Alas, it appears the mullahs have outlived their usefulness. Israel’s attack last week began the doomsday clock on the current Iranian regime. By Tuesday, June 17 at the earliest, and June 24 at the latest, the Ayatollahs shall be consigned to the desert-dust bin of history.
It was always designed to be this way. As posited in a previous piece, America’s position with the Islamic regime since 1978 has all the earmarks of a sponsor-client relationship. Or, if you will, handler-asset. The Washington establishment has always used and played the mullahs. They’ve been a convenient band of venal, amoral, faux fundamentalists serving as counterpoint to the other power(s) in the region: Israel and the Sunni Arab states. Regional balance, low-simmering conflict, sanctions leading to smuggling and graft, low-grade hot skirmishes using proxies to drive weapons sales—that was the deal, and it served the Deep State well.
Image created using ChatGPT.
However, on October 7, 2023, (‘Atzeret’ or ‘Ending’ in the Jewish calendar), Yahya Sinwar decided to go rogue and take advantage of Israeli complacency, all without the go-ahead from Khameini. Yes, Sinwar could argue that keeping operational secrecy was too important to coordinate with his patron (and his fellow proxy allies, Hezbollah and Houthi). However, this was still an existential error.
The Deep State now saw Iran as both too weak and too strong. Khameini was too weak to properly control his proxies. At the same time, if Iran were to progress to nuclear capability, it would be too strong—it could blow up the regional balance so beloved in D.C., either by using the bomb or by using its nuclear blackmail backing to coordinate an all-out proxy invasion of Israel and/or Saudi Arabia et al.
And thus, tick-tock for the mullahs. The strongest supporters of the mullahs within the Deep State could hold on and try to massage things during the Biden administration, allowing Israel to decapitate Hezbollah and the regime change in Syria and Assad exile to Russia, all while protecting the Iran regime, and allowing the Houthi emergence as a replacement of sorts for Hezbollah and Hamas. But once Trump entered office, that element within the Deep State lost power and influence.
Trump seems to have co-opted the pro-Iran camp by drawing them into his administration, giving them illusions of influence and then simply cuckolding them. Tulsi and those who coordinate the Tucker, Candace, etc., social-media clown contingent were granted a lot of rope through the first 150 days or so of Trump 47. By the end of this week, they should all be metaphorically hanging from said rope. This is what Trump does with many enemies: they get drawn in closely, so he can control them and give them the opportunity to make asses of themselves. (See, e.g., Elon, RFK, Witkoff/Dumpkoff).
Trump is the consummate career poker player. For decades, he sat at the New York real estate gaming table and bluffed his oft-weak dealt cards to occasional wins and a certain level of success. His candidacy for president could be understood that way. Finally, as the leader of the strongest country in the world, he would hold a consistently good hand when sitting at the geopolitical game-theory table. Let’s see how good a player he can be when holding four-of-a-kind bunker-busters, while his opponents held a pair of inaccurate ballistic missiles and assorted dreck.
Could this all fall apart on Trump (like a house of cards, to continue the metaphor)?
Sure. The Iranians or the Deep State could pull a joker from their sleeve or from under a table. The Pakistanis could lend their co-religionists a nuke or two, or the Chinese could fly some missiles into Tehran. And the Deep State could assassinate someone or another.
But that’s the nature of a world perpetually on the precipice of extinction. The perils don’t obviate the need to play the cards. Most likely, the Deep State will simply discard the mullahs and pick up a new client/asset. My bets are on Turkey. Erdogan is a slippery fellow who, from previous coup attempt(s), already recognizes that the CIA harbors his chief opposition and could replace him if he doesn’t play along.
I’d guess one of Turkey’s numerous terror-adjacent clients will turn to Israel in late summer. Erdogan will follow with a bellicose speech at the September UN sessions in NYC, NATO will begin discussing evicting Turkey from the organization, and pronto, Turkey replaces Iran as Public Enemy Number One and the new regional balance hegemon. Meanwhile, the Russia/Ukraine, China/Taiwan region battles will heat up anew, perhaps a new region will emerge, and the weapons sales, graft, reconstruction, etc., will continue apace.
The hope is that Trump survives the term and wins some hands at the table for the good guys. And that we all survive until AI arrives and presents unfathomable new challenges.
But hey, AI will be the greatest game player possible. (See its conquering of Chess, Go, etc.). So, there’s that…
Norm Krieg is the pseudonym of a writer who hides his fears behind a sardonic-humored approach to life.