Don’t take my word for it; look at what happened yesterday in Iran. The government announced all schools will transition to online learning effective April 21st. Why would they do that?
Then, consider that they opened and then closed the Straits (of Hormuz) within 24 hours. The Western press reported that there was a big difference among factions in the government, but maybe, just maybe, they had intelligence on troop movements in the region.
Then there was an announcement by European leaders that suggested that more than a dozen countries were ready to contribute assets to a defensive mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. Defensive …right? Thus, a multinational defensive armada is heading to the Persian Gulf. “Reopening the strait is a global necessity and a global responsibility,” they declared.
Not too long before the ‘cease-fire’ was announced, the US touted landing on key Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf. The only problem was that there weren’t enough troops and time to integrate logistics in place to do that. The ceasefire has bought time to do this, and there are reports online of systematic shipments to the region from US bases in Europe (and elsewhere). It’s no surprise that the US was not dealing in good faith with the Iranians. The Iranians sensed something, because they diverted their plane to another airport, fearing an attack on them in mid-air!
There is no question that there is a serious multi-lateral plan in place to invade Iran. The question isn’t whether this will happen, it’s exactly how it will take place, and what is the ‘desired outcome’?
To figure this out, we simply must look at ‘history’. There was a previous massive invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein, at the time backed by the US and its Arab allies. Saddam Hussein visited Riyadh a few months before the invasion and received iron-clad guarantees from the Saudis. The plan was to take all of Iran’s southern (oil-producing) regions.
Today, the Saudis are allied with Pakistan. This is the same ‘peace-making’ Pakistan that brokered a fake negotiation between the US and Iran to buy time for Trump.
Not to be forgotten is Israel, which has an airbase in Azerbaijan and attacked Iran with drones across the Azerbaijan-Iran border. At the same time, Israel has been funding Iranian separatist groups in Kurdistan, Baluchistan, Azerbaijan, etc.
Israel’s strategic perspective (and therefore Trump’s too) is that Iran is a large and complex country sitting at the crossroads of the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia, and should somehow be broken apart to minimize its threat regionally and globally.
Iran occupies one of the most strategically important positions on Earth. It sits astride the Persian Gulf’s energy routes, borders multiple regions of instability, and possesses a large population, deep national identity, and significant military capability.
For decades, adversaries of the Iranian state have wondered whether the country’s internal diversity could be turned into a strategic vulnerability.
Analysts sometimes point to several regions often mentioned in such discussions:
- Baluchistan, in the southeast, bordering Pakistan
- Iranian Azerbaijan, in the northwest
- Khuzestan, an oil-rich province in the southwest
- Kurdish regions in the west
Israeli think tanks have consistently advised that if Iran is placed under severe economic, military, or political pressure, those fault lines might widen.
Israel sees Iran as a mosaic of ethnic, geographic, and political fault lines. From this perspective, Iran’s diversity—Persian, Azeri, Kurdish, Arab, Baluch, and others—becomes less a feature of national identity and more a potential lever of fragmentation.
A smaller, divided Iran would mean:
- Reduced military capacity
- Less influence across the Middle East
- Fragmented control over energy resources
- Weaker ability to project power into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, or the Gulf
Thus, it is my opinion that the US will align with Arabs, Europeans, and regional separatist groups to not only exert a massive multi-centered and multifaceted invasion of Iran, with the goal of splintering the country.
The Europeans will focus on the straits. The US and Arabs will focus on Iran’s oil terminals and oil (and gas) rich southern provinces. Kurds and Azeris will invade in the north and northwest (largely as a diversion), and Pakistan, with the help of Baluchi separatists, will attack in the Southeast.
The idea – obviously – is to overwhelm Iran, topple the regime, and then create power vacuums that will result in the splintering of Iran – along the same lines as the former Soviet Union. None of these ‘new’ nations will be large enough, powerful enough, or independent enough to pose a threat, not only to Israel, but also to undermine the economies of the Arab states in the Persian Gulf.
In my view, this is a ridiculous plan.
First, the resulting chaos will, in my view, ignite a chain reaction across the region. Non-state actors, militias, and ideological movements that would immediately exploit chaos and be a source of serious destabilization everywhere.
But also, Iran is not a small or fragile state. It has:
- a population of nearly 90 million
- complex internal political institutions
- extensive military and paramilitary structures
- A long historical memory of foreign intervention
Even powerful states have struggled to impose political outcomes on far smaller countries. Fragmenting Iran would likely be exponentially harder. Iranians will fight back and fight hard.
The analysts in Washington and Tel Aviv should be reminded that what often gets framed as a clean geopolitical strategy in air-conditioned, glass-lined offices not too far from a Starbucks Café — i.e., divide the map, weakening the rival— often collides with reality on the ground.
Destabilizing a country as large and complex as Iran could easily produce consequences far beyond anyone’s control.
History is full of plans that looked brilliant in theory and catastrophic in practice.
The map is one thing. The world beneath it is another.
The war being contemplated will be catastrophic. It is very difficult to imagine how its impact will be contained. How will this fire be put out? The possibility of it evolving into a much larger regional – possibly global – conflict is there. It’s a very high-risk proposition.
The problem is, it’s now impossible to negotiate with Trump, who has shown time and again that he is not a good-faith actor. He tore up the very last attempt to systematically bring Iran into the ‘Anglosphere’ via constructive engagement. This idea that the US can simply dictate outcomes is somewhat naïve and smacks of arrogance and hubris.
It will take far more than an armada from Europe, and 100,000 multi-lateral and separatist forces to conquer Iran. When they look at a Mercator Projection map, they see a small country – not realizing that the map is distorted. Iran is huge – larger than Spain, France, Germany, and Poland combined. Iran can literally bring millions of fighters to the table. This isn’t going to be easy or pretty.
Is this worth it for America?
Remember, splintering Iran is ALL for Israel and Arab interests. And Israel has already said it will not provide troops for this invasion. One more time, it’s US blood and treasure expended for the benefit of Israel. How does this make sense? Why are we splintering a country when we could just as easily set up base there and conquer the region via Iran? If Iran is so powerful, don’t we want to be leveraging it – instead of splintering it?
None of this makes sense. The US is listening to the wrong people, with their own agendas, instead of standing for US national interests.
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