Persia Engulfed

28 November 2020

There is the usual conversation going about how President Trump is not a regular president when it came to national security matters, how neither does he read the Daily Presidential Brief, nor does he hold sacred stuff that has been Presidential privilege to know. Yet what happened in an innocuous thoroughfare in Teheran in the last 24 hours, and what preceded it by a few days, is proof that while Trump may be many things, he remains as astute player in the Great Game, as good as any POTUS before or after him.

So Iran mourns Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a second great leadership loss it has suffered this year after losing General Qasem Soleimani in the beginning of 2020 who was the the Quds Force Commander in a drone strike over Baghdad airspace, she lost her leading physicist, officially the person in charge of Iranian Science and Innovation, and unofficially as the NYT described in 2015 as the Oppenheimer of the Islamic Republic and the man behind who’s back, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli PM painted a target in his theatrical exposé of 2018! It is for want of a more better comparison or lack of situational awareness, for Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is closer to Dr AQ Khan of Pakistan in comparison in my opinion, a scientist technocrat and regime leader, who manoeuvred and operating levers available only to the State to do nearly the same task as Dr Khan, ‘enrichment’ of uranium, the only difference being that while Khan had active assistance of Western Intelligence and Chinese-North Korean backup, the efforts of Fakhrizadeh were more indigenous and against adverse circumstances, including for the last decade, active Israeli surveillance and interdiction, through assassinations of colleagues, through frying of computer networks monitoring the centrifuges enriching uranium using the Stuxnet worm and openly spoken about by their PM no less for last couple of years!

So when Trump was reportedly talked out of attacking Iran’s nuclear sites by conventional means, one that was reported widely in media since 16 November https://globalnews.ca/news/7467009/trump-iran-strike-report/, I am sure that many of the Iran watchers and Middle East watchers would have veered on to this prospect that a lead human asset on the Iranian nuclear bomb efforts could get lit as a legit target! The speculation initially was that it was Trump’s way of not allowing Biden a smooth path back to the Iran Nuclear Deal of 2015, another international treaty from which he had led the US out of in his Presidency, much like his walking out of the Paris Green Deal, which Biden promised to rejoin on 20 January 2021 as one of the first acts of his Presidency! For Trump, and for the Jewish lobby that is right now committed solely to Netanyahu, the talk of decapitating the Iranian nuclear programme and striking down the assets involved has been a constant refrain of his entire presidency. So it is actually quite possible, that like General Soleimani, Dr Fakhrizadeh https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55105934 was also a target for much of the last four years, under Trump, and was acquired recently and Trump could well have ordered this in a more conventional style ambush by gunmen, rather than risk a drone strike in Teheran that could expose US drones and intelligence assets on ground. The hit is a classical CIA ‘outsourced’ operation, where contractors have staged it. The timing that it came around the exact time the Iranians greeted Mr Biden and sought his assurance that he would return US back to the Nuclear deal was obviously a coincidence, despite Trump’s domestic grandstanding over the elections where he still claims outrageously that he won, that too while sitting on the historical Resolute Desk! So, the assassination was not to humiliate the President Elect but it was overall a design to thwart any chance at restoring the Iranian return to the global table on nuclear deal with America at its head!

While Israel has much diplomatic appeal with her export of critical technology with Turkey, with China and with Gulf states through UAE, we must not forget that these are all on the ‘Sunni’ side of the Islamic divide, not withstanding the spectacular victory of Azeris over Christian Armenians! In fact Iran faces the prospect of Russian border guards and peace monitors now right on its northern borders after the peace brokered between Azerbaijan and Armenia! So Israeli contributions only increase the jitteriness that the Gulf has over consequences of conflicts. Sources within the Saudi Royalty always assume that drone attacks that their refineries suffered were Iran aided and are increasingly worried about the clout Iran now has with Yemenis, and the increasing sophistication that Houthis there now have weaponised with. As recent as 11 September 2020, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/yemen-houthis-say-attacked-important-target-in-riyadh-with-missile-drones/story-hPYu3pu2kS5ZuONjvE7rIP.html Riyadh confirmed that it had intercepted a number of drones and missiles launched against it. So escalatory fruit of Israeli contributions to their capacities in military technology is well known and anticipated. Right now I can wager that the most worried after this second capital strike against the Iranians are the Gulf states, including Saudis. So Israeli belligerence and stridency makes Sunni states legitimate soft targets for Shia Iran to retaliate against.

How much will the loss of Fakhrizadeh complicate Iran’s nuclear programme? Very little, for most of the technology and assets are in place, secured from further globally activated hacking or breach of firewalls, scattered in multiple places which can be pieced together. Right now, Iran is bleeding from the global sanctions regime, it needs to economically recover from the pandemic and her aims with Biden presidency would be a more modest relaxation of her sanctions, allowing her to resume oil export and to involve India in Chabahar Infrastructure development.

When Iran views herself as a legatee state of a great civilisation and Islamic power, she is pitted against the Turks, who under Erdogan have managed to outmanoeuvre her and everyone else for that matter, and increased the reach of the Turkic realm. No one doubts that Islam’s greatest period of science and art was under Persia, neither does any one doubt the contributions Persia has had as an ancient Kingdom, over any claim from Anatolia or Turkey either as part of Greek or Turkic civilsation. In fact, I could argue here, that to weaken both Turkey and China, I would need Iran as an ally or at a minimum a neutral. Not sitting in China’s lap. So from Israel’s long term stand point, neither strikes, of a Intelligence Head in January and that of Atomics Research Head now, actually help her cause.

Yet, the strategic stalemate is often a victim of stereotyping. No persuasion from India’s then leadership, could cause the Americans to abandon Pakistan after 9/11, just as Obama was not persuaded to take up Medvedev’s offer for American and NATO forces to use Russian and CAR facilities for logistics and operations in Afghanistan avoiding Pakistan. Like how it is unlikely that Uighur militants who were interrogated after US took over Afghan territory in alliance with the Northern Alliance, would be used to stage insurgency in China, it is not realistic to imagine that tomorrow they would warm up to the idea of using Iran and Shia insurgents to soften up the Sunni belt extending from Turkey to Inner Mongolia, the one viable counter America has that would ensure that Turki and Saudi Wahhabis do not rip open the Caucasian underbelly of the Russians, which extends all the way from Ossetia,Dagestan via Ingushetia,, Chechnya right upto Vladivostok.

What Trump and his disruptive tactics either at the behest of his best friends Netanyahu and Putin or on his own whim, has ended up, is presenting Erdogan with a rare opportunity where the entire Caucasus and Persian Gulf are opened up like a prised open clam shell! Only this decade end will offer a sliver of whether the Americans under Biden and his successor Presidencies can clamp up this potential volcanic disruption! I am sure none of the gunmen on the teams in Teheran were aware, as they distracted with a carbomb explosion, halted Mohsin Fakhrizadeh’s cavalcade, double tapped his crew and emptied their magazines into the VIP passenger and left him for dead, that the lead they painted this outskirt of Teheran with would etch a path perilous with repercussions way beyond the Persian Gulf!