Author: Cozmin Gușă
What are the premises from which I begin today’s analysis? Israel’s attack comes amid the so-called negotiations between the US and Iran regarding the nuclear program, which have been mentioned repeatedly in recent weeks but which informed commentators have deemed unproductive — something along the lines of: “as long as we’re talking, maybe we won’t fight.” At the same time, through visible or discreet diplomatic channels, Israel was pressuring Washington for Trump to authorize an attack on Iran and for the US to also participate with troops, while in the relational triangle of Tehran–Moscow–Beijing, plans were being devised for possible countermeasures and reprisals in the event Iran were to be attacked. Until a certain point, this multidirectional stalemate seemed relatively effective — that is, Israel was being deterred from attacking, and the world hoped to gain time until the trilateral US–Russia–China could resolve the great conflict dossier of today at the same time, which includes not only the matter with Iran and Israel, but also the Ukrainian war, with the definition of NATO’s format and strategy, as well as the complex and radicalized conflict between the US and China.
However, three major recent events disrupted the balance:
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Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s nuclear infrastructure, which quickly involved the possible expansion of the war, made concrete through Putin’s army’s daily attacks on Ukrainian territory.
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The creation of a violent civil conflict front inside the US, through Trump’s decision to use federal troops against the million illegal immigrants in California.
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Five days ago, Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, Esmaeil Khatib, made a strange revelation, stating that Iran had come into possession of a large package of Israeli secret documents, which confirmed not only an illegal nuclear armament program, but also how Israel was cooperating in this direction with the US and certain European states.
You can thus perceive that this chain of three events, and perhaps additional others not reported, may be the cause of last night’s massive attack on Iran, with the report indicating huge damages to infrastructure, including critical infrastructure, and the killing of some Iranian military and scientific leaders. It can therefore be considered that the Middle East is on fire as of today. Bibi Netanyahu says the attacks will continue as long as needed, while Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s spiritual leader, says the reprisals will be unprecedented — I quote: “the Zionist regime has thus prepared a painful fate for itself.”
The US, through Secretary of State Marco Rubio, claims it was not involved, but this was quickly contradicted this morning by an Israeli official who declared that Israel had prepared and is carrying out the attack in full coordination with the Americans. The UN condemns the Israeli attack, but the UN doesn’t matter anymore, it has long lost its relevance, so attention will focus solely on the statements and decisions of Russia and China, who will clearly act in a coordinated bilateral manner. For both states, for similar reasons but some different purposes, Iran represents a strategic ally, one they will clearly support, though at this point it’s hard to say how exactly. China has more freedom, but also more reasons to condemn Israel and act against it, whereas Russia is performing a complex diplomatic balancing act between Arab countries and Israel. Any decisive action from Russia could compromise it in an insurmountable way. Of course, Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump calculated this when they launched the attack on Iran. It is clear that Putin would prefer a de-escalation right now, so he has time to analyze solutions that won’t expose him to a near-lethal weakening of the solidarity he has painstakingly built around Russia, but it is equally clear that Trump wants the opposite. Over the past few months, it has been clear that, informally, Trump is strongly dominated by the Kremlin leader. In these conditions, it seems obvious to me that the dominant player at this moment, for a certain period of time, becomes China, and Xi Jinping will primarily reason in terms of strengthening the relationship within the Russia–Iran–China triangle.
This is the snapshot drawn in the heat of the moment. It’s evident that we are in a phase where we know that we don’t know what exactly can happen — but it is just as evident that under the barrel of the global geopolitical conflict, the fire is burning intensely, and the temperature is close to boiling — and thus, to explosion.
