Crooke on Big Picture Pivot Conflict

What Mackinder called the Rimland, part of which is depicted in the map above, has through various means become part of the Heartland which the West seeks to control because of its wealth of resources, while the people’s residing there want to remain independent and sovereign. The West’s last remaining beachhead in the region is the Zionist state that’s embroiled in an eschatological conflict with the natives of Palestine and its regional supporters.

Such events happening in West Asia as those occurring today were once called a Game, a Geopolitical Game whose players were Imperialist powers, not regional actors. The current conflict is all about changing the dynamic of the status quo not just in West Asia but in what’s known Geopolitically as the Heartland that’s capable of controlling all Eurasia and much of Africa. To prepare readers for the weekly chat between Crooke and Napolitano, there’re two articles that should be read, Crooke’s SCF essay, and a critical article of a sort rarely seen in the West by The Cradle’s Farzad Ramezani Bonesh, an Iranian analyst of international affairs. As I’ve stressed since the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood began, the context to this conflict is crucial to understand and that’s what continues to be enlarged every week. In doing further background work on Crooke, I discovered he has written a book, Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution, published in 2009, a review of which is here, while more can be found online. I still have readers telling me they cannot access the Strategic Culture Foundation’s (SCF) website, so I again provide Crooke’s weekly SCF essay, “The Resistance’s Disruptive Military Innovation May Determine the Fate of Israel:”

Looking back to what I wrote in 2012, in the midst of the so-called Arab Spring and its aftermath, it is striking just how much the Region has shifted. It is now almost 180° re-orientated. Then, I argued,

“That the Arab Spring “Awakening” is taking a turn, very different to the excitement and promise with which it was hailed at the outset. Sired from an initial, broad popular impulse, it is becoming increasingly understood, and feared, as a nascent counter-revolutionary “cultural revolution” – a re-culturation of the region in the direction of a prescriptive canon that is emptying out those early high expectations …

“That popular impulse associated with the ‘awakening’ has now been subsumed and absorbed into three major political projects associated with this push to reassert [Sunni primacy]: a Muslim Brotherhood project, a Saudi-Qatari-Salafist project, and a [radical jihadi] project.

“No one really knows the nature of the [first project] the Brotherhood project – whether it is that of a sect; or if it is truly mainstream … What is clear, however, is that the Brotherhood tone everywhere is increasingly one of militant sectarian grievance. The joint Saudi-Salafist project was conceived as a direct counter to the Brotherhood project – and [the third] was the uncompromising Sunni radicalism [Wahhabism], funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, that aims, not to contain, but rather, to displace traditional Sunnism with the culture of Salafism. i.e. It sought the ‘Salifisation’ of traditional Sunni Islam.

“All these projects, whilst they may overlap in some parts, are in a fundamental way competitors with each other. And [were] being fired-up in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, north Africa, the Sahel, Nigeria, and the horn of Africa.

[Not surprisingly] …“Iranians increasingly interpret Saudi Arabia’s mood as a hungering for war, and Gulf statements do often have that edge of hysteria and aggression: a recent editorial in the Saudi-owned al-Hayat stated: “The climate in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] indicates that matters are heading towards a GCC-Iranian-Russian confrontation on Syrian soil, similar to what took place in Afghanistan during the Cold War. To be sure, the decision has been taken to overthrow the Syrian regime, seeing as it is vital to the regional influence and hegemony of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

Well, that was then. How different the landscape is today: The Muslim Brotherhood largely is a ‘broken reed’, compared to what it was; Saudi Arabia has effectively ‘switched off the lights’ on Salafist jihadism, and is focused more on courting tourism, and the Kingdom now has a peace accord with Iran (brokered by China).

“The cultural shift toward re-imagining a wider Sunni Muslim polity”, as I wrote in 2012, always was an American dream, dating back to Richard Perle’s ‘Clean Break’ Policy Paper of 1996 (a report that had been commissioned by Israel’s then-PM, Netanyahu). Its roots lay with the British post-war II policy of transplanting the stalwart family notables of the Ottoman era into the Gulf as an Anglophile ruling strata catering to western oil interests.

But look what has happened —

A mini revolution: Iran has, in the interim, ‘come in from the cold’ and is firmly anchored as ‘a regional power’. It is now the strategic partner to Russia and China. And Gulf States today are more preoccupied with ‘business’ and Tech than Islamic jurisprudence. Syria, targeted by the West, and an outcast in the region, has been welcomed back into the Arab League’s Arab sphere with high ceremony, and Syria is on its way to assuming again its former standing within the Middle East.

What is interesting is that even then, hints of the coming conflict between Israel and the Palestinians were apparent; as I wrote in 2012:

“Over recent years we have heard the Israelis emphasise their demand for recognition of a specifically Jewish nation-state, rather than for an Israeli State, per se. A Jewish state that in principle, would remain open to any Jew seeking to return: the creation of a ‘Jewish umma’, as it were.

“Now, it seems we have, in the western half of the Middle East, at least, a mirror trend, asking for the reinstatement of a wider Sunni nation – representing the ‘undoing’ of the last remnants of the colonial era. Will we see the struggle increasing epitomised as a primordial struggle between Jewish and Islamic religious symbols – between al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount?

“It seems that both Israel and its surrounding terrain are marching in step toward language which takes them far away from the underlying, largely secular concepts by which this conflict traditionally has been conceptualised. What will be the consequence as the conflict, by its own logic, becomes a clash of religious poles?”

What has driven this 180° turn? One factor, assuredly, was Russia’s limited intervention into Syria to prevent a jihadi sweep. The second has been China’s appearance on the scene as a truly gargantuan business partner – and putative mediator too – precisely at a time when the U.S. had begun its withdrawal from the region (at least in terms of the attention it pays to it, if not (yet) reflected in any substantive physical departure).

The latter – U.S. military withdrawal (Iraq and Syria) – however, seems more a question of ‘when’, rather than if. All expect it.

Put plainly, we have experienced a Mackinder-style ‘pivot of history’: Russia and China – and Iran – are slowly taking control of the Asian heartland (both institutionally and economically), as the pendulum of the West swings away.

The Sunni world – ineluctably and warily – marches towards the BRICS. Effectively, the Gulf finds itself badly wrong-footed by the so-called ‘Abraham Accords’ that tied them to Israeli Tech (which, in turn, was channelling considerable Wall Street venture ‘free money’ their way). Israel’s ‘suspect genocide’ (ICJ language) in Gaza is slowly driving a stake into the heart of the Gulf ‘business model’.

But another key factor has been the smart diplomacy pursued by Iran. It is easy for western Iran-hawks to decry Iran’s politicking and influencing across the region – the Islamic Republic is after all, unrepentantly ‘non-compliant’ with the U.S. aims and pro-Israeli ambitions in the Region. What else, other than pushback, might you expect when all the encircling western ‘fire’ was so concentrated on the Islamic Republic?

Yet, Iran has pursued an astute path. It has NOT gone to war against Sunni Arab states in Syria, as was mooted in 2012. Rather, it quietly has pursued a strategy of diplomacy and joint Gulf security and trade with Gulf States. Iran too, has partly succeeded in shaking itself free from much of the effects of western sanctions. It has joined both BRICS and the SCO and has acquired a new economic and political ‘spatial depth’.

Whether the U.S. and Europe likes it or not, Iran is a major regional political player, and it sits atop, with others, the coalition of Resistance Movements and Fronts that have been woven together through shrewd diplomacy to work in close conjunction with each other.

This development has become a key strategic ‘project’: Sunni (Hamas) and Shi’i (Hizbullah) are joined with other ‘fronts’ in an anti-colonial struggle for liberation under the non-sectarian symbol of Al-Aqsa (which is neither Sunni, nor Shi’a, nor Muslim Brotherhood, nor Salafist or Wahhabi). It represents, rather, the storied tale of Islamic civilisation. Yes, it is, in its way, eschatological too.

This latter achievement has done much to limit the threat of all-out war from engulfing the region (fingers-crossed though …). The Iranian and Resistance Axis’ interest is twofold: First, to retain power to carefully calibrate the intensity of conflict – upping and lowering as appropriate; and secondly, to keep escalatory dominance as much as possible in their hands.

The second aspect encompasses strategic patience. The Resistance Movements well understand the Israeli psyche – therefore, NO Pavlovian reflexes to Israeli provocations are accepted. But rather, to wait and rely on Israel to provide the pretext to any further step up the escalatory ladder. Israel must be seen to be the instigator for escalation – and the resistance merely the responder. The ‘eye’ must be on the Washington political psyche.

Thirdly, Iran draws confidence to pursue its ‘forwardness’ by having innovated a tectonic shift in asymmetric warfare, and in deterrence against Israel and the West. The U.S. might huff and puff, but Iran felt assured throughout this period that the U.S. well knows the risks associated with trying ‘blow the house down’.

Realists in the West tend to believe that ‘power’ is a simple function of national population size and GDP. So that, given the disparity in air and firepower, no way, as an example, can Hizbullah expect to ‘come out quits’ against Israel – a much richer and more populated entity.

This blindspot is the Resistance’s silent ‘ally’. It prevents the West (mostly) from understanding this pivot in military thinking.

Iran and its allies take a different view: They regard a state’s power to rest on intangibles, rather than literal tangibles: strategic patience; ideology; discipline; innovation and the concept of military leadership defined as the ability to cast a ‘magic’ spell over men so that they would follow their commander, even unto death.

The West has (or had) airpower and unchallenged air superiority, but the Resistance Fronts have their two-stage solution. They manufacture their own AI-assisted swarm drones and smart earth-hugging missiles. This is their Air Force.

The second stage naturally would be to evolve a layered air defence system (Russian-style). Does the Resistance possess such? Like Brer Rabbit, they stay mum.

The Resistance’s underlying strategy is clear: the West is over-invested in its air dominance and in its overwhelming fire-power. It prioritises quick shock and awe thrusts, but usually quickly exhausts itself early in the encounter. They rarely can sustain such high-intensity assault for long.

In Lebanon in 2006, Hizbullah remained deep underground whilst the Israeli air assault swept overhead. The physical surface damage was huge, yet their forces were unaffected and emerged only afterwards. Then came the 33 days of Hizbullah’s missile barrage – until Israel called it quits. This patience represents the first pillar of strategy.

The second therefore, is that whereas the West has short endurance, the opposition is trained and prepared for long attritional conflict – missile and rocket barrage to the point that civil society can sustain the impact no longer. War’s aim not necessarily has killing the enemy soldiers as a prime objective; rather it is exhaustion and inculcating a sense of defeat.

And what of the opposing project?

In 2012, I wrote:

“It seems that both Israel and [the Islamic world] are marching in step toward [eschatological narratives] which is taking them far away from the underlying, largely secular concepts by which this conflict traditionally has been conceptualised. What will be the consequence as the conflict, by its own logic, becomes a clash of religious poles? ” [– Al-Aqsa versus the Temple Mount].

Well, the West remains stuck with trying to manage and contain the conflict, using precisely those ‘largely secular concepts’ by which this conflict has been conceptualised and managed (or non-managed, I would say). In so doing, and through the West’s (secular) support for one particular eschatological vision (which happens to overlap with its own) over another, it inadvertently fuels the conflict.

Too late to return to secular modes of management; the genie is out. [Bolded italics my emphasis.]

The last full paragraph above is extremely important, and readers will want to keep it in mind when watching the chat as Crooke expands his explanation. One of the failings of the Western world is to understand the nature of the Zionist Project and why it was allowed and aided greatly in its attempts to escalate its project in Palestine as it’s now morphed into becoming what Crooke predicted a dozen years ago. The regions’s peoples have watched this project grow and become a cancer initiated by the West to obtain and continue its control. Well, that control is fading rapidly along with the demise of the Zionist Project.

We now turn to, “Why the Red Sea Matters to Iran,” which is clearly a reasonable question:

The Red Sea has been a crucial historical nexus for Iran, with its roots tracing back to ancient times when the Achaemenid Empire extended its influence along its shores. Over the centuries, from the Sassanid era to contemporary times, Iran's connection with this strategic waterway has evolved and deepened, most notably through its ties with Yemen. 

While, in the modern era, the Indian Ocean, Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea grew in strategic value under the pre-revolutionary reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, it is in recent decades that Tehran has made concerted efforts to forge multifaceted ties with Red Sea states, excluding Israel. 

Under former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, cooperation blossomed in counterterrorism, arms control, and military technology, and Tehran made a strategic decision to extend its operational theaters into new waterways further afield. 

'We're securing these waterways'

It's been a shocking development for Washington - which views Iran as its key adversary in West Asia – to watch its nemesis' navy and commercial vessels swan into the various gulfs, straits, seas, and oceans once under US domain. 

The Iranians have taken a page out of the American playbook: where the Pentagon goes to "thwart terrorism and piracy," "police the seas," and secure its maritime borders, so too does Iran, with even more credibility, because these waterways are its actual backyard.

As Dr Sadollah Zarei, director of the Tehran-based Andisheh Sazan Noor Institute, said in 2017, "US actions give us a behavior precedent in our naval reach." The US naval presence in Iran's neighboring waters "gives us even more right to be active in the Persian Gulf, in the Gulf of Aden, and other waters." As a result, Zarei explained, "We are now in the Gulf of Bengal and the Indian Ocean."

The turn of the millennium marked Iran's heightened engagement in the Red Sea region, but post-2016, diplomatic ties frayed with several Red Sea countries, chiefly Saudi Arabia. Now, under Ebrahim Raisi's presidency, this critical waterway is under renewed foreign policy focus. 

The Red Sea is located between the Arabian Peninsula and northeastern Africa, the Bab al-Mandab strait, the Indian Ocean, and the Suez Canal. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel are the neighbors of the Red Sea.

After the Beijing-brokered restoration of relations with Saudi Arabia last year, a November meeting between Iran's Raisi and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Riyadh and a telephone conversation between the two at the end of December have accelerated Tehran's normalization efforts with Cairo. 

Additionally, the recent successful restoration of mutual relations between Sudan and Iran after a seven-year hiatus marks another significant diplomatic achievement.

Pivot to Africa 

Iran's strategic pivot towards Africa, particularly the Red Sea, is intentional. Raisi's historic three-nation Africa tour last year underscores Tehran's ambitions to bolster its regional standing and marked the first visit by an Iranian president to the continent in 11 years. 

Furthermore, his recent trip to Algeria earlier this month was the first of its kind to the North African country in 14 years.

Clearly, it is diplomacy and economy – not conflict – on Iran's agenda as it actively seeks to counter US influence and mitigate western sanctions by engaging beyond West Asia. 

From Tehran's perspective, the emerging multipolar world order is defined by a series of coalitions, each vying for influence. In this context, the Red Sea holds immense geopolitical and geostrategic significance, attracting attention from both regional and extra-regional actors such as Russia, the UAE, China, and the US.

For instance, in Russia's 2023 Foreign Policy Concept, Moscow prioritized the establishment of a multipolar international system and engagement with Africa. 

Iran, now a member of BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), recognizes the shifting global dynamics and sees potential in trilateral cooperation among Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing to counterbalance Washington's geopolitical influence in the region.

Over the years, western states and their regional allies have actively sought to create geopolitical challenges and isolate Iran – notably, Israel, which remains a formidable adversary along the Red Sea coast. To counter such threats, Iran has consistently aimed to neutralize hostile actions against it by increasing its geopolitical weight in this region.

Iran has, therefore, strategically focused attention on bolstering its influence in the vicinity of the Red Sea's critical waterways. The emergence of the Ansarallah-led, de-facto government in Yemen provided an opportune moment for Tehran to deepen its influence in the region. 

Another rationale for Iran's expanding presence in the Red Sea is the region's significant economic and geo-economic potential. With its abundant primary resources and growing consumer market, Africa presents a promising partnership opportunity for Tehran. 

Aiming to boost trade with Africa tenfold, Iran is formulating strategies to enhance economic and trade ties with African states, aligning its focus with economic and geo-economic objectives to bolster its national power.

Last summer, President Raisi acknowledged that Iran's share of the African economy "is very low."

Apart from supporting Palestine, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran defends the values of the Islamic Revolution by strengthening internal independence and confronting the domination of domineering countries. 

In light of this, Iran also seeks to expand its soft power by increasing its presence in the Red Sea.

Expanding Iran's strategic depth 

According to Iranian policymakers, security is an interconnected concept, and the security of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea are related.

On 3 January, Iran's Permanent Representative to the UN pointed out Iran's importance to maritime security and freedom of navigation, noted in a letter to Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the UN, and the French Ambassador to the UN, who holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council:

America cannot deny or cover up this undeniable fact: The fact that the recent events in the Red Sea are directly related to the continuation of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

In January, Iran's foreign minister criticized the US for its efforts to militarize the Red Sea. In response to Washington's plan to form a naval alliance in the Red Sea, Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said on 17 December: "The Red Sea is considered Iran's territory, and no one can maneuver."

In early March, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former chief commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said, "The depth of our strategic defense is the Mediterranean Sea." He added, "We should expand our strategic [defense] depth by 5,000 kilometers (3,106 miles)." Safavi also described the Mediterranean and Red Seas as "strategic spots."

The US and its allies have sought to justify their imposition in the Red Sea due to Tehran's support for Sanaa. While the Iranians have repeatedly denied involvement in the Ansarallah Red Sea operations, the Islamic Republic considers the waterway as a legitimate field for resisting Israeli aggression and supports pressuring Tel Aviv to halt its genocidal war on Gaza via these operations. 

In addition, due to Iran's technological power and the innovation and development of effective and smart weapons, Iran will have the possibility of establishing a naval base in the Red Sea and sending weapons to African countries and the region through the Red Sea.

Raisi's Red Sea policy 

Although Iran's future approach to the Red Sea is subject to numerous political, economic, international, and security considerations, factors such as economic sanctions and the responses of other powers also hold significance.

Yet, shifts in US policy in West Asia, dwindling global interests, geopolitical changes, and a trend towards pragmatic policies will remain pivotal variables for Tehran's strategic focus on the Red Sea. Iran's overarching goal is to resolve conflicts, normalize diplomatic relations, and broaden cooperation with Red Sea countries across various domains.

Tehran prioritizes enhancing or broadening ties with Red Sea-bordering states, excluding Israel, while strategically leveraging the Red Sea as a geopolitical asset. Iran's active presence serves the dual purpose of safeguarding international waterways and maritime traffic, combating piracy, and preparing to counter both official and unofficial threats and conspiracies, including the escort of commercial ships, oil tankers, and fishing vessels.

Iran is poised to expand its sphere of influence, foster intelligence cooperation among Red Sea littoral states, and potentially pursue regional security collaboration, including the establishment of a naval alliance with friendly states in the region.

The Red Sea, viewed as a gateway to international trade and Africa, offers Iran an alternative route to circumvent sanctions. As such, Iran may intensify its presence in the Red Sea's free zones and invest in energy, oil, electricity, infrastructure, and port development. 

Additionally, as an official member of BRICS, Tehran may seek to maximize its economic influence by bolstering the North–South international corridor, enhancing banking cooperation, promoting the use of national currencies, and increasing Iranian exports. Such initiatives would be carefully aligned with the interests of regional stakeholders. [Bolded italics my emphasis.]

It’s notable that out of all of West Asia’s Islamic nations only Iran has become a top-notch builder of modern weapons adapted to the new methods of warfare. And with the erosion of the artificial Sunni/Shi’i divide and conflict it contrived, Iran has products and expertise regional nations will desire. And since it’s included in BRICS+ and SCO, it will be able to piggyback on their commercial projects. Iran already performs Naval FTX’s with Russia and China, and was very smart to use the Outlaw US Empire’s own rationales to justify Iran’s own policies. I would expect Iran’s relations with Egypt to rapidly deepen now that they’re both in BRICS+, and the same could be said with UAE, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. As revealed, Iran is confident that it will be capable of doing the above and much more. The next major goal not mentioned above is Iran’s Persian Gulf Security Plan, which is essentially the same as Russia and China’s. Clearly, Iran would like to expand that security plan to include the Red Sea region. Eventually, the West’s Imperialist project for the region will become untenable and it will be forced to withdrawal. And when it goes, the Zionist Project will also.

Little is mentioned of Ansarallah or the Red Sea during the Crooke Napolitano chat as they focus more on the political conflict between the Zionists and Team Biden. Even the EU showed some spine, but that was probably all show. Again, the methods of the Resistance are discussed against the unmovable nature of the now Live or Die status of the Zionist Project for Zionists. Crooke confirms the Resistance strategy is that of attrition, siege if you will that I saw coming back in October. The longer the siege continues, the worse are Biden’s reelection prospects. Do listen for the latest flip in Trump’s policy approach.

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