Alastair Crooke_ Iran & Russia / archived / read-only

 
  • Attribution
    • Creator - Alastair Crooke
    • Who - Alastair Crooke is a British former diplomat and intelligence-linked official who served for many years in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and worked on Middle East issues. He was seconded to MI6 and later served as a security adviser to the EU special envoy for the Middle East, with involvement in back-channel contacts with Islamist movements including Hamas. Crooke later founded and led the Conflicts Forum, a Beirut-based organization focused on political Islam, regional conflict, and West–Middle East dialogue, and he continues to comment on Middle Eastern and geopolitical affairs.
    • This summary is derived from the work of Alastair Crooke. The ideas, analysis and conclusions are those of the original creator. This summary is intended only as a guide for readers who cannot spare the time to study the complete work.
    • Online at: https://checkvist.com/p/q7e7bJu48CdGE5KNLWpYnW
    • Part of: lnk: Works of Alastair Crooke
    • Original work: lnk: lastair Crooke_ Iran & Russia
  • Inclusive diplomacy matters more than exclusionary pressure.
    • Sustainable peace requires negotiations that include Islamist movements, militias, and other armed actors with real local influence, because excluding them undermines ceasefires and broader settlements.
  • Iran expects skirmishing and rejects talks without capitulation.
    • Iranian leaders have consolidated around a harder line that rejects negotiations with Trump, expects prolonged calibrated confrontation, and uses tanker attacks to impose costs on economic pressure.
  • Oil-market manipulation cannot override physical supply shortages.
    • American strategy misjudged war duration, weapons inventories, and oil-market control, while physical shortages in middle distillates make price management far less decisive than actual supply scarcity.
  • Pressure on Iran risks destabilizing Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Gulf.
    • Pressure through Lebanon, Iraq, and Gulf shipping is increasing instability for American partners, especially Saudi Arabia, while nationalist Iraqi militias and Yemeni attacks widen the conflict's geography.
    • A blockade is not expected to break Iran quickly because prepositioned oil, tanker capacity, continued sales to China, and long sanctions experience provide resilience under pressure.
    • Historical lessons from failed negotiations, Western pressure campaigns, and attacks on Russian civilians have convinced both Iran and Russia that capitulation invites more coercion, not settlement.
    • Israeli internal polarization, West Bank escalation, Yemen spillover, and Gulf infrastructure vulnerability create multiple triggers for a wider war that no side can reliably control.
    • Europe's anti-Russia cohesion, diplomatic isolation, and weakening geoeconomic leverage leave it unable to shape outcomes, while debt, bond, currency, and energy strains threaten broader systemic rupture.
  • Europe lacks leverage while financial and energy risks intensify.
    • The likely trajectory points toward expanding regional conflict, harsher Russian responses, diesel shortages, insurance shocks, and an unprepared public unless strategy shifts toward realism, inclusion, and de-escalation.
  • 1. Introduction and diplomatic background
    • Sustainable peace needs inclusive negotiations with all influential actors.
      • Sustainable peace requires including Islamist movements and other armed political actors rather than excluding them from negotiations.
    • Regional conflicts around Iran cannot be solved by Washington and Tehran alone.
    • Independent local tensions must be addressed alongside the wider war.
    • Excluding Islamist movements weakens ceasefires and long-term settlements.
      • Local ceasefires and broader settlements fail when diplomacy ignores parties with real influence on the ground.
      • The widening conflict around Iran is aggravating regional tensions that also have their own independent causes, including strains between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
      • Ending the violence requires more than bilateral talks between Washington and Tehran because multiple stakeholders can prolong or block any settlement.
      • Effective diplomacy must therefore be complex, regional, and inclusive of adversaries as well as formal state partners.
      • Excluding Hezbollah, Hamas, or comparable forces may satisfy powerful outsiders politically, but it undermines the durability of any peace arrangement.
  • 2. Iranian leadership hardens war stance
    • Iranian leadership has hardened its position and consolidated authority.
      • Iran's Supreme National Security Council restated its earlier ten principles but used tougher language and rejected insulting rhetoric outright.
      • Leadership changes on the council and in the military point to a concerted consolidation around a single leadership line and strategic vision.
    • Tehran expects extended skirmishing rather than all-out war.
    • Ship attacks serve as pressure against US economic strategy.
      • That vision holds that Iran will not seek a solution with this US president and may sustain the conflict atmosphere through 2029.
      • This does not necessarily mean a push for all-out war, but rather a prolonged period of controlled skirmishing and pressure.
      • As Washington shifts from direct war toward economic coercion and oil-price management, Iran intends to keep attacking ships and impose costs.
      • A tanker strike just before markets opened signaled that Tehran understands market manipulation and can answer it with calibrated disruption.
    • Negotiation with Trump is rejected absent complete capitulation.
      • Negotiations with Trump are effectively off the table unless the United States fully capitulates, marking a harder Iranian war stance.
  • 3. US miscalculations and oil pressure
    • The United States misjudged both war duration and weapons inventories.
      • A succession of American miscalculations has widened the regional problem, beginning with starting war without properly checking weapons inventories.
      • That inventory failure may have seemed acceptable under a four-day war assumption, but it became a major mistake once events extended.
    • Managing oil prices does not remove underlying supply risks.
      • Another mistake lies in claiming oil flows through the Red Sea and related routes need not cause concern because tanker movements and prices can be managed.
      • Economic pressure on Iran is expected to force capitulation while oil prices and the broader economy remain controllable, yet that expectation is judged dangerously wrong.
      • Visible manipulation of oil prices now signals American weakness to other countries because few accept that prices are naturally stable.
    • Visible price manipulation signals weakness rather than control.
      • Current price levels matter less than real supply conditions, so standard demand-and-supply graphs miss the central issue of scarcity.
    • Scarcity in middle distillates poses the most serious energy problem.
      • Physical shortages matter most, and supplies of middle distillates used for diesel and kerosene are already largely missing.
  • 4. Regional pressure through Lebanon and Iraq
    • Regional coercion against Iran is intensifying instability instead of constraining Tehran.
    • Iraqi PMU forces are nationalist actors, not obedient Iranian proxies.
      • Pressure on Iran has shifted toward Lebanon and Iraq through efforts to disarm Hezbollah and attacks on the Hashad and other PMU forces.
      • These moves contradict the memorandum of understanding in Lebanon and have produced a succession of serious mistakes across the region.
      • Hashad leaders are hard Iraqi nationalists who coordinate with Iran but do not simply obey Iranian orders like switchable proxies.
      • Reprisals were promised after attacks during the Arbaeen pilgrimage period, and the stated Saudi rationale about the Aramco strike lacks demonstrated evidence.
    • The justification for attacking the Hashad remains uncertain and unsupported by visible evidence.
      • One possible motive was Saudi reluctance to blame the Houthis directly, because that would force escalation in a war now spilling back into Saudi Arabia.
    • Saudi Arabia faces growing blowback as the Yemen war reaches home.
      • Instead of pressuring Iran, these actions are increasing pressure on American partners, especially Saudi Arabia, as regional tensions, violence, and flashpoints spread.
    • A broader regional escalation could erupt suddenly from Gaza and the West Bank.
      • The West Bank and Gaza form the bedrock of a possible wider Middle East flare-up at any time, while economic consequences remain largely unacknowledged and unprepared for.
  • 5. Trump's blockade strategy and Iranian resilience
    • A blockade is unlikely to cripple Iran in the near term.
      • Trump shifted from relying on Hegseth to relying on Bessent after complaining at Camp David that the munitions issue had been misrepresented.
      • Bessent's view holds that a continued blockade will soon drain Iran's oil exports and produce victory without broader military escalation.
    • Iran prepared oil stocks and tankers before hostilities began.
      • That approach is judged mistaken because Iran prepositioned oil and tankers before the war and preserved enough capacity to keep selling.
    • Continued sales to China are sustaining Iranian revenues.
      • About 80 million barrels have already been sold, and traffic to China continues, providing payment and leaving revenues slightly ahead of budget.
    • Severe pressure could push Iran toward wider war, not capitulation.
      • Economic pressure may eventually bite, but not imminently; meaningful strain is more likely in months or perhaps next year.
      • A deeper error lies in misunderstanding Iran's decision calculus when pressure becomes existential and choices narrow to capitulation or wider war.
      • Under those conditions, escalation is expected over surrender, a judgment reinforced by the Supreme Leader's recent selection of military commanders.
  • 6. American options and Saudi vulnerability
    • US narrative management cannot reopen blocked shipping lanes.
      • American leaders can proclaim the Strait of Hormuz remains open, but actual shipping movement has largely stopped and rhetoric does not change conditions.
      • Saudi Arabia has lost both ends of its Yanbu pipeline system, while Yemeni pressure on Red Sea ports threatens or attacks departing Saudi vessels.
    • Saudi Arabia faces acute fiscal stress from export disruption.
      • Commercial attacks on Saudi shipping are expected to raise war-risk insurance across the Red Sea, widening the disruption beyond a single route or cargo stream.
    • Red Sea insurance costs may spread the crisis wider.
      • Saudi oil output or sales have fallen by about 74 percent, while its budget reportedly requires roughly $100 oil and full export volumes.
    • Washington may need to backstop Saudi liquidity.
      • If Saudi Arabia cannot sell oil and cannot sell US Treasuries, Washington may have to provide liquidity through temporary Treasury-for-cash arrangements.
    • Iran has experience enduring prolonged sanctions pressure.
      • Iran is not likely to break first under additional pressure because decades of sanctions have forced it to develop alternative methods of economic survival.
  • 7. Israeli politics and West Bank escalation
    • Israeli electoral toxicity could trigger broader regional escalation.
      • Regional escalation looks likely, and the most dangerous flashpoint may be inside Israel because the election struggle has turned acutely toxic.
    • A secular-national religious divide is nearing open violence.
      • A widening divide separates secular Ashkenazi Jews seeking safety in Israel from harder-line national religious currents with a more messianic and Talmudic outlook.
      • These camps are nearing violence over Israel’s future, while Israeli opinion appears to be shifting clearly toward the political right.
      • Polling creates a puzzle because right-wing parties such as Likud, religious nationalist factions, and Ben Gvir’s party reportedly are not gaining the seats expected.
    • West Bank escalation is seen as an electoral strategy.
      • Pressure is growing for a West Bank intervention or action around Al-Aqsa, Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif, because such confrontation could swing the election.
    • Polling trends and seat projections do not align clearly.
      • Settlers are already attacking Palestinian villages, army moves into West Bank refugee camps appear imminent, and some expect pressure resembling 1948 to drive Palestinians out.
    • Netanyahu is trying to prevent any successor government.
      • Netanyahu is maneuvering to avoid yielding power through institutional changes, new party creations, and conditions designed to leave no viable governing alternative if he loses.
  • 8. Regional spillover from Yemen to Syria
    • Regional fronts from Yemen to Syria are heating simultaneously.
    • Anti-Iran pressure could destabilize Saudi Arabia and the Gulf allies.
      • Fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-aligned forces is intensifying after Houthi missile strikes broke up a southern force buildup intended for an attack northward.
      • Iraqi Hashd militias are threatening retaliation against Saudi Arabia near the border while Saudi Arabia is moving troops in response.
      • Iran entered Iraq to hit Kurdish elements because reports suggested the United States might use them to push into Iran and carve out a Kurdish state.
      • Iranian operations reportedly killed leaders and destroyed munitions and logistics to block that possibility, echoing a pressure tactic previously attempted through Ukraine against Russia.
      • Iraqi forces on the Syrian border warn that any Syrian move into Lebanon, including efforts to help disarm Hezbollah, would trigger Iraqi movement into Syria.
    • Attacks on infrastructure risk catastrophic civilian breakdown across Iran.
      • Pressure on Iran could instead spread insecurity across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Gulf if Iran retaliates against their infrastructure after any American attack on Iranian infrastructure.
    • West Bank escalation could ignite wider regional conflict.
      • Destroying Iran's infrastructure would leave the state unable to provide electricity, water, and basic services in summer, creating effects likened to a slow nuclear bomb.
    • A merger with the Ukraine war seemed possible but eased.
      • The most dangerous trigger may be an explosion in the West Bank, while a recent attempt to draw the Caspian into the broader war appears to have receded after a Ukrainian pullback.
  • 9. Escalation control and widening war risks
    • Escalation control through calibrated pressure is a dangerous illusion.
      • Assuming anyone can finely control escalation by adjusting pressure and timing is dangerously hubristic and likely mistaken.
    • War around Iran and Russia is near broader breakdown.
      • The situation appears close to going off the rails not only around Iran but also in relation to Russia.
    • Tehran and Moscow should not let Washington set escalation terms.
      • Allowing Washington to decide when fighting starts, stops, or widens creates unacceptable danger for Tehran and Moscow.
      • American reactions to attacks such as the one in Jordan show how quickly events inside a war can be treated as sudden escalation.
      • Iranian behavior could have mirrored American methods more closely, and its restraint should not translate into giving an opponent strategic control.
      • Trying to merge the two wars into one manageable contest under American control risks a major miscalculation.
    • Greater unpredictability or a defensive posture may reduce risk.
      • Tehran and Moscow may need to become less predictable or shift toward a more defensive posture to reduce that danger.
  • 10. Moscow attacks and Russian response
    • The Moscow bombing may mark a serious escalation point.
      • The Moscow restaurant bombing matters more than commonly recognized because it appears to have targeted two senior air force generals at a closed wedding reception.
    • Russia may infer Western intelligence involvement without having proof.
    • Attacks on civilians likely increase Russian anger, not war fatigue.
      • A woman carrying a supposed gift was stopped at the entrance, then a remote operator likely detonated explosives packed with ball bearings, killing both generals and injuring others nearby.
      • A likely Russian conclusion is that a Western intelligence service facilitated the attack by supplying intelligence about the generals' presence, though certainty is explicitly lacking.
      • Recent strikes on beachgoers, resort sites, and now a wedding gathering mark a progression from infrastructure attacks toward civilians and assassinations inside Moscow.
      • Russian leaders are likely to treat this as a possible tipping point and eventually answer with harsher measures if Western-backed attacks continue.
    • Further escalation may extend beyond Ukraine.
      • Missile strikes on Russian civilians are expected to harden public anger rather than undermine Putin, and the intensified pounding of Ukraine already reflects that shift.
    • Moscow no longer trusts substantive negotiations with Washington.
      • Pressure through such attacks is unlikely to produce ceasefire talks because senior Russian officials now treat previous negotiations as deceptive and reject further substantive dealings with Washington.
  • 11. Collapsed diplomacy and global financial strains
    • Iran, Russia, and China are not accommodating Western pressure.
      • Iran refuses talks with the West, Russia also refuses talks, and China rejects Western demands to stay out of Iran.
    • Europe remains isolated but still believes it can control events.
      • Europe treats much of the world as hostile, withdraws into a bunker mentality, and still assumes it can direct outcomes from a position of control.
    • Bond and debt markets now shape the wider Iran crisis.
      • The Iran question therefore sits inside a much larger international breakdown rather than a narrow regional diplomatic dispute.
      • That larger issue now depends heavily on debt and bond markets, which have become the decisive arena for what follows.
      • Japan could trigger a much wider rupture because keeping the yen stable looks increasingly difficult under current conditions.
    • Japan and the weakening yen could trigger a larger upheaval.
      • Authorities have already intervened heavily, including roughly ninety billion dollars in support, partly through selling euros to buy yen.
    • Intervention has not stopped currency decline, inflation, or rising rates.
      • Despite that rescue effort, the yen continues falling, while higher interest rates and inflation intensify the broader financial strain.
  • 12. Russia Iran parallels and Western blind spots
    • Russia and Iran interpret Western negotiations as fundamentally fraudulent.
      • War against Iran and Russia has partly merged because both states draw lessons from each other's experience with Western negotiations and coercion.
      • Russian leaders now treat past understandings as deceit and view many signed deals and negotiations with Iran as never intended for implementation.
    • Pressure on Russian civilians is expected to intensify escalation, not produce concessions.
      • Terrorist attacks inside Russia and a sustained campaign striking civilian targets aim to pressure society into turning against Putin, but that pressure hardens resolve instead.
    • Equating peace with Russian defeat ignores Russia's existential-war mindset.
      • European policy often equates peace with Russian capitulation, yet an existential war leaves Russia choosing not between compromise and escalation, but only escalation.
      • Claims that harsher attacks will make Moscow more flexible misread the effect, because they confirm Kremlin warnings that NATO-linked Ukraine would become a proxy frontline against Russia.
      • Further retaliation was always foreseeable, including harsher action against Kyiv or blockade measures, especially when Ukraine's air defenses are already limited.
    • Western debate has collapsed into moral binaries with little strategic reflection.
      • Western publics and diplomatic circles barely debate Russian interests, Western interests, Gaza, the West Bank, or threats against Iranians, and moral certainties have replaced policy discussion.
  • 13. European elite panic and conformity
    • European elites feel desperate and increasingly unsure of themselves.
      • European establishments are growing nervous, losing confidence, and becoming desperate as Ukraine's situation deteriorates and threatens their larger political order.
    • Russia became NATO's needed enemy after the war on terror.
      • After the war on terror, Russia became NATO's necessary adversary because that kept the alliance relevant and preserved American engagement in Europe.
      • That logic also served the older aim of keeping Americans in, sustaining NATO, and limiting an independent German role within Europe.
      • The European Union remained deeply divided on finance and many other issues, so Ukraine and confrontation with Russia became the unifying banner.
    • Ukraine functions as the EU's main tool for enforced unity.
      • Brussels demands alignment and conformity because any tolerated dissent could trigger broader institutional unraveling across the European project.
    • Brussels treats dissent as a threat to institutional survival.
      • Electoral gains by parties such as AfD in Germany are treated as early signs that the entire structure could start falling apart.
    • Populist electoral gains signal possible wider European fragmentation.
      • Desperation to hold everything together now drives elite behavior because they fear one breach in discipline could accelerate systemic collapse.
  • 14. EU geopolitical failure and isolation
    • The EU lacks geopolitical influence despite claiming that role.
      • Plans to curb German state autonomy after wrong electoral outcomes signal desperation and expose deep strain inside the European project.
    • Anti-Russia cohesion may dissolve if peace breaks out.
      • A Europe organized around common opposition to Russia cannot hold together if peace returns, because that geopolitical glue would weaken and fragmentation could follow.
    • Geoeconomic cooperation offered a sounder European strategy.
      • Building the EU as a geopolitical actor was a mistake, while the stronger path lay in geoeconomic cooperation and pooled bargaining power.
      • European claims to geopolitical status have become untenable because major powers such as Russia and Iran no longer want to engage with them.
    • Europe now has poor relations with Russia, China, and the United States.
      • Relations have also deteriorated with China and the United States, leaving Europe broadly friendless and unable to shape events.
      • This outcome reflects repeated political misjudgments that squandered influence and replaced pragmatic economic strategy with overreaching geopolitical ambition.
      • Romano Prodi's image of the EU as a giant made of clay captures a large structure that looks impressive yet may stumble when it tries to move.
  • 15. Economic unpreparedness and closing warnings
    • Public and governments are unprepared for abrupt economic and energy disruption.
      • Societies remain deeply unprepared for looming disruptions that could be triggered suddenly and prove worse because almost no practical or psychological preparation has occurred.
    • Diesel shortages or priority rationing could arrive as a major surprise.
      • People may be shocked when diesel becomes unavailable, rationed, or reserved by priority for some groups while denied to others.
      • An economic crisis and energy shortage now look likely, with the public still unready for the scale of disruption.
    • Iran and Russia are moving toward harder positions as diplomacy fails.
      • Iran and Russia both appear to have concluded that diplomacy does not work, leading each toward a harder line.
      • Public life continues as though little is wrong, even while major newspapers focus on restaurants and summer food rather than looming shortages.
      • A bunker mentality and narrative control discourage acknowledgement of bad news, so problems go unmentioned when no positive story is available.
    • Narrative control and denial obstruct needed course correction.
      • That refusal to face what is coming blocks the course correction that would be most necessary before the crisis hits.
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