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Welcome to The Geopolity’s What We’re Watching (3W), our daily look at the interconnected worlds of Geopolitics, Economics and Energy. Curated from the world’s leading sources of information, our analysis and commentary is designed to help you make sense of the events driving the major developments in the world.
3W’s previous analysis noted that there is a familiar pattern in the way the US – Israel Alliance formally communicates to the outside world. First Israel escalates militarily, somewhere, with the US usually in a support role (Gaza, Lebanon), but occasionally in an active role (Yemen, Iran). Thereafter, the US takes the lead in seeking a negotiated solution. Whenever the US then announces a deal is near, Israel escalates again. At 3W we said that in our view, this is less about the US and Israel being at odds with eachother, and more about a coordinated execution of Israeli plans for US Middle East strategy. The US seeks “plausible deniability” and the media attention for “negotiations” distracts away from the ongoing fighting.
This analysis is the best way to explain why, over the past month, Trump has repeatedly announced “a deal is near”, without there ever being actual progress in negotiations. This pattern continued last week.
Over the weekend of June the 6th, Trump spoke mostly about negotiations and a deal, during which time Israel escalated in Lebanon, heightening regional tensions and increasing Iranian anger. On Monday this boiled over into Iran downing an American helicopter involved in the US naval blockade of Iran. On Monday, Tuesday and into Wednesday the US and Iran then exchanged fire. Last Thursday morning, Trump then said he would severely escalate the war, writes CBS News. Iran responded defiantly to this threat. “Wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse, explode energy infrastructure and markets and create an endless quagmire that you will be stuck in for years”, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s Parliament, said. CBS News further noted that Iran threatened to not only match the US escalation, but even go beyond it. General Ali Abdollahi, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned in a statement that “if the United States once again seeks to carry out attacks against heroic Iran, it will receive a harsher response than before, and the flames of war, in addition to creating insecurity in the region, will become more widespread and far-reaching.”
In this context, just hours later Trump then suddenly announced he had cancelled the attacks against Iran planned for that evening, as, he said, negotiations had achieved a breakthrough. “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump wrote on social media, notes CBS News. “Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others.”
The US seeks “plausible deniability” and the media attention for “negotiations” distracts away from the ongoing fighting
Seen in a shorter- and longer-term timeline, this Trump announcement makes no sense. At 3W we noted last week that Iran has found new confidence through its successful resistance against the US – Israel Alliance over the past year, and for that reason is even less inclined to accept Alliance demands now than it was before the Alliance began its military campaign against Tehran. Meanwhile, the Alliance has run out of military options to force Iran into accepting its demands. Which means that a deal can only be reached if the US compromises significantly – which Israel would never allow the US to do. For this reason, the 3W view on the recent Trump announcement that a deal is near is that it has the same level of substance to it as the previous times he has made this claim – all 37 of them, as per CNN. And this that the outcome of this phase will be the same as previously, namely with Israel pushing back and eventually escalating.
Om Friday already Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Trump was pursuing a deal “based on his assessment of American interests,” but Israel expected him to uphold shared “principles” around Iran’s nuclear program, missiles and “terrorist proxies”, writes Axios. Katz also said that Israel would retain “the ability to act independently to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon”.
Nevertheless, Trump said on Saturday that a deal was set to be signed Sunday, writes The Wall Street Journal. But the terms of the deal that according to the US Iran is about to accept, in the 3W view make clear the whole Trump narrative is nonsense – again. Apparently, Iran will agree to do everything the US – Israel Alliance wants – complete end to its nuclear program, removal or enriched uranium, unconditionally open the Strait of Hormuz, drop Hezbollah – in return for which it could receive broad sanctions relief from the US, WSJ writes further. Bloomberg writes that under the purported deal the US would commit to releasing of some of the frozen Iranian funds, temporarily sanctions relief, and assessing the possibility of incremental sanctions relief based on Iranian compliance with the agreement. In return, Iran would open the Strait of Hormuz, without levying tolls, and agree that Israel is not part of the overall deal – and thus accept that the War on Lebanon continues, as well as the threat against itself of the US – Israel Alliance. 3W notes that these are essentially the terms from the “negotiations” about a month ago, which we at that time described as an Alliance “trap” for Iran, because it forces Iran to give up its leverage without getting anything firm in return. Something which Iran has consistently refused to accept since.
Our main take away from all the “noise” over recent days is, therefore, that this is most likely to end in the same way all previous talks about “breakthrough negotiations” and “imminent” deals have ended – in disappointment for those who desperately need the Strait of Hormuz to be open for traffic. We do not discard the possibility that this “time is different”, but in that case the deal will be fundamentally different than what is being discussed in the media now, with the US making significant compromises on its position, going against the demands of Israel – for which reason we see this outcome as highly unlikely.