Eurasia Strikes Back: No War With Iran Likely
The result of Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Caspian Summit in Iran earlier this week is that there will be no “Operation Iranian Freedom” (or some equivalent thereof) in the remaining 15 months of this administration. A powerful Euro-Asian bloc, based on the Moscow-Peking axis that opposes American challenges along the Continental Heartland’s outer perimeter, is now preempting threats to the existing balance in real time. Mr. Putin is effectively helping President George W. Bush avoid an adventure that would bring ruin to all involved, save the promoters of an Islamic end-times scenario.
The Declaration signed at the end of the summit commits the littoral states to a de facto non-aggression pact. It warns the outside powers to refrain from using the Caspian region for military operations or interfering in any other way, and supports the right of Iran to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Articles 14 and 15 of the Declaration specifically state that the littoral states would not use their armed forces against each other, and—more importantly—that they would not allow any other state to use their territory for military operations against any of the littoral states. Regional commentators are in no doubt that this agreement has thrown a decisive wrench into any plans the Bush Administration may have against Iran:
The entire Caspian region, including the convenient territory of Azerbaijan, is suddenly out of bounds for American military. It would leave Afghanistan and Iraq as the possible staging areas for American military operations against Iran. The fact that the US military options are suddenly limited is just one of the effects of Tehran summit. By a symmetrical sequence of commission and omission, the littoral states have locked Azerbaijan into a push-pull bracket. On the one hand Azerbaijan has been warned against any flirtation with the American military and on the other hand there is a big carrot of North-South corridor. If the Azeri leadership is half as smart as it appears to be, it would lose no time in barricading itself against any foreign military overtures.
This is payback time for Mr. Putin. His displeasure over U.S. missile defense installations along Russia’s western borders and over the stated intention of Washington to recognize Kosovo come what may, was on symbolic display when he kept the US secretaries of state and defense waiting for over 40 minutes when they visited him in Moscow earlier this month. Now he has helped produced something tangible: before leaving Tehran he commented that the use of force in the Caspian region had been rendered unthinkable: “We must not submit to other states in case of aggression or some other kind of military action directed against one of the Caspian countries. We regard that authority in Caspian only belongs to littoral states. It is also connected with subsoil resources.”
For months prior to the summit, Iran had conducted a broad diplomatic counter-offensive. Its leaders had met with Central Asian, Caucasian, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and North African leaders in a series of talks on security and energy. It is developing a “counter-pipeline” to the increasingly vulnerable Ceyhan-Baku pipeline. The new link should connect the Caspian Basin to the Gulf of Oman. In addition, one of the fruits of the Caspian summit is the agreement to build the Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan-Iran railway line that would link Central Asia with Russia in the north the Persian Gulf in the south. According to analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a wide-ranging Eurasian-based strategy is taking shape: “In Central Asia, Russia, Iran and China have essentially secured their own energy routes for both gas and oil. This is one of the reasons all three powers in a united stance warned the U.S. at the SCO’s [Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s] Bishkek Summit, in Kyrgyzstan, to stay out of Central Asia."
Indeed, the 25-point Tehran Declaration dovetails neatly with the SCO Declaration issued in Bishkek, and connects China with the new Great Game. The new Eurasian architecture is largely the product of Mr. Bush’s own mix of mendacity and incoherence vis-à-vis Russia and China over the past seven years.
In the immediate aftermath of 9-11 Putin was the first foreign leader to contact Bush, promising that Russia would do “whatever is necessary” to help the U.S. His influence with the former Soviet republics in Central Asia was decisive in their decision to allow U.S. forces to use their bases. Mr. Bush subsequently attempted to make that presence permanent, however, in pursuit of the neoconservative policy of encircling, reducing, and ultimately eliminating Russia as a great power. In 2002 the United States unilaterally abrogated the ABM Treaty and announced a new major expansion of NATO. In 2003 and 2004 came the U.S.-supported and financed “color-coded revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine, the geopolitical equivalent of Putin engineering anti-American regime changes in Mexico and Canada. Elements of forward missile defense are now in Poland and the Czech Republic. All U.S. plans for the Caspian gas and oil still entail transit routes that studiously avoid Russia.
In relation to China Mr. Bush has been less brazen but more confused. He has tried a mix of containment, confrontation, and accommodation, in the manner likely to increase both China’s economic and military power vis-à-vis the United States and her distrust of American motives and goals. The award of the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama is only the latest example of contradictory, even incoherent, U.S. policy.
If Mr. Bush had wanted to preempt the rise of China as a rival and potential enemy, he should have acted boldly to halt further American investment in the Chinese economy, to reverse massive outsourcing, and to erect effective trade barriers against the continuing deluge of Chinese-made consumer products in American stores. He had done none of those things. In facilitating the growth of China’s economic base he has acted as an appeaser of U.S. corporate interests to the detriment of a viable security policy and world affairs strategy.
If Mr. Bush was not willing to act vigorously to halt the transfer of American wealth and American industrial potential to Shanghai and Guandong, he should have accepted the rise of China as a first-class power with the best possible grace and on the grounds that no fundamental sources of conflict between America and China exist. Such a relationship could have been skillfully managed—with more reciprocity in the field of trade and exchange rates—but it was not thus managed. Its foundation was lacking: the acceptance that Taiwan is part of China, that it will be eventually reintegrated, and that it is in the American interest to facilitate peaceful reunification of the island with the Mainland, perhaps using the Hong Kong formula.
After seven years of Mr. Bush’s contraditory course, China’s growing wealth and power coupled with mistrust of America have produced interesting results in the form of Peking’s strategic partnership with Russia. Directly resulting from Bush’s policies, the Shaghai process may soon reshape the Asian architecture by turning China into a distribution hub for oil and gas exports to South Korea and Japan, two of the largest energy importers in the world—which in turn may lead to their strategic realignment.
The Bush Administration has attempted to counter the growing SCO influence in Central Asia and the Far East by courting another Asian giant, India, as a future counterbalance to China’s power. The final objective—the emergence of a “Quadrilateral of Democracies,” a political grouping consisting of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India—is yet another Bush pipedream, however. India is weary of an alignment with America that remains Pakistan’s key backer, and aware that Washington’s objective is to use New Delhi as a dispensable auxilliary. The Indians are developing close cooperation with the SCO instead. The policy of “superalignment”—an even-handed cultivation of everyone who counts—is paying dividends without tying India to a distant and unpredictable America.
The main reason Mr. Bush has found it so hard to attract overseas partners for his schemes—outside places like Tirana and Riga—is the loss of credibility resulting from the ongoing quagmire in Iraq. He is still staying the course there, predicated on the creation of military preconditions for an elusive political solution, and has no exit strategy.
If there is one thing to be thankful to Mr. Bush, it is for his unwitting contribution to the emergence of a multipolar world. External restraint, unimaginable a decade ago, is being imposed on America. It is dictated by the perfectly normal desire of Russians, Chinese, Indians and many smaller nations, to prove—contrary to Mr. Bush’s repeated assurances— that “History” has not called America to anything.
It is to be hoped that the emerging new global balance of power will reflect internationally what the system of checks and balances does at home. Its re-establishment will render ludicrous the hubristic ravings of Benevolent Global Hegemonists. It will also help re-legitimize the notion of America as a nation among other nations and a state among other states, with definable and limited national interests as the foundation of its diplomacy. Contrary to what Mr. Bush and his dwindling band of apologists may claim, this is neither defeatism nor isolationism; it is sanity.
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..." what the system of checks and balances" SHOULD BE DOING "at home".
And for the first time in my life, "Good For Mr. Putin!"........I only hope that our weak and deminished congress can see how he did the job that they should have done! Get our troops home, our factories back home, and tell Walmart to live with their profits! Hopefully, within 5 years I can call ANY customer service department and it not go through India!
Wonderful article Mr. Trifkovic.
The deteriorating relationship between America, Russia and China has always infuriated me. I hope the next president and his administration can mend the ties and advance our relationships.
The author may be correct about the prevention of a USA attack on Iran. His revival of Mackinder Theory has problems. The Russian Federation’s Army is in no shape to fight a Second or Third Generation War. Twice in the past 30 years it has been defeated in 4th Generation War. I seen no rapprochement between the Russia and China. Only their dislike of Uncle Sam holds them together. Uncle Sam will soon be out of the Near East, the US defeated also twice in a Fourth Generation war. India's coolness to the Americans is caused by the pressure of Marxist parties in the current Indian coalition government.
The Great Power to watch is Europe. The prophecy of Europe’s doom is highly exaggerated. Certainly the Baltic states are not returning to Great Russian control anytime soon.
If this report is close to being correct, then the one saving grace of Bush is that he has so overextended, domestically and internationally, the American national oligarchy that it must collapse. It will finally bring an end to the growth of the revolution run by Lincoln on behalf of the New England, Puritan capitalists and supercharged by Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman with his totally personal decision to commit US forces in Korea. Americans are finally going to be forced to face themselves. Illinois may be start of this personal confrontation. Chicago does not have enough income for Daly's need to buy off the construction "entrepeneurs" and the unions and needs more money from his subject taxpayers. Cook county, in which Chicago is located, does not have enough income to cover current and future relatives of the Cook County Commission and other feather-bedders and needs more money from its subject taxpayers. And Illinois, in which both are located, wants to buy more health services and mass transit and highways and schools and education, etc., etc., and wants more money from its subject taxpayers. Meanwhile, all the Democratic US, (in which Illinois is located) Presidential candidates want more of everything and have pledged to raise taxes to get more money from their subject taxpayers. Whew! Who would think Putin might be an American hero, the likes of which we haven't seen since Lindbergh.
Olmert makes sudden visit to Moscow:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380593125&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
So much for the ieda that Russia doesn’t matter much.
Russia has relations with Israel and Iran. The US can’t say the same.
you all are dreaming. The bush machine will attack Iran. Oil rules the world. OK, 911 was an inside job. The perps will stop at nothing to gain their goals. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. get it?
An article - a collection of opinions from other pro-Russian and anti-American authors. Plagiarism.
The "alliances" that Putin is trying to knock together have no real basis. Russia should restore order at home and then look across its borders. Such "alliances", I am not sure that the term is the right one, will crumble like so many alliances in the past.
Eric Swan: "THE BUSH MACHINE" is sputtering. Nothing is preordained in human affairs. Let it be noted that the Pentagon is dead against "doing" Iran. Top brass know that the definition of "success" would be even more elusive than on the western side of the Shat-al-Arab, and that the potential for uncontrollable escalation is huge. A massive Shia insurgency in southern Iraq would make the country even less manageable than it is now. The rise of oil prices to $200 a barrel within days would trigger off a world-wide recession. Tehran would have an incentive to support or even sponsor terrorist attacks against the United States. There would be a new crisis in trans-Atlantic relations, far deeper than the one over Iraq; and China and Russia would be drawn even closer together.
If Tehran does seek nuclear weapons, it is only following in the footsteps of other regional powers, notably Israel, India, and Pakistan. It has U.S. troops in Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the north-east. Its eastern neighbor Pakistan is armed with nuclear bombs, inherently unstable, and potentially hostile. The Arab world remained aloof when Iraq attacked in 1980. Under such circumstances, it is easy to understand why Iran’s rulers would desire an alternative deterrent. The mullahs are devious and dogmatic, but they are neither suicidal nor mad.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article Dr. Trifkovic.
===
On October 17, 2007 information was placed at the web site of Iran’s president supplying more details about the official documents signed during Vladimir Putin’s visit to Teheran, in particular concerning plans of both countries to dramatically increase the level of interaction with the task of raising the annual trade and economic cooperation to $200 bln by 2018.
One could think that that was a printer’s error, and the amount in question had to be $20 bln, but the Iranian text also has the figure $200 bln.
The amount is 2.5 times higher than the projections of the long-term “Big Programme” of Russia’s cooperation with China ($80bln). Nevertheless, oil, gas, power production, international transit, aerospace and investment cooperation – everything counts. So, during President Putin’s visit to Iran it showed the level of the general potential loss or lost profits in the event of an armed aggression against it.
President Ahmadinejad called the results of Vladimir Putin’s visit to his country “epochal” in the development of Russian-Iranian relations. (en.fondsk)
(Re. comment #11)
Quite interesting. Here is that "$200x10^9" link:
http://www.president.ir/en/?ArtID=6978
A question. No sooner had the Caspian summit ended than "W." gave that idiotic "warning" about "WWIII" should Iranians merely acquire the theoretical knowledge (:-)). Why? (I mean, other than being a usual obedience-showing ritual for his AIPAC masters.) Was he sour:-?
Another thing... I vividly recall the interview that the (C.I.A.-installed) Iranian "Shah" Reza Pahlevi gave on a major U.S. TV network around 1978 (a year before he was involuntarily un-installed).
The interviewer was grilling him on whether Iran was indeed working on a nuclear bomb, as had been a big speculation in the American press. Which claim, of course, the holder of the "peacock throne" ineptly denied. (Mind you, this was at the time when the U.S. media had much more independence from government control than it has today.)
The point here is that Iranian nuclear ambitions well predate the Ayatollahs.
I've been breathing a bit easier in the past couple of weeks and a lot of that is due to Vladimir Putin. Thank God there is a sane ruler of Russia to save the world from the insanity of Bush, the neo-cons and the Christian Zionists. Another factor working against the US hegemonists is the hardline the Turks are taking against the Kurds and their de facto alliance with Iran, which has a similar problem. "We're putting the crazies back in their boxes," Admiral Fallon was quoted as saying back in the spring. The final and most important crazies to be boxed will be Bush and Cheney.
Steve says:
"The deteriorating relationship between America, Russia and China has always infuriated me. I hope the next president and his administration can mend the ties and advance our relationships"
I have the same hope yet no optimism for such an outcome.
First, ALL republicans candidates, save Tancredo & Paul, are ALL "stay the course" Bush followers who show no indication of a differing world view and are no closer to understanding the global jihad than Shoeless George.
Second, republicans will hand over the White House to Mrs. Bill Clinton with no change in the Bush world view by Nov next year. As Hugh Hewitt says, he rather lose the White House than abandon the "mission" (i.e. those democracy projects in Iraq & Afghanistan).
Third, given Bush's dream of a muslim state, Kosovo, in the heart of Europe, where the "religion of peace" can flourish, who can blame the Russians?
First the vacuum bomb and now this. Again, I find myself rooting for the "other side," and inching ever closer to the embrace of Orthodoxy.
Controlling "our destiny by our leadership" (GWB) and striving for "the end of tyranny in the world" (GWB) is not a political philosophy, it is a clinical diagnosis.
Re #12: Yes, the Shah had started Iran's nuclear program. In the late 1970s Iran and Israel discussed a plan to modify Israel's surface-to-surface Jericho missiles for use by Iran; they could be equipped with nuclear weapons. The Shah's nuclear scientists conducted research into military applications, including nuclear weapons design, plutonium extraction and laser-enrichment research. By the time of Pahlevi's fall, Iran's nuclear program was considered one the most advanced in the Middle East. And BTW, I am genuinely puzzled that those who desire an attack on Iran because they worry about nukes in jihadist hands do not advocate DISARMING an already nuclear-armed hotbed of Islamic radicalism, and a global proliferator to boot – namely, Pakistan.
How sad that an American leader's foolishness has to be curtailed by a foreign statesman rather than by the American people and their "representatives."
The Second Summit of the Caspian countries in Tehran is over. Its main task was to adopt a Declaration on the legal status and regime of the Caspian Sea.
One of the Declaration's provisions prohibits other countries from using the littoral states for attacks on one another under any circumstances. In the context of the increasing tensions between the US and Iran, the Caspian countries have demonstrated their negative attitude to the expansion of the US influence in the region. They also expressed their opposition to the deployment of the US bases in the Caspian area - these bases might target Iran now, but they could be a threat to any of the region's countries in the future.
From the political standpoint, the Summit was clearly a success of Russia and Iran, which indicated confidently that they considered the Caspian region a zone of their vital interests and would not admit any third-party forces to the region. Other Caspian countries will have to synchronize their policies with Moscow and Tehran. As a result, the Summit showed that the project of the Trans-Caspian pipeline circumventing Russia would have little chance to materialize. (en.fondsk)
At last the threat to the world presented by this empire has been checked. Faced with the fact that it can no longer even pretend to dominate the entire world, one wonders if the beast will now turn in upon itself.
Off subject: if a group of states were to successfully secede and then face the ire of a vengeful U.S. government, would it not be wise to bypass Western Europe when looking for friends, and go straight to Moscow? Would it not be in the interest of Moscow to lend at least moral and propaganda assistance to the seceders? I'd rather throw my lot in with a Moscow-Peking-Tehran axis (with friendship towards Serbia), than the self-destructive crazies of the West.
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num7.htm on "universal episcopate" and its difference in meaning from the Papacy
(Re. comment #21)
And what might possibly a connection between "popes" and this thread be?
Thank you.
An excellent piece of analysis and a much needed tonic to the usual rah rah reportage going on in Mainstream. Presumably this sort of writing would be regarded as "unpatriotic" if it ran in Time or or the NYT etc. One lacuna: the author leaves Israel and its reactions out of the picture.
It is always pleasant of course to see sanity 'reimposing' itself...
Here is the maxim under one pseudonym or another I have always reminded us of: 'Absolute or perfect balance in the world is rigged to be not possible (the world is alive and dynamic, not hypothetical); and for this very reason on the other hand approximate balance is Requisite.'
Children or more specifically 'adolescents' "think" or more accurately in this regard 'believe' in terms of absolutes ... they take a non-dynamic [or absolute] wish or fantasy and 'believe' in it 'as if' they are actually 'thinking'. There's is nothing wrong with 'belief' indeed it is in human or conceptual creatures a BIOLOGICAL necessity. We do it and will always do it all the time. The mistake is to confuse it with thought. A belief [wish or idea] is open-ended, and good in that regard. Apparently even mother Nature has proven to be paradoxically in some NARROW regards open ended in allowing for creatures (ourselves) who are not only aware and thinking unconsciously...but aware of being aware and also thinking consciously as well. A thought in comparison with beliefs or a wish or an idea is not open ended. Rather it is something complete in itself and something we can Do. Here's a thought - 'don't confuse motion with action.'
'In 2003 and 2004 came the U.S.-supported and financed “color-coded revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine, the geopolitical equivalent of Putin engineering anti-American regime changes in Mexico and Canada.' -Trifkovic
The 'belief' in American right to hegemony or the cultural underpinning of a jewish notion in their being 'chosen' ... is adolescence. Putin argued in the past let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Now he is acting, based on our adolescent belief that an untenable IMBALANCE toward ourselves in the world is a good thing, by his instead having to become the sane responsible parent...in noticing Approximate Balance is Requisite.
I have also written in the past of noticing his courage and sanity, and am glad to see it continues to be the case. Of course perfect or absolute balance is NOT possible...only the temptation to act in one's own interests in tipping the balance/s...too much toward oneself. We can Hope once it is Russia's or china's turn to make that mistake they do Not choose to. Or if they do then perhaps in the future America may have its own Putin. That would be 'nice.'
_________________________________________________
** Attack Iran and you attack Russia **
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ26Ak06.html
26 October 2007
"... The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran tells Asia Times Online that essentially Putin and the Supreme Leader have agreed on a plan to nullify the George W Bush administration's relentless drive towards launching a preemptive attack, perhaps a tactical nuclear strike, against Iran. An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia. ..."
'The ‘belief’ in American right to hegemony or the cultural underpinning of a jewish notion in their being ‘chosen’ '.
---False analogy. The belief in American hegemony has been explicitly affirmed by the neocons in power and its effects are clearly visible in US policy since 9/11. It is 'adolescent' to imagine that religious beliefs in Jewish "chosenness" underlie Israeli policy. Israel is simply attempting realpolitik. Whether it is doing so wisely or not is, of course, a separate question.
At Last ! The march of Oceanian fascism halted. The elder states of Eurasia, with centuries of mutuality & wisdom behind them, will now restore some semblance of economic/political/cultural sanity to the world. Don't forget the 'eu' of eurasia. Europe, whose currency is now beginning to 'bite', would benefit hugely from an alliance with its' old neighbours. America is indeed a youthfull nation. Perhaps this juncture in history will mark the end of its' adolescence. Great article Dr. Trifkovic. Must leave now. 'Swan Lake' performed by the Kirov ballet in St. Petersburg on TV. Ciao !!!