No way is Iran getting those particular weapons, the Russians haven’t got them in service themselves yet and it would take months to train for them.
In the long term perhaps but that is not when they need help. Much more likely is loads of s/h S-300 just out of RuAF service when replaced by S-400 systems (just like Russian gave Syria), its still a very potent weapon system. Plus Iran already operated them so are trained up. Similarly Su-27s being replaced by Su-35s.
This is all about deterrence and that means gear on the ground and air not on an order form somewhere.
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