We are now into the second week since Israel and the US began their assault on Iran. The speculation, voices of support for this action and those of condemnation, and of course not forgetting Keir Starmer who prefers to sit on the fence, have filled the air waves and many, many column inches of the daily newspapers.
Stepping back from all the noise, having read the columns, and listened to presenters, and ‘experts’ on the ground, I am inclined to listen to the informed words of Haviv Rettig Gur, the free Press Middle East Analyst and host of the Ask Haviv Anything podcast.
In his article in the Daily Mail last week which some of you will have also read, there is clearly more to this war than we have been led to believe. Haviv Rettig Gur explains that this war is not about Isreal, although it is a beneficiary of the conflict, a capable and willing local partner, but not the reason America is in the fight. I find his arguments and explanations intriguing as to why President Trump has acted so decisively.
Haviv Rettig Gur explained most graphically that there are two wars. The regional one where Isreal, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other Gulf States all play a part. Iran’s proxies, its drones and ballistic missiles, its nuclear ambitions, its funding of Hezbollah and the Houthis. All that belongs primarily to the small game, which is known to everyone in the region.
The other vastly larger game is between the United States and China, in which the next 30 years is being worked out. The question being whether the American-led global order survives, or whether China displaces it. America is in this war because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward base outside of East Asia.
For most of its history Iran as an adversary of the United States, existed only regionally. It was a headache, a regional destabiliser. It funded terrorism, harassed shipping, threatened America’s allies, and kept the Middle East expensive and unpredictable. It was Isreal’s problem, the Gulf states problem, and only indirectly Washington’s.
That changed, he said, when Iran made one of the most consequential strategic miscalculations of the century.
Squeezed by decades of American sanctions and increasingly isolated, Iran turned to China as its economic lifeline. The relationship deepened rapidly. Today roughly 90 per cent of Iran’s crude oil exports go to China, processed through Chinese refineries that operate beyond reach of American sanctions enforcement. That oil revenue supplies around a quarter of Iran’s budget, a huge portion of which is spent on its military forces. Without Beijing, the regime cannot pay its security forces, cannot subsidise basic goods, and would soon face the kind of internal collapse that its own ideology has spent 40 years trying to prevent. Iran has made itself utterly dependent on China.
China has not been charitable; it has been strategic. Iranian oil, sold cheaply because Tehran has no other buyers, has helped Beijing build a strategic petroleum reserve exceeding a billion barrels, enough to sustain the Chinese economy for roughly 100 days, in the event of a naval blockade.
Energy was not China’s only goal. China was also arming Iran with systems designed to threaten commercial and American assets.
Reports emerged in February of a near-finalised deal to supply Iran with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3 and engineered to evade the aegis defence systems deployed on American carrier strike groups.
China was replacing Iranian government and military software with closed Chinese systems, hardening Iran against CIA and Mossad cyber operations. Joint naval exercises between China, Russia and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz were becoming regular events, building Realtime operational familiarity between the three navies. Iran is currently ensuring no oil tankers are gaining access to the route, resulting in hugely inflated global oil prices. China is keeping quiet but is clearly relishing the discomfort the destabilisation being felt within the region and beyond.
Iran had switched from the GPS system to the Chinese BeiDou system, and was providing China with the port at Jask, as part of China’s ‘string of pearls’ base system in the Indian Ocean.
Haviv Rettig Gur questions why President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have not explained their reasoning to reassure Americans at home. However, he suggests, they don’t want to push the Chinese to more overt responses. As Mr Gur says, one should always give one’s enemy an excuse not to respond in kind.
Once you understand these reasons for America to strike now, the conflict falls into place. President Trump has clearly acted just in time to prevent the world order becoming dominated by an increasingly forceful China, one who wishes to weaken the USA and control the movement of oil from the Middle East.
Chinese power projection and empire-building-positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate American defences, and kill American sailors. The embedded strategic architecture whose explicit purpose was to constrain American military freedom, including in any future conflict over Taiwan.
When Iran began to look like that, it stopped being Isreal’s problem and became America’s.
The administration itself has for understandable reasons struggled to explain this; I am pleased that Haviv Rettig Gur has taken it upon himself to do so with such clarity and eloquence. It makes sense to me.
Stepping back from all the noise, having read the columns, and listened to presenters, and ‘experts’ on the ground, I am inclined to listen to the informed words of Haviv Rettig Gur, the free Press Middle East Analyst and host of the Ask Haviv Anything podcast.
In his article in the Daily Mail last week which some of you will have also read, there is clearly more to this war than we have been led to believe. Haviv Rettig Gur explains that this war is not about Isreal, although it is a beneficiary of the conflict, a capable and willing local partner, but not the reason America is in the fight. I find his arguments and explanations intriguing as to why President Trump has acted so decisively.
Haviv Rettig Gur explained most graphically that there are two wars. The regional one where Isreal, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other Gulf States all play a part. Iran’s proxies, its drones and ballistic missiles, its nuclear ambitions, its funding of Hezbollah and the Houthis. All that belongs primarily to the small game, which is known to everyone in the region.
The other vastly larger game is between the United States and China, in which the next 30 years is being worked out. The question being whether the American-led global order survives, or whether China displaces it. America is in this war because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward base outside of East Asia.
For most of its history Iran as an adversary of the United States, existed only regionally. It was a headache, a regional destabiliser. It funded terrorism, harassed shipping, threatened America’s allies, and kept the Middle East expensive and unpredictable. It was Isreal’s problem, the Gulf states problem, and only indirectly Washington’s.
That changed, he said, when Iran made one of the most consequential strategic miscalculations of the century.
Squeezed by decades of American sanctions and increasingly isolated, Iran turned to China as its economic lifeline. The relationship deepened rapidly. Today roughly 90 per cent of Iran’s crude oil exports go to China, processed through Chinese refineries that operate beyond reach of American sanctions enforcement. That oil revenue supplies around a quarter of Iran’s budget, a huge portion of which is spent on its military forces. Without Beijing, the regime cannot pay its security forces, cannot subsidise basic goods, and would soon face the kind of internal collapse that its own ideology has spent 40 years trying to prevent. Iran has made itself utterly dependent on China.
China has not been charitable; it has been strategic. Iranian oil, sold cheaply because Tehran has no other buyers, has helped Beijing build a strategic petroleum reserve exceeding a billion barrels, enough to sustain the Chinese economy for roughly 100 days, in the event of a naval blockade.
Energy was not China’s only goal. China was also arming Iran with systems designed to threaten commercial and American assets.
Reports emerged in February of a near-finalised deal to supply Iran with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3 and engineered to evade the aegis defence systems deployed on American carrier strike groups.
China was replacing Iranian government and military software with closed Chinese systems, hardening Iran against CIA and Mossad cyber operations. Joint naval exercises between China, Russia and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz were becoming regular events, building Realtime operational familiarity between the three navies. Iran is currently ensuring no oil tankers are gaining access to the route, resulting in hugely inflated global oil prices. China is keeping quiet but is clearly relishing the discomfort the destabilisation being felt within the region and beyond.
Iran had switched from the GPS system to the Chinese BeiDou system, and was providing China with the port at Jask, as part of China’s ‘string of pearls’ base system in the Indian Ocean.
Haviv Rettig Gur questions why President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have not explained their reasoning to reassure Americans at home. However, he suggests, they don’t want to push the Chinese to more overt responses. As Mr Gur says, one should always give one’s enemy an excuse not to respond in kind.
Once you understand these reasons for America to strike now, the conflict falls into place. President Trump has clearly acted just in time to prevent the world order becoming dominated by an increasingly forceful China, one who wishes to weaken the USA and control the movement of oil from the Middle East.
Chinese power projection and empire-building-positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate American defences, and kill American sailors. The embedded strategic architecture whose explicit purpose was to constrain American military freedom, including in any future conflict over Taiwan.
When Iran began to look like that, it stopped being Isreal’s problem and became America’s.
The administration itself has for understandable reasons struggled to explain this; I am pleased that Haviv Rettig Gur has taken it upon himself to do so with such clarity and eloquence. It makes sense to me.
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