{"id":247388,"date":"2023-11-06T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=247388"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:38:41","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:38:41","slug":"iran-russia-set-a-western-trap-in-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/11\/iran-russia-set-a-western-trap-in-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran-Russia Set a Western Trap in Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo Credit: The Cradle<\/p><\/div>\n

The only country that could possibly distract the West from Ukraine is Israel. But the US and its allies are walking into an existential trap if they think a West Asian victory will be more easily won than a European one.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

27 Oct 2023<\/em> – The Russia-Iran strategic partnership – with China in the wings – is laying an elaborate, Sun Tzu-tinged trap for the Hegemon in West Asia.<\/p>\n

Apart from Israel, there is no entity on the planet capable of switching the focus, in a flash, away from the west’s spectacular debacle in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The warmongers in charge of US foreign policy, not exactly Bismarckian stalwarts, believe that if Project Ukraine is unattainable, Project Final Solution in Palestine could instead be a – ethnic cleansing – cakewalk.<\/p>\n

A more plausible scenario, though is that Iran-Russia \u2013 and the new \u201caxis of evil\u201d Russia-China-Iran \u2013 have all it takes to drag the Hegemon into a second quagmire. It\u2019s all about using the enemy\u2019s own, discombobulated flip-flapping to unbalance him and disorient him to oblivion.<\/p>\n

The White House\u2019s wishful thinking that\u00a0the\u00a0Forever Wars in Ukraine and Israel are\u00a0inscribed in the same\u00a0lofty \u201cdemocracy\u201d drive and essential to US national interests, has already backfired \u2013 even among American public opinion.<\/p>\n

That does not prevent\u00a0cries and whispers along the Beltway revealing Israel-allied US neocons increasing the tempo to provoke Iran \u2013 via a proverbial false flag that would lead to an American attack. That Armageddon scenario neatly fits Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s biblical psychopathy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vassals would be forced to meekly comply. NATO heads of state have made a beeline to visit Israel to demonstrate their unconditional support for Tel Aviv – including Greece\u2019s Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Italy\u2019s Giorgia Meloni, Britain\u2019s Rishi Sunak, Germany\u2019s Olaf Scholz, the senile lodger at the White House, and France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n

Avenging the Arab \u201ccentury of humiliation\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

So far, Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has shown extraordinary restraint by not taking any bait. Hezbollah supports the Palestinian resistance as a whole \u2013 and until a few years back, had serious issues with Hamas, with which it clashed in Syria. Hamas, incidentally, while partially funded by Iran, is not run by Iran. As much as Tehran supports the Palestinian cause, Palestinian resistance groups make their own decisions.<\/p>\n

The big news is that all these issues are now dissolving. Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) went to Lebanon to visit Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in person this week. That spells out unity of purpose \u2013 or what the region’s Axis of Resistance calls the \u201cUnity of Fronts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even more eye-opening was Hamas’ visit to Moscow<\/a> this week, which was met with impotent Israeli fury. The Hamas delegation was headed by a member of its Politburo, Abu Marzouk. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri came especially from Tehran and met two of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov\u2019s key deputies, Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin.<\/p>\n

That spells out Hamas, Iran, and Russia negotiating at the same table.<\/p>\n

Hamas has called on the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as the whole Arab world and all lands of Islam, to unite. Slowly but surely, a pattern may be discerned: could the Arab world \u2013 and great swathes of Islam – be on the verge of significantly uniting to avenge their own \u201ccentury of humiliation\u201d \u2013 much as the Chinese did after WWII with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping?<\/p>\n

Beijing, via its sophisticated diplomacy, is certainly hinting at it to key players, even before the ground-breaking, Russia-China brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement was struck earlier this year.<\/p>\n

That by itself won\u2019t thwart the perpetual US neocon obsession to bomb critical infrastructure in Iran. Worth less than zero when it comes to military science, these neocons ignore how Iranian retaliation would – accurately \u2013 target each and every US base in Iraq and Syria, with the Persian Gulf an open case.<\/p>\n

Peerless Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov has shown<\/a> what could happen to those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean in case of an Israeli-threatened attack on Iran.<\/p>\n

Moreover, there are at least\u00a01,000 US troops in northern Syria\u00a0stealing the country’s\u00a0oil \u2013 which would also become an instant target.<\/p>\n

Ali Fadavi<\/a>,\u00a0IRGC\u2019s deputy commander-in-chief, cut to the chase: \u201cWe have technologies in the military field that no one knows about, and the Americans will know about them when we use them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cue to Iranian hypersonic Fattah missiles \u2013 cousins to the Khinzal and the DF-27 – traveling at Mach 15,\u00a0and able to reach any\u00a0target in\u00a0Israel in 400 seconds.<\/p>\n

And add to it sophisticated Russian electronic warfare (EW). As confirmed in Moscow six months ago, when it comes to military interconnection, the Iranians told the Russians at the same table, \u201cwhatever you need, just ask.\u201d The same applies vice-versa, because the mutual enemy is one and the same.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about the Strait of Hormuz\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The heart of the matter in any Russian-Iran strategy is the Strait of Hormuz, through which transits at least 20 percent of the world\u2019s oil (nearly 17 million barrels a day) plus 18 percent of liquified natural gas (LNG), which amounts to at least 3.5 billion cubic feet a day.<\/p>\n

Iran is able to block the Strait of Hormuz in a flash. For starters, that would be some sort of poetic justice retribution for Israel aiming to gobble up, illegally, all the multibillion-dollar\u00a0natural gas discovered offshore Gaza<\/a>: this is, incidentally, one of the absolutely key reasons for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.<\/p>\n

Yet the real deal will be to bring down the Wall Street-engineered $618 trillion<\/i> derivative structure, as confirmed for years by analysts at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, as well as independent Persian Gulf energy traders.<\/p>\n

So when push comes to shove – and way beyond the defense of Palestine and in a scenario of Total War – not only Russia-Iran but key players of the Arab world about to become members of BRICS 11 – such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE – do have what it takes to bring down the US financial system anytime they choose.<\/p>\n

As an old school Deep State higher up, now in business in Central Europe, stresses:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Islamic nations have the economic advantage. They can blow up the international financial system by cutting off the oil. They do not have to fire a single shot.\u00a0Iran and Saudi Arabia are allying together.\u00a0The 2008 crisis took 29 trillion dollars to solve but this one, should it happen, could not be solved\u00a0even\u00a0with 100 trillion dollars of fiat instruments.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Persian Gulf traders told me, one possible scenario is\u00a0OPEC\u00a0starting to\u00a0sanction Europe, first\u00a0from Kuwait and then spreading from one OPEC country to another and\u00a0to all countries that are treating the Muslim world as enemies and war fodder.<\/p>\n

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani\u00a0has already\u00a0warned\u00a0that\u00a0oil to western markets could be put off because of\u00a0what\u00a0Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already called, on the record, for a total oil and gas embargo by Islamic countries against nations \u2013 essentially NATO vassals – that support Israel.<\/p>\n

So Christian Zionists in the US allied with neocon asset Netanyahu threatening to attack Iran have the potential to pull down the entire world financial system.<\/p>\n

Forever War on Syria, remixed\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under the current volcano, the\u00a0Russia-China strategic partnership has been extremely cautious. To the outside world, their mutual official position is to\u00a0refuse to side\u00a0with either Palestine or Israel; call for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds; call for a two-state solution; and respect\u00a0international\u00a0law.\u00a0All their initiatives at the UN have been duly sabotaged by the Hegemon.<\/p>\n

As it stands, Washington has refused the green light for the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. The main reason is the immediate US priority: buy some time to expand the war to Syria, \u201caccused\u201d of being the key transit point for Iranian weapons to Hezbollah. That also doubles as re-opening the same old war front against Russia.<\/p>\n

There are no illusions in Moscow. The intel apparatus knows well that\u00a0Israeli Mossad agents\u00a0have been\u00a0advising Kiev\u00a0while Tel Aviv was supplying\u00a0weapons to Ukraine\u00a0under\u00a0serious\u00a0US pressure.\u00a0\u00a0That\u00a0infuriated the\u00a0siloviki<\/i>, and may have constituted a fatal Israeli\u00a0mistake.<\/p>\n

The neocons, for their part, never stop. They are advancing a parallel threat: if\u00a0Hezbollah attacks Israel with something else\u00a0than a few sparse rockets \u2013 and that simply won\u2019t happen – the Hmeimim Russian Air Base in Latakia\u00a0will be\u00a0\u201celiminated\u201d\u00a0as a\u00a0\u201cwarning\u201d to Iran.<\/p>\n

This does not even qualify as children playing in the sandbox. After the serial Israeli attacks on the civilian Damascus and Aleppo airports, Moscow did not even blink before offering its Hmeimim facilities to Syria \u2013 complete with clearance for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cargo flights, according to some Russian intel sources. Netanyahu will not exactly harbor a death wish by bombing a fully A2\/AD (anti-access\/area denial) Russian Air Base.<\/p>\n

Moscow also clearly sees what those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean might be up to. The response has been swift: Mig-31Ks are patrolling neutral air space over the Black Sea 24\/7, equipped with hypersonic Khinzals, which would take only six minutes to visit the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

Amidst all this neocon-drenched madness, with the Pentagon deploying a formidable array of weaponry plus \u201cundisclosed\u201d assets to the Eastern Mediterranean, whether the target is Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Russia, or all of the above, both China and North Korea\u00a0\u2013 part of the new American-concocted \u201caxis of evil\u201d –\u00a0have indicated they will not\u00a0be mere bystanders.<\/p>\n

The Chinese Navy is\u00a0for all practical purposes shielding Iran from a distance. Yet even more forceful has been a statement by Premier Li Qiang – something unusually blunt and rare in Chinese diplomacy:<\/p>\n

“China will continue to firmly support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national\u00a0dignity, and will strongly oppose any external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Never forget that China and Iran are linked by a comprehensive strategic partnership.\u00a0Meanwhile, Russian Premier Mikhail Mishustin has reinforced the Russia-Iran strategic partnership in a meeting with\u00a0Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber.<\/p>\n

Remember those rice eaters from Korea\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pro-Iran militias across the Axis of Resistance, are keeping a carefully tempered degree of confrontation against Israel, close to guerrilla hit-and-run. They won\u2019t be engaged in massive attacks yet. But all bets are off if Israel invades Gaza. It\u2019s clear the Arab world, for all its massive internal contradictions,\u00a0will\u00a0simply not tolerate\u00a0the civilian\u00a0massacre.<\/p>\n

Bluntly, at the current incendiary juncture, the Hegemon has\u00a0found\u00a0the offramp from\u00a0its Project\u00a0Ukraine humiliation. They erroneously believe that the same old Forever War rekindled in West Asia\u00a0can\u00a0be \u201cmodulated\u201d at will.\u00a0And if\u00a0two wars\u00a0turn into\u00a0an immense political albatross, as they will, what else is new? They will simply start a new war in the \u201cIndo-Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of that fools Russia-Iran and their ice-cold monitoring of the flipping and flapping Hegemon every step of the way. It\u2019s enlightening to remember what Malcolm X was\u00a0already predicting in 1964:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSome rice eaters ran him out of Korea. Yes, they ran him out of Korea. Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes, and a rifle, and a bowl of rice took him and his tanks and his napalm,\u00a0and all that other action he\u2019s supposed to have and ran him across the Yalu. Why? Cause the day that he can win on the ground has passed.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at <\/em>Asia Times and<\/em> columnist for<\/em> Consortium News and<\/em> Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he\u2019s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. He is the author of <\/em>Globalistan<\/a> (2007),<\/em> Red Zone Blues<\/a> (2007), <\/em>Obama Does Globalistan<\/a> (2009), <\/em>Empire of Chaos<\/a> (2014) and <\/em>2030<\/a> (2015), all by Nimble Books. Pepe was contributing editor to <\/em>The Empire and The Crescent and<\/em> Tutto in Vendita in Italy and is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thecradle.co<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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