ERIC ZUESSE -- How Iran Can Checkmate Trump

How Iran Can Checkmate Trump

and why they probably won’t

by Eric Zuesse

January 7, 2020

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org

On Sunday morning 5 January 2020, the great investigative journalist and geostrategist Bernhard Horstmann headlined “Iraqi Parliament Expels Foreign Militaries From Iraq” and he reported that not only the parliament but also the nation’s Prime Minister (Abdel Mahdi) are demanding departure from Iraq of all foreign military forces, and that Iraq will now — as UAE’s The National puts it — “lodge an official complaint against the US at the UN.” The complaint will “condemn #US airstrikes on #Iraqi soil targeting Iraqi soldiers and both Iraqi and #Iranian military leaders.”

(U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media, such as Reuters, lied about this matter when saying that “While such resolutions are not binding on the government, this one is likely to be heeded: Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had earlier called on parliament to end foreign troop presence as soon as possible.” As Horstmann had already explained, the assassination was profoundly embarrassing personally to Mahdi, and he “and the whole cabinet supported the resolution.” Under such circumstances, there is no way possible that the Prime Minister can reverse himself and his cabinet and the Parliament, on that demand. It’s a non-reversible demand. But, later on January 5th, the U.S. State Department nonetheless said, “While we await further clarification on the legal nature and impact of today’s resolution, we strongly urge Iraqi leaders to reconsider the importance of the ongoing economic and security relationship between the two countries and the continued presence of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.” That was a stupid statement, but at least it wasn’t so demeaning to Shiites and to Shiite-led governments as the U.S. President’s statements normally are. It was instead a public display that the American dictator can’t believe that, from now on, Iraqis are going to be running Iraq, and that there’s no way the ruler in Washington DC can possibly dictate to Iraq again. Yet, Axios reported later in the day, that “‘I think it would be inconvenient for us, but it would be catastrophic for Iraq,’ said a U.S. official familiar with the Trump administration’s effort to block the vote. ‘It’s our concern that Iraq would take a short-term decision that would have catastrophic long-term implications for the country and its security.’” The U.S. Government was already becoming desperate and resorting to veiled unspecific ‘catastrophe’ for Iraqis if Iraq’s Government won’t reverse this command. Some fat chance that the outraged and temporarily united Iraqi public are going to cave to such veiled threats from Iraq’s viscerally hated invader.) 

Horstmann, a progressive German who despises fascists (such as Trump), makes abundantly clear that “Without any bases in Iraq the U.S. position in Syria will become untenable.” He quotes another respected geostrategist, Elijah Magnier, saying, “#Qassem Soleimani managed to reach with his death what he couldn’t reach when he was alive. That is his last spectacular act for Iran and for the ‘Axis of the Resistance’: legislation forcing the US to withdraw and cease all kind of collaboration.”

Instances in which I have tracked the accuracy of predictions of both Horstmann and Magnier, have shown Horstmann’s to have an even higher (virtually 100%) rate of having proven accurate than Magnier’s do; and, consequently, Horstmann’s quoting this from Magnier makes it Horstman’s prediction also, and not only Magnier’s. This adds weight to it. Consequently, the U.S. regime’s long war against Iran, which started by its successful coup in 1953 overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected Government and replacing that legimate Government by a barbaric dictatorship which lasted until 1979 and which American billionaires even up to the present time cannot tolerate having been overthrown by the Iranian people in 1979, does finally appear likely to end, with the fascist imperialist U.S. regime’s humiliating defeat, one way or another, but not necessarily quickly.

Horstmann closes with:

There is a clear danger in this act [by Iraq’s Government, expelling all U.S. forces]. The Trump administration is now likely to see Iraq as completely in the Iranian camp. That never was and never will be true but that is how it will be seen. The U.S. may therefore again start to pay (with Saudi money?) Sunni extremists, i.e. ISIS, to change the current situation to its advantage.

That is one reason why I recommend to Iraq to invite Russia to train its army.

However, here I respectfully diverge from Horstmann’s view. While I do favor Iraq’s becoming allied with Russia — the nation that America’s Government has been aiming ever since 26 July 1945 (when the U.S. Government became taken over by America’s Deep State or aristocracy) to conquer — I believe that immediately is not the best time to do this. My sense of the situation is that Trump has already trapped himself here, and that if only Iran will refrain from fulfilling anytime soon its threats to retaliate, then Trump will become forced by circumstances to accept a settlement on Iran’s terms. Consequently, any public action by Russia right now would serve only to provide America’s billionaires (acting, as they customarily do, via their agents and fronts) yet another opportunity to call Russia ‘an enemy of America’ and thereby to distract the global public from the blatant, sheer, and unalloyed, evil, of Trump’s constant efforts to crush Iran — a nation that never invaded nor even threatened to invade America. Furthermore, Iraq’s leadership have probably already been advised by Russia to refrain from publicly seeking alliance with Russia at the present stage; and, so, I do not expect that any such request by Iraq will be made at this time. If Iraq requests it now and Russia does not favorably respond, that would only weaken both Iraq and Russia; so, I do not expect it to happen. Not yet.

Timing is almost everything. On 18 November 2019, Russia’s Sputnik News bannered “Russia Ready to Deliver Arms to Iran After Int’l Sanctions Lifted — Defence Cooperation Body”, and this obviously means that Russia doesn’t want to come out publicly on Iran’s side unless and until the U.S. regime has cancelled its sanctions against Iran. Putin is an extremely intelligent man; he understands timing. Trump’s 3 January 2020 assassination of Iran’s #2 leader is an overt (by means of that action) declaration of war by him against Iran; and, so, Russia clearly can see that if Russia overtly comes out as being allied with Iran against the United States, then the conflict between U.S. and Iran would immediately be also a conflict between U.S. and Russia — and at an even higher level of adversariality than since 30 September 2015 (when Russia started bombing America’s and Saudi Arabia’s hired boots-on-the-ground fighters — led by Al Qaeda in Syria — who were trying to overthrow Syria’s secular Government) has existed regarding the war in Syria. It would be wrong for Russia, until U.S. troops are already gone from Iraq. Russia’s strategy has always been to delay World War III until all other means of pacifying America’s cravenous aristocracy have become exhausted — which hasn’t happened yet. If Russia will be coming out publicly in favor of Iran against the U.S. regime, then that would be just one step away from a direct hot war with the United States, which would produce global nuclear annihilation. Obviously, Russia won’t yet do that. Forcing Trump either to become publicly humiliated by backing down, or else for him to destroy the planet within less than an hour by means of WW III, isn’t necessary now, though could later occur, if Trump is crazy enough to refuse to comply with Iraq’s January 5th command.

So: neither Iraq nor Iran should make any such move (inviting Russia in), at the present time. Only after U.S. troops are gone from the region could Iraq and Iran become publicly allied with, and under the protection of, Russia. Only then will the realigned global order start. Right now would be too early.

Iran’s leadership team are remarkably intelligent. (America’s, after FDR died, have usually been cunning but now — under Trump — aren’t even that.) Iran’s leaders have promised retaliation for what Trump did. But they haven’t said when it will be done, or what it will entail. If they just stand back and wait while the world-at-large (other than American billionaires’ core foreign allies the aristocracies of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and UK) gradually abandon their alliances with the U.S. regime, then not only Iran but also the U.S. regime’s other main targets — Russia and China — will naturally rise in the international order, and this could become the way that the world’s most dangerous imperialistic regime, the United States Government (since 1948 the serial perpetrator of coups and invasions), will finally be able to be defeated peacefully, and defanged gradually thereafter.

That would be Iran’s retaliation — none.

Here is what I see as a possible end-point to this matter, if all non-U.S. entitities respond to this turning-point in history in the optimal ways:

Trump would announce that he is herewith cancelling sanctions against Iran and restoring U.S. participation in the Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which in 2015 was signed by China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and then the entire European Union. Iran would then announce that it is willing to discuss with all of the signatories to that agreement, if a majority of them wish to do so, international negotiations regarding possible changes (amendments) to be made to that agreement. The United States would then offer, separately, and on a strictly bi-lateral, U.S.-Iran, basis, to negotiate with Iran a settlement to all outstanding issues between the two nations, so that they may proceed forward with normal diplomatic relations, on a peaceful instead of mutually hostile, foundation.

Trump also would announce that he is seeking negotiations with Iraq about a total withdrawal of the United States from Iraq — the end of the U.S. occupation that started on 20 March 2003 — and closure of the U.S. Embassy there, to be replaced by a far smaller U.S. Embassy. America’s imperial sway over Iraq will end, though not immediately — its ending will be a process. This will be a negotiated termination, a peaceful one (unless Trump is crazy enough to resist).

Trump would initiate this as a package-deal confidentially offered by him to Khamenei — all steps of it — in advance of any carrying-out of the steps, and initiated by him soon enough to ward off any retaliatory action by Iran (just in case Iran isn’t smart enough to give him all the time he needs in order to quit his further provocations), so as to avoid further escalation of the hostilities, which otherwise would likely escalate to a widespread and possibly global war. In other words, this direct communication between the two should already have been sought by Trump. (But, since he’s probably too stupid to have thought that out in advance, let’s all hope that Iran’s leadership are sufficiently intelligent to give him all the time that he needs.)

I do not expect Trump to do any of that, not even the first step, and not even the offer to Khamenei; and Iran is in no position to make the first step, in any case (since the U.S. had started the mutual hostilities between the two nations in 1953). However, if Trump does, at least make the offer and then do the first step (ending sanctions), then I think that he will easily win re-election, regardless of whom the Democratic nominee will be. If he can re-establish friendly relations with Iran, then that will be a diplomatic achievement of historic proportions, the best and most important in decades. No one would then be able to deny it. He would, in fact, then deserve to win the Nobel Peace Prize (which Obama never deserved to win, though he did win it). But I don’t expect any of that to happen, because it would be exactly contrary to the way that any recent U.S. President has behaved, and because many in power in the United States would be furious against him if he did do it.

But just give it time; and, if Iran simply waits for ‘the right time to retaliate’, then retaliation by Iran won’t even be necessary.

This would be “Checkmate!” by Iran, against the U.S. regime. And that  would be Iran’s (and everyone’s except U.S.’s, UK’s, Israel’s, and Saudi Arabia’s) ‘retaliation’, for Trump’s personal combination of psychopathy and stupidity. (Those four nations — the core U.S. group — would then go on together, to decline peacefully in the global order.)

An interesting feature of this outcome is that Iran would then be using Trump’s enormous blunder in a way that would simultaneously defeat all four of the nations that are seeking to defeat Iran: U.S., Saudi Arabia, Israel, and UK. Even if Trump ends up winning his vaunted Nobel Peace Prize and Iran won’t share in it, Iran would be the winner of what really is important, and (no matter how much such a prize would then be deserved only by Iran), that meaningless piece of PR dross wouldn’t mean anything to Iran’s leaders, anyway. They’re not nearly so petty as Trump — that’s for sure.

Iran’s biggest weapon now will be patience, if they’re smart enough to use it.

Trump’s assassination of Soleimani could turn out to have been the best thing that has ever happened for Iran. If so, Soleimani, were he around to see the outcome, would be ecstatic that Trump did it. He was a true Iranian patriot, nothing of the fake sort. In any case, nothing, from now on, will be able to detract from the legend that will arise in Iran about him. The ball is now in Iran’s court, for Soleimani’s successors to determine the world’s future. Trump made this possible. Without what he did on January 3rd, it would not be possible.

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UPDATE:

However, the news on the morning of January 7th is that at least thus far, Iran is behaving badly, and also Europe is behaving badly. Iran is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which in 2015 was signed by China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and then the entire European Union. This drives European nations to continue relying on America and its NATO. And the rhetoric from European leaders is suddenly more favorable toward Trump’s assassination of Soleimani. Things right now are hurtling toward an isolated Iran against ‘The Western Alliance’ or the U.S.-and-allied regimes. Perhaps Iran’s leaders (Khamenei and Solemani’s replacement, announced by Khamenei on January 3rd, Brigadier General Ismai Ghani), are expecting that in a lurch they will ask Russia to back them up against U.S.-and-its-allies. This suggests that Putin hasn’t yet told them that unless they adhere to this plan, he would say no to that. If this is what’s happening behind the scenes, then Putin goofed there by having assumed they understood, and should promptly but privately tell Iran this, and should privately instruct Iran promptly to reverse its announced withdrawal from the nuclear agreement. That reversal would turn out to be temporary if EU leaders fail then to back Iran and Iraq against U.S. on Soleimani and on the necessity for Trump to comply with the order from Iraq to end occupying Iraq now. Unless Iran promptly reverses its announced withdrawal from JCPOA, everything will fall apart and not be able to be put together again, and, at the very least, Iran will be destroyed and probably almost all of the Middle East too. The Cold War would go on, and the U.S. regime would be in an even stronger position than before. America’s occupation of Iraq woud continue. The misery and humiliation of Iraqis would intensify even further, China would be practically isolated, and America’s all-but-total conquest of the world would be good for nobody but U.S.-and-allied billionaires. But the results would be worst of all for Iranians.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.