1. CONTEXT – A FRAMEWORK FOR THE IRAN WAR
What is new is the system-level shock now hitting the international order. The American political scientist Robert A. Pape offers a useful framework for understanding it. His approach helps filter out the daily noise – the endless headlines and social-media fragments bouncing around our screens and in our heads.
The framework is academic, if you prefer, but it maps reality rather well. It is essentially systems analysis - the sort of structured thinking taught to many, years ago, in SSADM courses. The benefit is that it dampens the emotions and and put the rational part in charge of the amygdala. In short, it frees us from emotional overload and helps us see not just events, but the direction in which events may be heading.
Glossary
Systems analysis – a method of studying complex situations by identifying the actors, incentives and feedback loops shaping outcomes.
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2. ESCALATION - TRAPPED ON THE LADDER
From that perspective, the two seniles in Washington and Tel Aviv seem caught in the flypaper of escalation. Once states begin climbing the escalation ladder, each move tends to demand a next-rung, and it becomes difficult to step back.
These two seem mesmerised by the apparent power of precision bombing and their own strategic narratives, to the point where they ignore their own analysts and public. But trouble is, escalation often develops a logic of its own. Leaders begin believing that the next strike, the next pressure point, will finally deliver the decisive outcome. History suggests otherwise. Escalation tends to widen conflicts rather than resolve them and this one looks like it's leading us to Armageddon.
Glossary
Escalation ladder – a strategic concept describing successive stages of military pressure, from limited strikes to full-scale war.
Reference
Herman Kahn, On Escalation (1965)
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3. WHAT IS THE WAR REALLY ABOUT?
Pape frames the crisis around Iran’s potential nuclear weapon. But is this really what it's all about? The nuclear issue may be less the core objective and more as a strategic constraint or a pretext for war (there have been so many reasons given!).
The real objectives are more likely economic and geopolitical control, particularly control of global energy flows and the regional Order in West. Washington is attempting extraction of Iran's wealth and domination of global energy markets to constrain China’s access; while Israel seeks to remove its most powerful regional rival and pursue its apocalyptic Zionist goal, supposedly of Biblical origin. That raises the question: does the nuclear narrative simply provide the political justification for a much broader strategic struggle?
Glossary
Geopolitical objective – a strategic aim pursued by states to secure power, resources, or influence within the international system.
Reference
Daniel Yergin – The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations (2020)
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4. IRAN AND THE ESCALATION LADDER
Another angle often overlooked in the MSM is Iran’s own strategy. Tehran may not be trying to avoid escalation at all. Instead it may be attempting to control the escalation ladder.
In this case, its objectives would doubtless mean raising the cost of US and Israeli intervention, weakening the American military presence in West Asia, and undermining confidence in US-aligned Gulf monarchies. Isn't Iran trying to sweep america out of West Asia to permanently neutralise the threat from Israel once and for all; and to store oil revenues not in American treasuries that just support America's debt driven economy and Israel, but rather in BRICS infrastructure?
The Gulf kingdoms are coming to look particularly fragile. They are small monarchies ranged out along the narrow Gulf littoral, guarding the oil and gas export project, while behind them stretches the vast Arabian desert, completely indifferent to such political constructions.
Glossary
Littoral – the coastal zone where land meets the sea.
Reference
Kenneth Pollack – The Persian Puzzle (2004)
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5. OZYMANDIAS
The situation evokes the theme captured in Percy Shelley’s poem Ozymandias. Empires appear invincible at the height of their power, yet history is full of mighty structures that proved far more fragile than they seemed.
In that sense the real question may not simply be whether the war escalates further. We should be thinking about which political structures in the region prove durable and which are just temporary, figments of the occidental imagination.
Reference
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias
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