The world after the Washington/Teheran agreement

The opposition between the United States and Iran, which had dominated Near-Eastern politics since the speech given by Imam Rouhollah Khomeiny at Teheran cemetery on the 1st February 1979, to the signature of the bilateral agreement with the government of Cheikh Hassan Rohani on the 14th July 2015, no longer exists. As from now, Washington and Teheran are both pusuing the interests of the same global ruling class.

At the time, President Jimmy Carter and his National Security Council advisor Zbigniew Brzeziński had to deal with the desertion of Iran, which, until then, had been Washington’s « local police force ». They reacted first by soliciting the Saudis for help in countering the Imam’s revolutionary, anti-imperialist message – this signalled the beginning of the Wahhabisation of world Islam – then by deciding to control the Near Eastern reserve of hydrocarbons.

During his « State of the Union » speech of the 23rd January 1980, Jimmy Carter declared - « Let our position be absolutely clear – any attempt by a foreign power to take control of the Persian Gulf region will be considered as an attack on the vital interests of the United States of America, and any such attack will be resisted by all necessary means, including military force. »

With this objective, the Pentagon organised a regional command for its army, the Central Command (CentCom), whose zone of competence included all the states in the region with the exception of Israel and Turkey.

The end of the artificial Sunnite/Chiite conflict

For 35 years, we have watched the slow development of an abyss between the Sunnites, commanded by their Saudi champion, and the Chiites, commanded by their Iranian leader. The former defended the United States and their capitalist economic model, while the latter hoped to die delivering the world from Anglo-Saxon imperialism.

This conflict, and this form of economic cleavage, had never before in History existed at such a degree of intensity. It peaked with the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaïda and Daesh, three movements financed by the Gulf monarchies and their allies, and from time to time, Israël against the Chiites.

Since the 14th July, and without the slightest explanation, Riyadh has ceased to evoke this religious conflict, which has clearly been resolved without the help of the theologians. Saudi Arabia is no longer fighting Iran, which is now a partner of its US overlord, but finds itself in opposition to Iran in the new Near East. So now Riyadh is no longer claiming to represent the Sunnites, but the Arabs, while Iran can no longer pose as the leader of the Chiites, but only the Persians.

However, until 2010, the Arab world was no longer under unilateral Saudi control, but governed by a triumvirate composed of Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

The evolution of CentCom

Although the reform of CentCom is not yet on the schedule, the subject will have to be addressed soon. Currently, its zone of competence includes the Near East and Central Asia. However, we should not only be seeing peace coming to Yemen and Syria very soon, but we may also see the war moving on towards the Black Sea, Turkey and Crimea.

The United Nations have announced their intention to organise inter-Syrian negotiations and refer them to a « contact group », in other words, the powers that have been sponsoring the war for the last four and a half years.

Globally speaking, we are moving towards an agreement which will recognise the « victory » of Saudi Arabia in Yemen, and that of Iran in Syria.

Stefan de Mistura, Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy, has declared :
« • I intend to invite the Syrians to participate in a round of simultaneous thematic debates, engaged in parallel within the framework of an inter-Syrian work group, to look closely at the fundamental aspects of the Geneva Communiqué, which they identified during the primary phase of consultations, and which specifically aim to guarantee the security and protection of all, to find a way to end the sieges, to guarantee access to medical care and to free prisoners.
• The second phase will concentrate on the political and constitutional aspects, notably the essential principles, the transitory authorities and the elections.
• The third phase will concern the military and security aspects, particularly an efficient opposition to terrorism with the participation of all, as well as the cease-fires and integration.
• The fourth phase will concern public institutions, construction and development, which means, as we have pointed out, that we must do whatever is necessary to avoid reproducing what happened in Iraq, specifically, when the institutions have brutally vanished, and the country is in a situation of great difficulty. These institutions must continue to ensure public services, under the direction of their universally accepted leaders, and who act in respect of the principles of good government and human rights. » [1]

At the same time, Turkey has opened a new front by declaring war on its Kurdish minority. This decision, if it were to continue, would plunge the country into a long and terrible civil war. After all sorts of contradictory declarations, the United States has forbidden it to pursue the PKK into Syria – where it is known under the name of the YPG – so that, finally, Syria will become the host nation for the Kurdish revolutionaries.

Above all, Turkey has broken off the economic relations that it had been building with Russia over the last eight months, and has constituted an « International Islamist Brigade » with Ukraine, in other words, a terrorist organisation destined to destabilise Crimea [2].

In the absence of a legitimate government in Turkey, a situation which has now lasted for more than a month, it is impossible to predict what will become of the country, but it is clear that the worst is possible.

What are the United States hoping to gain from Resolution 2235 ?

In the present context, we observe with anxiety the unanimous adoption by the Security Council of Resolution 2235. It has been agreed to create a mechanism for inquiry run conjointly by the OPCW and the UNO in order to determine who is using chemical weapons in Syria [3].

The investigators of the OPCW, who until now did not have a mandate to determine who is using chemical weapons, have established that at least 14 attacks using chlorine were perpetrated in 2014. The US ambassador claimed that these weapons were delivered by helicopter, which the « rebels » do not possess. In other words, the OPCW and the UNO were engaging the responsibility of the Syrian Arab Republic. However, a careful reading of the three preceding reports by the OPCW [4] reveals another possibility – these attacks may have been perpetrated by the Turkish army, as the Syrian ambassador claims. He also expressed his satisfaction that the resolution had been adopted.

Let us note that doubts about Turkey’s role are legitimate, taking into account that on the 11th May 2013, it organised a false-flag attack in Reyhanlı which killed fifty of its own citizens in order to accuse Syria, and that, on the 21st August 2013, it organised a chemical attack against the Ghouta in Damascus, once again in order to accuse Syria and attempt to drag NATO into war, and that in March 2014, the Turkish army entered the Syro-Armenian village of Kessab with al-Qaïda and the Islamic Army (pro-Saudi militia) to ransack the village and continue the genocide of the Armenian people.

The OPCW reports are already eight months old, but have only now given rise to this resolution. The five permanent members of the Security Coucil each have at their disposition a satellite system which enables them to determine the responsibility for these chemical attacks. In the event that the OPCW and the UNO were to establish the responsibility of Turkey, Mr. Erdoğan would become the scapegoat for the entire Syrian crisis.

The hardening of relations between Washington and Moscow

The US-Iran peace accord leaves Washington the latitude to concentrate on working to counter Moscow.

We mentioned earlier the transfer of Daesh jihadistes to Crimea by Ukraine and Turkey. Basically, this is no more than the reprise of the sabotage operations that were executed inside the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

More serious is the US attempt to use the destruction of flight MH17 to accuse Russia. On the 29th July, Washington presented the Security Council with a project for a resolution aimed at establishing an international penal Tribunal in order to judge the authors of this crime [5]. It was clearly a court created to condemn President Vladimir Putin, just as the special Tribunal had been created for Lebanon – using false testimony – to condemn Presidents Bachar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud.

Naturally enough, Russia opposed the project by using its veto. One can not avoid thinking of the proposition made by President Barack Obama to his Russian opposite number in 2011, promising to support him if he agreed to bring his Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, before an international court. There was talk at the time of holding the potential defendant responsible for the war in Chechnya, which had in fact been organised by Washington.