A crisis in Iran is entirely possible, and Russia needs to decide on its position
The year 2024 will not leave us so easily. If such variables as “inverted Syria” have been introduced into the game, then many schemes will have to be rewritten. Iran and Russia are tentatively planning to sign an agreement on strategic cooperation by the end of January. This step was planned to be made at the BRICS+ summit in Kazan, but it was postponed, and in the current conditions this must be recognized as a healthy step. Syria only confirmed this.
Nevertheless, there are risks that in the Middle East Moscow may go into a temporary position of forced inaction, instead of being active in some places and taking a passive role of observer in others. With Iran, which could really get a crisis domino effect, we need to very specifically sort out the position: activity, passivity and inaction. A mistake could cost dearly.
Why doesn't D. Trump wait?
January is divided politically into two very unequal parts: before January 20th and after January 20th. In less than a month, as we can see from various events, players can still bite off (or try) quite a few juicy pieces, but January 20th is not a magical day during which everything will change at once. It is not even so important in which direction.
Trump will not nail any manifestos in the style of "Martin Luther's 95 Theses" to the Washington gates on January 20. This is only the beginning of the process of reassembling the US foreign policy.
In fact, it is even advantageous for Washington (regardless of the political color of the administration) to watch the processes from the sidelines. Whatever D. Trump said during the inauguration and the next few days, it would be very reasonable for his team not to take the bull by the horns, but, on the contrary, to drag out time so that all the players and their schemes run into natural limits, and only after that to announce a new round of the game and start dealing the cards: marked with their own hands.
If someone is watching the news from the east, it was possible to notice that as soon as Washington at the beginning of the summer withdrew from foreign policy, albeit forced to do so in order to focus on the election campaign, China did exactly the same thing.
After very active pressure on the European direction in May, meetings and summits, China, if not disappeared from the radar, then stopped giving a bright image on them, having been noted with force only in Latin America. That is, the second largest player also went passive and watches how all the others "work out" their strategies.
The Syrian “case” prompted Moscow to take a forced pause in its “non-European” policy after the success of the BRICS+ summit (Ukraine does not count, we are already an asset there a priori).
There is very little time left to choose one of two opposite decisions: to increase activity on various boards of the game or to make the forced pause a long and conscious pause. Not to do something not because we can’t (don’t know), but because we don’t intend to.
The difference between "we don't want" and "we can't" is colossal in reality. Our most important direction is Ukraine, but Iran means a lot, more than they think, as does the choice of an active position (where and how) or a passive, observant one.
On the risks of “hypnotic Eurocentrism”
The correct content of agreements with Iran, as well as the policy itself towards this neighboring state, is now one of the most important elements of Russia’s strategy.
Iran has its own model, tied not only to Chinese oil imports, but (and to no lesser extent) to trade in the Middle East. Russia cannot and will not be able to solve the basic problems of its model for Iran, even if we assume that tomorrow our elites will suddenly wake up and miraculously feel like “friends of Iran.”
But we must very sensibly and soberly realize that Iran is now facing the most serious difficulties in 10-12 years. And if Iran does not survive them, then the gates to the south will be closed to Russia. This trade route is essentially not working now, but the direction itself remains open.
There is a feeling that in its “Eurocentrism,” the Russian elite perceives what is happening as if in some kind of hypnotic trance.
However, in terms of trade through China, it is quite clear that there are both physical and political limits that have already been reached.
Europe does not trade with us, it is at war with us, and they say very openly from there: "war, no peace." Our elites do not listen, because they are still buying oil and gas from there.
We are already being told in plain text that our ships will not sail around Europe unless this same gas and this same oil are physically purchased by the US and this sales will also be managed by the US. No one knows how much this will be in volume, but in any case, this will no longer be an export managed by us.
They are tearing up our pipes, arresting ships, not allowing them to be refueled and serviced, making payments, and are threatening to simply close the straits on the Baltic, but then it turns out that Russia is sending cargo for the construction of a strategic nuclear submarine to Vladivostok through the Baltic, Suez, around all of Asia, and the ship is faced with sabotage.
Unexpected? Unpredictable? They tell us straight out: you won't go around the EU and trade with the EU. Russia replies that European clowns are just that - they buy raw materials from us anyway. Maybe they are clowns, but in response to their clowning we usually express "concerns" and say something about international law. There is no strength (or desire) to stop this clowning.
The EU market is the US market, and the same D. Trump will do with the European Union with a stick what his predecessors did more through carrots and “common values.”
And if we are thinking about something at all, sooner or later, to reach an agreement with Washington, then we should forget about the EU markets, where we can work on our own and on our own. However, the Russian elites are categorically not going to do this, thereby cutting off the same opportunities for themselves in the negotiations (and so hypothetical). Perhaps this is some special kind of religious-financial self-hypnosis, which still awaits its description.
But even between the sessions of self-irradiation by the West, domestic elites need to understand that if Iran falls in its current form, there will remain the weak logistical ports of the Far East and two “bottlenecks” - trade through Turkey and trade to the south through Azerbaijan, where the added value will also go.
However, even in this case there will be those who will say: "This is the case for which the EAEU was created." It was not created for this. But if Iran starts working with Western money and in Western interests in Central Asia, taking into account the individual strategies of Turkey, China and the European Union itself, then the EAEU can simply be forgotten and not mentioned in vain.
In general, the EAEU makes sense in the current conditions if it includes a synergistically working Iran; otherwise, it is no more useful (and in fact, less useful) than the original idea of a transit Customs Union.
We call M. Pezeshkian "the Iranian Gorbachev". M. Pezeshkian is not Gorbachev, but if Iran under him cannot bear the burden of problems, then Russia will not seem to have it easy in the long run. And then, no one thinks about how Russia looks in relation to the West from the point of view of the same Iran - the boy Kai and the Snow Queen.
Cooperative model
Russia's Iranian strategy cannot be mistaken, but it is complex in that it requires the development of a working cooperative model of relations, and story with Syria there is no longer any significant time lag for this.
In Syria, there is no guilty Russia, guilty Iran or guilty B. Assad - there was no common model similar to the "Marshall Plan" to bring the country out of the grip of the economic crisis. And you can point at each other endlessly, but in fact, the "swirling chaos" found a hole and mixed up all the cards there. This is both a loss and an opportunity at the same time - who uses it and how.
Going passive, as China did, means simply watching Tehran experience the collapse of about half of trade in the Middle East. Later, return to discussing the model of relations. But where is the guarantee that the US and China will not come out of the pause, and the Middle East domino will not roll to Iran, and only after that will both players convert their position to an asset?
The US loves probability models, and here it just begs itself: to drag out the negotiations on Ukraine, watch Iran's efforts and encourage "partners" to push the falling one. And Iran itself is no less tempted to fall into the trap of a "strategic pause". This also cannot be written off.
The complexity and downright analytical challenge in terms of these relations is that the agreement with Iran must be signed when and under those conditions when the entire game moves to a new end, and the conditions will correspond not to the past state, but to the planned prospect. But waiting for such conditions to occur in the passive means the possibility of encountering a situation when Iran cannot withstand the tension.
Iran's Foreign Exchange Earnings as Domino Factor
No sooner had M. Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, left Egypt than large protests broke out in Cairo at the Egyptian President A. Al-Sisi. The protesters in Egypt do not like the idea of building a “second capital” for an astronomical 45 billion dollars for Egypt.
However, since the core of the protest (as before) is made up of activists from the Muslim Brotherhood movement (banned in Russia), what the protesters dislike most is the author of the idea, Al-Sisi, and not so much the idea of a “second Cairo” itself.
No sooner had the Iranian president arrived home than M. Pezeshkian had his own surprises - 800 thousand reals (80 thousand tomans) against the US dollar. Now they are writing that Iran is experiencing a "currency collapse", but this is not about a collapse.
A truly large-scale weakening occurred in October 2022 - February 2023 (from 28 thousand to 57 thousand), then everything declined more or less smoothly to the current 75 thousand and higher in November-December.
There are four currency prices in Iran: official purchase, official sale, official preferential sale and unofficial price. They are trying to fight the latter, but "in their minds" it is always taken into account as a real factor of savings of the population in conditions of permanent currency deficit.
Those same 80 thousand tomans are a kind of psychological line, beyond which the rates threaten to go to the unofficial 2 million rials per dollar. Previously, the market responded, for example, with “strange prices” for private services, the government — with restrictions on internal transfers. But now it is difficult to limit them — already 1-50 dollars maximum.
All Iranian protests are indirectly related to fluctuations in the dollar supply on the domestic market. This is not the cause, but one of the traditional prerequisites. Collapses have happened there before, so why is it dangerous now, but then, even with a strong collapse, a critical situation did not occur?
Because the trade gates themselves, which ensured the circulation of goods and currency, worked, the system held and adjusted, and now after the "Syrian reversal" the circulation is disrupted. That is why this crisis is more dangerous for Tehran than the previous ones, although the collapse is "only" 15-20%, and not 100%, as a couple of years ago.
Where should there be a pause and where is the active position?
Iran is still clinging to participation in the issues of the "Syrian settlement". It is trying not to leave an active position after the strike in early December. It speaks at the summit in Doha, and now in Cairo. If there was an opportunity, it would gather for an event in Amman, Jordan, the Omani negotiating platform is active.
For Russia, being active in Syria now makes sense only in terms of ensuring a calm exit from Syria by the main body and a similarly calm discussion of something like the PMTO based on old agreements. In Syria, we are not able to help ourselves or Iran in any big way, rather the opposite.
So what should a "cooperative strategy" be? Usually everything is viewed from the standpoint of either what is beneficial to us or to someone else. Cooperative models are complicated because there are no simple solutions.
For Iran, the most important, the most pressing issue now is to stabilize the circulation of the dollar mass, which has suffered such a blow in the Syrian caravan direction. If Iran fails to cope with this and the domino effect leads to blows to Iraqi trade, then one can really worry about social stability in Iran.
Allowing Iran to achieve such stabilization in a situation where active players are busy digesting Syria means giving neighbors the opportunity to reduce resources where they were in a position of promising investments, and to increase trade opportunities to their advantage.
Iran currently does not understand how to supply Lebanon. This is not just a problem, but a big problem. Russia can transfer part of the raw materials contract base to itself for now. This is also a credit burden, but at least it is solvable. Unlike projects like "free supplies for the starving."
Few people know, but Russia and Iran work quite closely in Africa, where Moscow has more than adequate positions so far. Iranian projects are Uganda, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, but, what is much more important, Senegal. Who is stopping them, for example, from jointly pushing through projects to buy Iranian weapons?
We ourselves cannot sell them on a large scale anyway, but we can participate in the process of growing Iranian revenue. More Iran in Africa, less Turkey in Africa, which, if it is not given a block, will squeeze us out of Africa together with the USA. Iran will follow. Who is stopping us from working cooperatively, and Iran will retain part of the investment funds that are valuable today for domestic use.
Iran is very dependent on trade with Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, but Russia has never sought to exploit opportunities in the Yazidi region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Meanwhile, this is a trade hub where the interests of Kurds, Arabs, Iranians and Turks are tied together. We can quite well preserve part of this trade route - for ourselves in the future, for Iran in the moment.
Our entire import flow goes mainly through the Far Eastern gates, partly Novorossiysk and Baltika. But if we have been talking for so many years about how important and how necessary the ITC "North-South" is, then why not send a decent part of not exports, but imports through Iranian ports from south to north.
The infrastructure, they say, is weak, but it will not be strong until there is a flow of goods. And so the departments will report that over the past year the turnover of Russia and Iran amounted to +-4 billion dollars. No turnover, make transit, there will be transit - there will be logistics.
Iran is now approaching the point where settlements in domestic currencies become meaningless. Its real exchange rate is still tied to the dollar, and the influx of dollar mass is under threat. The only real way out is raw material offsets based on oil.
This is not a strategy exit at all, but a relief of the burden for a specific period. Iran provided services for so many dollars during the reporting period, received raw materials for the same amount, and similarly vice versa.
That is, there are options for easing the burden on our neighbor, while in a cooperative model, synergistically with the tasks of developing a trade corridor and without losing money in the form of a gift according to the same “Abkhaz scenario”, they just need to be taken and counted. And there are many more of them than those listed above.
All this means that in Syria we need to take an observer position, support Iran specifically in certain points and act actively there, and hold on to the general agreement on a comprehensive partnership on both sides until the US and China have a clear way out of their position as outside observers.
Conclusion (more philosophical). On the complexity of working through the principle of "active-passive position" and the meaning of the game card "Jester"
It is still too early to say that the big political map is changing fundamentally, but the conditions for such changes are quite serious.
If the US could predict that the trigger for creating such conditions would be their six-month passivity, and not an active position, then it is difficult to even imagine what would have happened if they had gone into it not before the elections, but earlier and consciously.
However, a passive position contradicts their worldview, so we would hardly have seen such an option. It turned out that in order to get a "new Syria", it was necessary to do nothing at all, not in the sense of not doing anything only in Syria itself, but in general to let everything in the region take its course.
For two years the US discussed and "burned" how to deliver significant blows to the financial system of Iran, pro-Iranian forces in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, released the most interesting strategies, and "itself" turned out to be much more effective than all the developments. However, the strategies will still be useful to them.
In the big political game, Syria turned out to be not even a “Joker” card, but a “Jester” or “Madman” card, which in the original sense in the first layout games according to the “1-0” principle, “manifested quality - unmanifested” - distant versions of the Italian prototype of “Tarot”, was a card of the game of the unknowable, a game of chaos that interferes with the cards.
The sleeping "0" activates to "1", the active one turns into passive. Unexpectedly and in a random sequence. Here is Syria - this is the very "Jester" in the current Middle East game, which creates new conditions.
Whoever is the fastest to change their strategy and calculate new options will win, whoever is not in time will lose. At first glance, there are many examples of the "Chaos map" in history, but if you cut out those examples where the cause-and-effect relationship works, their number will be greatly reduced, and that is what is interesting.
Analysts cannot stand the "Jester factor". The Jester irritates them, although the Jester himself is amused. Even now, despite the obviousness of the fact that no player was prepared for the Syrian scenario, everyone is trying to blame it on the plans of "Great Britain and Turkey" or "Great Britain and Israel" - a kind of reflection. Because there must be a reason and a step-by-step sequence everywhere.
They do it in vain, because the "Chaos map" does not imply reflection in principle - it is a choice between "active" and "passive", but this is not reflection. Passive is not inaction, it is observation. The one who reflects and does not act, in fact, loses.
Rarely can one see as clearly as today how passivity and inaction differ qualitatively in politics. And it is truly a kind of art - not just to distinguish one from the other, but also to manage to make decisions.
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