The unravelling of Iran, and an endgame that will reshape West Asia

Photo: Agency
Soon after Donald Trump was elected President in 2016, I was asked to write in the UK press about which leader in history he most reminded me of. My answer: Genghis Khan. The great Mongol leader has one of the worst reputations of any figure from the past — largely because the histories of the Mongols were written by other people, usually those they conquered or tried to conquer.
Donald Trump too suffers from poor PR. In fact, he sometimes even seems to revel in the way he is portrayed as being chaotic, volatile and impulsive. As I wrote almost ten years ago, though, these are characteristics that can bring significant advantages: if people can't guess what you might do, they react and negotiate in different ways. After all, fear concentrates the mind.
Looking back on the first six months of Trump's second presidency, it is almost as if his utterances about invading Panama or Greenland or Canada — or perhaps all three — were part of a plan to build an enviable bargaining position. If you threaten to attack your neighbours, undermine your allies, then who knows what you might do to your enemies and rivals. It turns out that this can be an extremely effective position when it comes to the forging of a new world order.
What we have seen in Iran in the last week is something that has been years, decades, generations in the planning. Israel's penetration of the Iranian elites has been absolute and quite remarkable. As a result, over the course of the last few days, the most senior figures in the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC) as well as the most prominent and able nuclear scientists have been targeted and killed. Astonishingly, Israeli planes have complete air supremacy over the skies of Iran and its major cities and are degrading Iran's military capabilities hour after hour, day after day.
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The US has been so far watching from the sidelines. As the attack started, Secretary of State Marco Rubio underlined that the US was 'not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.' For all such comments, it is clear the US has a strong interest in what is playing out — and in how the situation eventually resolves. So do other major players, not least the UAE and other Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, China (which imports almost 2m barrels of oil per day from Iran) and India — which has invested considerable effort and energy in building a good working relationship with the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not least regarding the port of Chabahar.
We know from Donald Trump that Iranian officials have reached out to him to try to intervene. Presumably that involved a set of concessions on nuclear enrichment, on its weapons programme and perhaps more besides. According to the President, he replied: 'I said it's really late. You know?...' Warming to his theme, he added: 'I can tell you this. Iran's got a lot of trouble. They want to negotiate. I said, 'Why didn't you negotiate with me before? All this death and destruction.' He has now said he will decide on US action in two weeks.
It does not take a businessman to understand that as an opponent's cards get worse, the better the deal you can strike. So when Trump took to social media to state that his demand was no longer about a nuclear agreement but rather 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!', it reminded me of an envoy arriving at the court of the Great Khan from Europe in the middle of the 13th century, where many were anxious of the devastation that the Mongols would bring, and wanted reassurance. Tell the Pope and all the princes, said Güyük, the supreme Mongol leader, that they should come in person and bow down before me.
For now, the Iranian leadership is defiant. 'The US President threatens us,' wrote
Ayatollah Khamenei
on social media — a platform banned in Iran. 'With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him…The Iranian nation isn't frightened by such threats.'
I am not so sure about that myself. Iran still has capabilities, both inside the country and outside too.
However, the proxies that it has spent decades building up across the region, in Lebanon, in Yemen and elsewhere have effectively been dismantled. This is a moment where serious thought is being given — on all sides — to what a settlement will look like that is acceptable. The outcome will reshape West Asia; and, if you ask a global historian, much of the rest of the world besides.
Frankopan is professor of
Global History
at the University of Oxford

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