Yves here. I have seen claims (forgive me for not running them down) that the US contacted the Iranians and basically asked them to stand down in the face of a performative/face-saving attack (which is what happened with the “obliteration” of the nuclear sites) and Iran said no. If L’Orient has this right in its Strike or deal? What Washington and Tehran are negotiating, the US is making over-the-top unreasonable demands.
The latest regime-change attempt in Iran seems to have considerably stiffened some spines. Iran has said it will treat any new attack as war and will retaliate. Alastair Crooke has said that Iran has communicated that that includes closing the Strait of Hormuz for at least three months. Dramatically higher oil prices going into the midterms would be fatal to the Republicans, charitably assuming they happen. So Trump needs another face-saving retreat. And Greenland shows he’ll take very little compared to his original demands and tout it as a great success. So what Korybko describes below could allow Trump to beat a retreat.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website.
Redirecting Iran’s oil exports from China to India in exchange for partial US sanctions relief could avert another American attack by satisfying its goal of depriving China of some of the resources that it requires for maintaining its rapid superpower rise without risking a potentially disastrous regional war.
The US’ deployment of an aircraft carrier to West Asia and its newly announced aerial drills ominously hint that another American attack on Iran is forthcoming, one which could embolden neighboring Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and/or Turkiye (which are allies with one another) to try to militarily “Balkanize” it. In connection with that scenario, the Middle East Eye recently reported that the Turkish Foreign Ministry briefed lawmakers about a plan to carve out a “buffer zone” in Iran ostensibly for sheltering refugees.
Since they consider themselves to be “one nation, two states”, and the border is largely populated by ethnic Azeris, Turkiye would certainly coordinate its “buffer” with Azerbaijan, which could then lead to a joint operation for forcibly annexing Northwestern Iran into Azerbaijan to create a Turkic superstate. Even if that particular scenario doesn’t unfold, the prerequisite of which is US strikes leading to large-scale instability in Iran, then Turkiye could still intervene on the pretext of fighting Kurdish separatists.
Be that as it may, it’s still possible that Trump doesn’t strike Iran seeing as how he claimed that “They want to make a deal. I know so. They called on numerous occasions. They want to talk.” His Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said in mid-January that any deal would have to address Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities, existing stockpile of enriched material, ballistic missiles, and regional partnerships with non-state allies (“proxies” as he described them). Such a deal might be difficult to reach in the near future.
Nevertheless, Iran might be able to buy time and possibly get the US to drop some of the aforementioned demands through creative energy diplomacy, namely that which aligns with the “Trump Doctrine” as understood by the new National Security Strategyand National Defense Strategy. As explained here, a significant part of it is placing the US in a position where it can deny China access to the energy and markets that it requires to maintain its growth and thus its rapid rise as a superpower.
It was recently assessed that “The US Wants To Replicate The Venezuelan Model In Iran”, which is to say that the US wants to exert influence over the Iranian energy industry at the very least, specifically its exports. Iran has some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, but production and exports have been handicapped by US sanctions, thus resulting in minimal sales abroad. Pretty much all that it sells nowadays goes to China and at a steep discount too. The US has an obvious interest in changing that.
Accordingly, Iran could propose redirecting its energy exports to India, which the US has pressured to dump Russian oil. The US would have to lift some of its sanctions on Iran, however, but Trump might do so for denying China access to Iranian oil without having to risk the regional war that could follow another American attack to that end. Russia might also accept India importing less of its oil if it averts Iran’s possible “Balkanization” and the consequent creation of a Turkic superstate on its southern border.
Russia could always obtain new oil clients since any deal over Ukraine would likely involve sanctions relief for facilitating that, but it couldn’t put Iran back together again if it “Balkanizes”. Moreover, Russia’s North-South Transport Corridor with India via Iran would then become unviable, which is another reason for Russia to support any Iranian-US deal. Apart from Iran’s strategic capitulation to the US, the creative energy diplomacy proposed in this analysis is the best bet for averting another American attack on Iran.
