News Roundup
Iran and Russia, despite severe strain, dig in.
Happy September, everyone!
As summer reaches its psychological end, even as extreme temperatures continue to bake Middle Tennessee, perhaps you may have, through no fault of your own, missed some of the critical stories occurring around the world. In that case, it would be my pleasure to inform you. After all, with two major wars with no end in sight raging in the heart of Eurasia, there is never a shortage of news to discuss.
The war in Iran, six months on
It’s hard to believe we have endured six long months since The United States and Israel launched devastating strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran, deemed Operation Epic Fury, that assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and unleashed desperate, destructive Iranian retaliation across the Middle East. The goal of the attacks, as President Donald Trump clearly addressed during a speech announcing Khamenei’s demise, was to ensure that “Americans will never have to face a radical, bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons” ever again. Furthermore, Trump explicitly issued a call for “all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country.”
In other words, Operation Epic Fury was designed to accomplish the two words that send the chills down the spines of those Americans with memories of Afghanistan and Iraq: regime change.
Now, six months later, Iran’s regime has indeed changed— for the worse. Tehran’s brutal domestic crackdown has only escalated. Venomous threats, once largely dismissed as theatrical balderdash for domestic hard-line consumption, now target countries as far away as Bulgaria. Commercial shipping in the Middle East, once protected by Iranian caution toward overwhelming U.S. naval superiority, has fallen prey to the predatory paranoia of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Tehran’s old doctrine of balancing revolutionary upheaval with strategic patience, as well as balancing more moderate and hard-line domestic factions, has been shattered ever since the IRGC seized complete control of the pariah nation under wartime conditions. And worst of all, at least for the United States: our munitions are running out. No doubt Beijing and Moscow are pleased.
In other words, Operation Epic Fury, while launched with the best of intentions against a truly evil regime, has turned into an epic quagmire for the United States.
Recently, following the successful naval operation to destroy Iranian mines in the now world-famous Strait of Hormuz, the rats of the IRGC (sorry, I cannot label such vile war criminals as human) swept into action to reinstall them, necessitating yet more bombing and a nagging fear inside of this author that we may be staring down the cold inevitability of a long-haul war. While I, along with everyone reading this article and nearly everyone else around the world, would like this war to end not today but yesterday, the maniacally anti-Western dogma of the IRGC makes any kind of settlement, let alone a major concession on the nuclear program, vanishingly unlikely. While perhaps one can claim that such an ideology made war inevitable between the United States and Iran, we are most certainly stuck in a potential forever war against a dangerously cunning adversary.
Ratcliffe journeys to Moscow
For decades, the relationship (or rather, lack of one) and high-stakes rivalry between the American and Russian intelligence apparatuses was legendary, inspiring the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy as both sides played the game of espionage and deep psychological operations aimed at dismantling the foundations of each other’s global empires. As the Committee for State Security, known around the world as the KGB, was dismantled along with the Soviet Union, these Russian intelligence operatives, including a rather ordinary midlevel bureaucrat based in East Germany, were cast adrift in a world that no longer needed them. During the early years of the Russian Federation, these so-called Chekists were reduced to the inglorious task of performing the dirty work of competing oligarchs within Russia’s borders or occasionally pulling off high-profile stunts such as the gruesome and widely publicized 2006 assassination of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London with a fatal dose of polonium.
Now, with Russia experiencing a deep diplomatic freeze with both the United States and Europe since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Chekists, who now comprise the core of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, have pushed their operations into overdrive. Altogether, this dynamic has bombarded Europe with a new kind of violence far more audacious than mere computer hacking of American politicians. In the last three years, Europe has suffered shopping malls set ablaze in Lithuania and Poland, electronic GPS jamming in the Baltic Sea region, and most recently an attempted drone attack on a cargo shipment at Germany’s Leipzig Airport targeting military equipment bound for Ukraine. All of these incidents, and more, are not only designed to halt the weapons pipeline to Kyiv, but also to frighten Westerners about the risk of World War 3 lest we keep poking the bear.
It is in this context that CIA Director John Ratclfife embarked on an unannounced visit to Moscow on August 25. Of course, the intrigue as to why Ratcliffe made this journey, the first of a CIA director in nearly five years, has provoked a flurry of cold war-style speculation. Trump, consumed by Iran and domestic politics, largely brushed off the visit as “semi-routine,” insisting he merely hopes “to see the war with Ukraine end.” Others have speculated that Ukraine or Europe was not a point of discussion at all, and Ratcliffe merely warned Russian intelligence chiefs Alexander Bortnikov and Sergei Naryshkin, two of Putin’s most loyal Chekists, to halt intelligence sharing with Iran— an unlikely outcome considering Moscow’s bloody alliance with Tehran. The most common explanation, however, remains that Ratcliffe was in Moscow to warn against any sudden or drastic measures targeting NATO countries, especially the vulnerable Baltic States.
As someone who has visited the Baltic States multiple times and walked right up to the Russian border, I know for a fact that such assurances will be most welcome there.
Conclusion
There is a major reason why neither the conflict in Ukraine, nor the conflict in the Middle East appear to be reaching a conclusion anytime soon, despite the high costs for all sides. Both the Iranian and Russian regimes operate on a principle that the world order is a vehicle for so-called Anglo-Saxon (meaning American) hegemony that desperately seeks to destroy them. Thus, these regimes’ incentive for compromise is essentially nonexistent while their incentive for maximized disruption is vast. It’s not like mediators like Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, and even Donald Trump haven’t tried to induce Vladimir Putin or the IRGC to see reason, but for these seasoned jihadists and Chekists, carrots are trap, and the only language that matters is force.
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