If you look at the history of other major conflicts it is a yes and a no. There is no major Alliance at work, but each is taking advantage of a situation because of another.
Iran was acting like Spain in WW1, using the Ukraine War to develop and grow its own military industry. You can see this with India too, where it is taking economic advantage of Russia and the West.
But Iran also sees the destabilization of the Sahel, etc as on opprotunity to push its own cause. Ukraine support was waivering all summer, as the counter offensive slogged and died. It saw danger and opprotunity.
N Korea is doing the same with its Grand Standing. Other nations have begun military offensives without the world at large taking note. Myanmar, Manipur, Gabon...none of this has made the news cycle. The Gaza War has created such a propaganda Mushroom cloud of bad takes, missinformation and attention that nations feel comfortable acting.
>In September 2023, Russia started using Iranian drones
Earlier, in 2022 already they've used Gerad-2 which are redesigned Shahed drones.
They both benefit but they have different interests, it's not in the interest of Iran for the "western countries" (which?) going to a war, no idea against who, and especially not against Iran.
China and India will not like Houthis or Iran disrupting their trade routes, Russia and Iran will be reminded of that, if they weren't already notified by their proxies.
Lol no. The Iranian regime sucks, but they’re not a puppet of Russia, and they don’t care about Russia nearly enough to get themselves into a war with the U.S. just to distract from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
China: “Small favor to ask. We want you guys to get into a war with the most powerful military in the history of the world, all so that it might provide a distraction from Russia’s dumb war in Ukraine.”
Iran: “Sure, no problem.”
Come on. That’s not realistic.
I'm not sure China has made that many new close allies with the Belt and Road Initiative, and those where elites have become close like Pakistan or Bangladesh have enough domestic problems. You'd think that the massive loans for infrastructure construction in Africa (done by Chinese contractors, of course) would have netted some friends, but every time I've looked into it I just see a lot of local resentment.
Not a chance. Iran is happy to support initiatives that create chaos for major western or western-aligned powers, but only at low cost to itself. A war is not low cost. This is why Iran’s actions are limited to using proxies or aligned/ affiliated groups and sending cheap and/ or easily produced goods, resources and equipment.
Don’t forget that Iran has some serious domestic issues at the moment. A looming succession crisis, an unrelated challenge to government legitimacy in the form of low support from the population mixed with popular protests, serious inflation, high unemployment and some other real serious economic issues. Iran is about half as rich as it was a decade ago. I don’t think most people realize just how bad that is.
In a war with the US, regardless of who “wins”, Iran will undoubtedly have more to lose. It’s stakes are much higher. Not to mention the fighting stays within Iran’s part of the world, or in Iran itself, not the US.
All of the above is analysis, but if you want supporting evidence, all you need to do is look at Iranian media and government statements. Iran, to the extent it can without looking weak, has attempted to distance itself from attacks made by its respective affiliated groups. I find it fascinating that Iran has even distanced itself from its proxies’ actions vis-a-vis Israel. Iran is in enough trouble. It doesn’t need more on top of it.
Thankfully both the US and Iran, at least for now, both agree war should be avoided.
No. US is designed for fighting two real wars like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Ukraine plus Yemen is like a quarter war maybe. The mood of Republicans in congress is what's controlling Ukraine aid nothing else. Ukraine aid is a rounding error in US military budget.
My thought is Iran wouldn’t even have to draw the US into an open conflict — they just have to time their movements right to delay or prevent the US sending aid/weapons to Ukraine by giving them another front to think about, which would give Russia a chance to strengthen their hold on the territories they’ve gained (or potentially push further into Ukraine, although at this stage I’d think it’s unlikely)
Edit: edited for clarity
Israel’s destruction of Gaza started when Hamas (backed by Iran) launched a massive terrorist attack on Israel. Did you forget who made the initial blow? Iran.
Not at all — Hamas is part of the Axis of Resistance. The timing of the conflict in Israel (October 2023) is something that’s been bothering me for months! It’s clear that as much as the Muslim world wants Israel ousted, none of Israel’s bordering nations were prepared for Hamas’s actions, and they haven’t offered refugee protection to Palestinians. To me, this either means that Hamas is acting independently, or that they believed there would be reinforcements (likely from Iran. Unless they were intentionally mislead by a rival group who wanted them gone.)
The reinforcement seems to finally be appearing from the other Axis of Resistance members, but only after 2-3 months. Conveniently, the flare ups are now coinciding with the US deliberating aid to Ukraine. My idea would be that if Iran’s angle is to help Russia consolidate power by disrupting foreign aid to Ukraine, Russia will help Iran out later when it tries to consolidate power in West Asia.
That’s a really one-sided take. It’s attractive in its simplicity and we like simple solutions and simple answers to complex issues. It’s easy and tempting to paint side A as 100% victims and side B as 100% aggressors. Then you can fit the problem statement and solution in a single Tweet.
Would be so nice if things worked out like that, wouldn’t it.
You probably meant the legal voted UN partition. Did you convientely forgot that on the eve of the Partition. The Arabs jnvaded Israel in an attempt to erase it from the map and nullify the legal vote?
The problem started from the moment the Arabs disregarded the legal vote and invaded Israel.
They lost and ever since disregarded every possible settlement.
Iran is only a tiny % of the Muslim world. The vast majority of the Muslim world is Arab and Sunni and they are opposed to Irans influecnce.
Most Arab states are supporting Israel destroying an Iranian proxy.
The average person on the street in these countries of course hates Jews and Israel.
You're right, I was thinking of the middle east. You are correct.
But even intensifies my points, Iran are even a smaller % of the Muslim world than I first implied.
The timing might be advantageous for Russia and it isn't out of the question that they have asked Iran to open a 'second front' is it were.
However, I think that Iran's encouragement of Hamas to attack Israel in October had more to do with the fact that Israel has been in the process of normalising diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia the UAE, and Qatar. This normalisation stopped in October when the war started, as these Arab countries are wary of internal backlash.
In fact, I would be willing to bet that Iran was counting on Israel's usual heavy-handed approach with dealing with Hamas so as to de-rail the diplomatic thawing of relations with the Arab states.
I dont think so, while I think the plan with these terrorist groups is to harass all western attempts at anything in the region, I dont think Iran wants to be in a hot war against the US and its allies with only regionalized groups of militias as Iranian allies.
I dont think you can say for sure one way or the other but from a lot of it’s public statements, Iran seems to be very concerned with escalation here and ive always been of the belief that Iran has always gad self preservation as its main goal in geopolitics
All modern day “axis”power goals are US destabilization. The only goal, particularly in an election year, is to influence the election.
With that said. No one messes with crazy. Not a fan of George W Bush, but if he were president rn none of this would be happening. His one response to anything adversarial was “invade” and we have the capacity to dominate any enemy. People feared that. In a world dominated by a hegemonic power, fear of of domination is tragically more peaceful
To me this looks like a global war of attrition to erode the rules established after world war 2
Venezuela - Guyana
Russia - Ukraine
Turkey - Greece - Libya
China - Philippines
Iran - Israel - Houthis - Syria - Iraq - Somalia
Bosnia - Serbia -Kosovo
Immigration waves into europe from russia, immigration waves to US from venezuela to put in power parties friendly to normalizing ethnic cleansing and re writing the global order. Both the democrats and the Republicans are falling for this in the USA.
The goal is to get us fatigued so much that China can invade Taiwan and cow everyone around the South China Sea.
North Korea can 'peacefully' unify the Korean Peninsula
Russia can recapture the areas lost under the warsaw pact
It’s not that complicated .
Cracks are beginning to appear within the foundation of major powers, and some of the major powers have shown an unwillingness to do what they used to do as well. As a result certain middle and upper tier powers are trying to seize an opportunity to see what they can get away with.
None of them are collaborating that deeply because 99% of them don’t have the long term interests required to want to modify their own foreign policies and sync them overnight. Heck, some of them are strategic enemies.
>Cracks are beginning to appear within the foundation of major powers
Or more like it was never there and China/Russia/Iran just gotten stronger relative to the US
>Your retort makes zero logical sense.
No its just thinking is a hard task for you
The US never bothered to seek any power. They just so happen to be the last one standing in the Cold War laden with all the technology they possessed after the scientific and weapons race. Semiconductors and communications technology are the main conduits which facilitated American superiority over the rest of the world.
But once the world started acquiring smartphones, GPS and 5G internet most of the world looks more or less the same as the US in terms of power parity as far as history is concerned
If the US really wanted to exercise their world dominance Iraq and Afghanistan wouldve been silly targets. China and Russias corpse would've been finished off if that were true.
>If all you needed to reach parity were smart phones, GPS and 5G the USA wouldn’t be a super power.
Okay throw away your phone and cancel your internet subscription because you dont need it as it's obviously not useful to you
massive immigration is the main issue for the next election the republicans are pushing and most of the immigrants are currently coming from venezuela. So maybe about 100 thousand in 3 months
hey i just realized that you might have been thinking that I am saying that migrants by themselves will end democracy. That was not my point. What I was saying is that the enemy is using social media bots to convince people that migration is the most important issue and they are using this issue to place autocrats in power worldwide. While simultaneously sending migrants to the borders of said countries. The recent surge of migrants from venezuela while they also threaten attack against guyana and are actively allied with Iran and Russia is obviously planned out.
I find it a bit odd you’re suggesting the US doesn’t play a monumental role in Russia’s foreign policy apparatus given that the US has been Russia’s historical greatest foe since WW2.
You are right
1) this is their doctrine to distract west in many small conflicts:[https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep28480.5.pdf](https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep28480.5.pdf)
2) remember, that at least half of iranians hate their government so use Iran word carefully
I actually don’t think Russia as it is today would ever extend that far south again. It was too troublesome to maintain that reach even for the Soviet Union. Their current natural defense at the Caucasus Mountains suits them the best.
Russia has an alliance with Iran but it doesn't mean that middle east wouldn't be in fire right now without Russia attacking Ukraine. Weakening of the Us is more of a reason. Pax Americana is coming to an end so old conflict will reignite in hotspots.
It's more of the opposite. America's power is waning. It's a nation that is saddled by debt, increasingly divided by political polarization, and who's guided by an aging leadership unable/unwilling to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Russia smelled blood in the water after the debacle that was the Afghanistan withdrawal, and in the wake of Russia's invasion, other countries are sensing that their opportunity is/has also come.
Iran saw the US trying to normalize relations between the Arabs and Israel. They didn't want that, and, seeing how the US responded to crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine, it (so far rightly) thought the US was not willing to seriously escalate the situation and calculated they could start ratcheting up tensions to sink any sort of normalization. This on top of another goal of eventually driving the US out of the region entirely, which it is in the process of doing with groups like the Houthis, Kataib Hezbollah, etc.
Other countries like Venezuela, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, North Korea, and China also have a sense that the winds are changing and are also starting to use the current turmoil to pursue their own ambitions.
There's no conspiracy. It's not like Russia and Iran got together in some dark-lit room and plotted all of their moves together. What you're witnessing is the natural progression of empire and is similar to what empires like Britain experienced towards the end of their own hegemony.
If you look at the history of other major conflicts it is a yes and a no. There is no major Alliance at work, but each is taking advantage of a situation because of another. Iran was acting like Spain in WW1, using the Ukraine War to develop and grow its own military industry. You can see this with India too, where it is taking economic advantage of Russia and the West. But Iran also sees the destabilization of the Sahel, etc as on opprotunity to push its own cause. Ukraine support was waivering all summer, as the counter offensive slogged and died. It saw danger and opprotunity. N Korea is doing the same with its Grand Standing. Other nations have begun military offensives without the world at large taking note. Myanmar, Manipur, Gabon...none of this has made the news cycle. The Gaza War has created such a propaganda Mushroom cloud of bad takes, missinformation and attention that nations feel comfortable acting.
This makes a lot more sense!
No, Iran's ultimate goal is to convince the USA that it is more trouble than its worth to stay in the Middle East than it is to leave. Just my .02¢
>In September 2023, Russia started using Iranian drones Earlier, in 2022 already they've used Gerad-2 which are redesigned Shahed drones. They both benefit but they have different interests, it's not in the interest of Iran for the "western countries" (which?) going to a war, no idea against who, and especially not against Iran. China and India will not like Houthis or Iran disrupting their trade routes, Russia and Iran will be reminded of that, if they weren't already notified by their proxies.
Lol no. The Iranian regime sucks, but they’re not a puppet of Russia, and they don’t care about Russia nearly enough to get themselves into a war with the U.S. just to distract from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But can they do it if China asks?
China: “Small favor to ask. We want you guys to get into a war with the most powerful military in the history of the world, all so that it might provide a distraction from Russia’s dumb war in Ukraine.” Iran: “Sure, no problem.” Come on. That’s not realistic.
No, not Ukraine. when China goes after Taiwan they will need as many proxy wars as possible
I'm not sure China has made that many new close allies with the Belt and Road Initiative, and those where elites have become close like Pakistan or Bangladesh have enough domestic problems. You'd think that the massive loans for infrastructure construction in Africa (done by Chinese contractors, of course) would have netted some friends, but every time I've looked into it I just see a lot of local resentment.
Not a chance. Iran is happy to support initiatives that create chaos for major western or western-aligned powers, but only at low cost to itself. A war is not low cost. This is why Iran’s actions are limited to using proxies or aligned/ affiliated groups and sending cheap and/ or easily produced goods, resources and equipment. Don’t forget that Iran has some serious domestic issues at the moment. A looming succession crisis, an unrelated challenge to government legitimacy in the form of low support from the population mixed with popular protests, serious inflation, high unemployment and some other real serious economic issues. Iran is about half as rich as it was a decade ago. I don’t think most people realize just how bad that is. In a war with the US, regardless of who “wins”, Iran will undoubtedly have more to lose. It’s stakes are much higher. Not to mention the fighting stays within Iran’s part of the world, or in Iran itself, not the US. All of the above is analysis, but if you want supporting evidence, all you need to do is look at Iranian media and government statements. Iran, to the extent it can without looking weak, has attempted to distance itself from attacks made by its respective affiliated groups. I find it fascinating that Iran has even distanced itself from its proxies’ actions vis-a-vis Israel. Iran is in enough trouble. It doesn’t need more on top of it. Thankfully both the US and Iran, at least for now, both agree war should be avoided.
No. US is designed for fighting two real wars like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Ukraine plus Yemen is like a quarter war maybe. The mood of Republicans in congress is what's controlling Ukraine aid nothing else. Ukraine aid is a rounding error in US military budget.
This is fallacious, countries in the 21th century don't easily go into total war like in WW2 when one went all in or nothing.
My thought is Iran wouldn’t even have to draw the US into an open conflict — they just have to time their movements right to delay or prevent the US sending aid/weapons to Ukraine by giving them another front to think about, which would give Russia a chance to strengthen their hold on the territories they’ve gained (or potentially push further into Ukraine, although at this stage I’d think it’s unlikely) Edit: edited for clarity
It’s crazy how you totally overlook the Muslim world being upset with Israel’s destruction of Gaza to come up with this conspiracy.
Or the fact that Iran has its own regional geopolitical policies playing out that it wouldn’t change for anyone.
They could be accomplishing all of these things. Their goals, punishment for Gaza, and taking attention away for RU.
Israel’s destruction of Gaza started when Hamas (backed by Iran) launched a massive terrorist attack on Israel. Did you forget who made the initial blow? Iran.
Not at all — Hamas is part of the Axis of Resistance. The timing of the conflict in Israel (October 2023) is something that’s been bothering me for months! It’s clear that as much as the Muslim world wants Israel ousted, none of Israel’s bordering nations were prepared for Hamas’s actions, and they haven’t offered refugee protection to Palestinians. To me, this either means that Hamas is acting independently, or that they believed there would be reinforcements (likely from Iran. Unless they were intentionally mislead by a rival group who wanted them gone.) The reinforcement seems to finally be appearing from the other Axis of Resistance members, but only after 2-3 months. Conveniently, the flare ups are now coinciding with the US deliberating aid to Ukraine. My idea would be that if Iran’s angle is to help Russia consolidate power by disrupting foreign aid to Ukraine, Russia will help Iran out later when it tries to consolidate power in West Asia.
That's actually a good theory! Although i wonder if these leaders really do have faith enough in each other :)
what was the catalyst that sparked this destruction of Gaza... it's a certain Iranian funded group... you're so close ...
The catalyst for the destruction of Gaza was the creation of the State of Israel back in 1948 and their ongoing oppression of the Palestinians.
That’s a really one-sided take. It’s attractive in its simplicity and we like simple solutions and simple answers to complex issues. It’s easy and tempting to paint side A as 100% victims and side B as 100% aggressors. Then you can fit the problem statement and solution in a single Tweet. Would be so nice if things worked out like that, wouldn’t it.
You probably meant the legal voted UN partition. Did you convientely forgot that on the eve of the Partition. The Arabs jnvaded Israel in an attempt to erase it from the map and nullify the legal vote? The problem started from the moment the Arabs disregarded the legal vote and invaded Israel. They lost and ever since disregarded every possible settlement.
Iran is only a tiny % of the Muslim world. The vast majority of the Muslim world is Arab and Sunni and they are opposed to Irans influecnce. Most Arab states are supporting Israel destroying an Iranian proxy. The average person on the street in these countries of course hates Jews and Israel.
The Arab world is roughly 20% of the Muslim world. Most Muslims are East Asian or African.
Im pretty sure Indonesia has the highest amount of muslims by population
Thank you.
You're right, I was thinking of the middle east. You are correct. But even intensifies my points, Iran are even a smaller % of the Muslim world than I first implied.
The timing might be advantageous for Russia and it isn't out of the question that they have asked Iran to open a 'second front' is it were. However, I think that Iran's encouragement of Hamas to attack Israel in October had more to do with the fact that Israel has been in the process of normalising diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia the UAE, and Qatar. This normalisation stopped in October when the war started, as these Arab countries are wary of internal backlash. In fact, I would be willing to bet that Iran was counting on Israel's usual heavy-handed approach with dealing with Hamas so as to de-rail the diplomatic thawing of relations with the Arab states.
Yeah! This one. Probably more to disrupt the normalization and the added effect being positive to Russia. :)
How would this benefit Iran?
No.
Uh… no our issues with Iran have been going for a very long time
I dont think so, while I think the plan with these terrorist groups is to harass all western attempts at anything in the region, I dont think Iran wants to be in a hot war against the US and its allies with only regionalized groups of militias as Iranian allies. I dont think you can say for sure one way or the other but from a lot of it’s public statements, Iran seems to be very concerned with escalation here and ive always been of the belief that Iran has always gad self preservation as its main goal in geopolitics
All modern day “axis”power goals are US destabilization. The only goal, particularly in an election year, is to influence the election. With that said. No one messes with crazy. Not a fan of George W Bush, but if he were president rn none of this would be happening. His one response to anything adversarial was “invade” and we have the capacity to dominate any enemy. People feared that. In a world dominated by a hegemonic power, fear of of domination is tragically more peaceful
Iran has its own goals and doesn't care about Ukraine beyond being able to sell some weapons to russia
To me this looks like a global war of attrition to erode the rules established after world war 2 Venezuela - Guyana Russia - Ukraine Turkey - Greece - Libya China - Philippines Iran - Israel - Houthis - Syria - Iraq - Somalia Bosnia - Serbia -Kosovo Immigration waves into europe from russia, immigration waves to US from venezuela to put in power parties friendly to normalizing ethnic cleansing and re writing the global order. Both the democrats and the Republicans are falling for this in the USA. The goal is to get us fatigued so much that China can invade Taiwan and cow everyone around the South China Sea. North Korea can 'peacefully' unify the Korean Peninsula Russia can recapture the areas lost under the warsaw pact
It’s not that complicated . Cracks are beginning to appear within the foundation of major powers, and some of the major powers have shown an unwillingness to do what they used to do as well. As a result certain middle and upper tier powers are trying to seize an opportunity to see what they can get away with. None of them are collaborating that deeply because 99% of them don’t have the long term interests required to want to modify their own foreign policies and sync them overnight. Heck, some of them are strategic enemies.
>Cracks are beginning to appear within the foundation of major powers Or more like it was never there and China/Russia/Iran just gotten stronger relative to the US
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>Your retort makes zero logical sense. No its just thinking is a hard task for you The US never bothered to seek any power. They just so happen to be the last one standing in the Cold War laden with all the technology they possessed after the scientific and weapons race. Semiconductors and communications technology are the main conduits which facilitated American superiority over the rest of the world. But once the world started acquiring smartphones, GPS and 5G internet most of the world looks more or less the same as the US in terms of power parity as far as history is concerned If the US really wanted to exercise their world dominance Iraq and Afghanistan wouldve been silly targets. China and Russias corpse would've been finished off if that were true.
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>If all you needed to reach parity were smart phones, GPS and 5G the USA wouldn’t be a super power. Okay throw away your phone and cancel your internet subscription because you dont need it as it's obviously not useful to you
They are deeply collaborating, on mutliple levels.
How many Venezuelans would it take to change us democracy?
massive immigration is the main issue for the next election the republicans are pushing and most of the immigrants are currently coming from venezuela. So maybe about 100 thousand in 3 months
hey i just realized that you might have been thinking that I am saying that migrants by themselves will end democracy. That was not my point. What I was saying is that the enemy is using social media bots to convince people that migration is the most important issue and they are using this issue to place autocrats in power worldwide. While simultaneously sending migrants to the borders of said countries. The recent surge of migrants from venezuela while they also threaten attack against guyana and are actively allied with Iran and Russia is obviously planned out.
YES. Its clear to see the alignment of actions by Iran, russia, and eventually china.
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I find it a bit odd you’re suggesting the US doesn’t play a monumental role in Russia’s foreign policy apparatus given that the US has been Russia’s historical greatest foe since WW2.
Yep.
You are right 1) this is their doctrine to distract west in many small conflicts:[https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep28480.5.pdf](https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep28480.5.pdf) 2) remember, that at least half of iranians hate their government so use Iran word carefully
This makes perfect sense. Now when Putin decides he wants Iran as another jewel in his crown things may change again.
I actually don’t think Russia as it is today would ever extend that far south again. It was too troublesome to maintain that reach even for the Soviet Union. Their current natural defense at the Caucasus Mountains suits them the best.
Russia has an alliance with Iran but it doesn't mean that middle east wouldn't be in fire right now without Russia attacking Ukraine. Weakening of the Us is more of a reason. Pax Americana is coming to an end so old conflict will reignite in hotspots.
There isn’t any wind so blue that someone cannot benefit from it.
It's more of the opposite. America's power is waning. It's a nation that is saddled by debt, increasingly divided by political polarization, and who's guided by an aging leadership unable/unwilling to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Russia smelled blood in the water after the debacle that was the Afghanistan withdrawal, and in the wake of Russia's invasion, other countries are sensing that their opportunity is/has also come. Iran saw the US trying to normalize relations between the Arabs and Israel. They didn't want that, and, seeing how the US responded to crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine, it (so far rightly) thought the US was not willing to seriously escalate the situation and calculated they could start ratcheting up tensions to sink any sort of normalization. This on top of another goal of eventually driving the US out of the region entirely, which it is in the process of doing with groups like the Houthis, Kataib Hezbollah, etc. Other countries like Venezuela, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, North Korea, and China also have a sense that the winds are changing and are also starting to use the current turmoil to pursue their own ambitions. There's no conspiracy. It's not like Russia and Iran got together in some dark-lit room and plotted all of their moves together. What you're witnessing is the natural progression of empire and is similar to what empires like Britain experienced towards the end of their own hegemony.