A Banner outside the former US Embassy in Tehran<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump\u2019s authority may be in shreds after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shootings <\/a>in Minnesota, and with inflation rising <\/a>as a result of his tariffs<\/a>, but internationally Trump still thinks he is on a high.<\/p>\n He bullied Nato into “a framework<\/a>” for a future deal over Greenland, which according to one report, later vigorously denied, had Denmark ceding <\/a>sovereignty over the areas in which US<\/a> bases would be built.<\/p>\n He has got Europe to pay <\/a>for more of its own defence.<\/p>\n He seized <\/a>President Nicolas Maduro, as a result of which, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said<\/a> that Venezuela will submit\u00a0a monthly budget.<\/p>\n He arm-twisted Israel<\/a>i<\/a> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into stopping the war in Gaza<\/a>. If his “Board of Peace”<\/a> has grabbed autonomy<\/a> from both the Palestinian factions and the Palestinian Authority, Israel has also less control over Gaza.<\/p>\n This is what Trump thinks he has achieved. And now he has assembled an armada<\/a> of ships and bombers poised to strike Iran<\/a> for the second time in a year. Trump thinks he can do to the Islamic Republic what he did to Venezuela.<\/p>\n In this, Trump is fundamentally mistaken. But he believes it.<\/p>\n His envoy Steve Witkoff <\/a>and his son-in-law Jared Kushner<\/a>\u00a0have told<\/a> one regional power what Trump thinks he can do to Iran. A quick but limited air strike<\/a> which decapitates the leadership, but leaves the regime in place.<\/p>\n This is to be followed by a deal in which Iran surrenders its uranium enrichment programme and agrees to trade its oil solely with the US, in return for which Trump will allow Boeing back into Iran.<\/p>\n There are other variants circulating, but its essential ingredients are speed, extreme violence, and the submission of surviving members of the leadership to US diktat.<\/p>\n Trump is also convinced that now is the time to strike. He thinks the Islamic Republic has been fundamentally weakened by the air strikes <\/a>he ordered last year.<\/p>\n Its main uranium enrichment plants remain<\/a> buried <\/a>under tons of rock and rubble and US intelligence claims the regime has done nothing to restore its stockpiles.<\/p>\n Iran was then rocked by the second major wave of national unrest <\/a>in three years which was suppressed only at the cost of thousands of lives.<\/p>\n In evaluating Iran\u2019s alleged weakness, Trump has two sources of information, both deeply flawed – his own intelligence assessments and Israel\u2019s. Israeli intelligence is powered by different objectives.<\/p>\n Netanyahu wants <\/a>regime change, not a token or limited round of air strikes. He has said for decades that Hamas and Hezbollah function as\u00a0 “aircraft carriers<\/a>”\u00a0for Iran – a claim which is contradicted by the enduring and cross-generational levels of support each movement enjoys in Palestine<\/a> and South Lebanon.<\/p>\n Both Trump and Netanyahu are power drunk by the military actions they have taken so far. Each believes they are masters of the universe.<\/p>\n If their pilots operate off real-time information, almost to the minute, on where targets can be located and eliminated, they believe there are no constraints on what they can do.<\/p>\n Last year, the Israeli airforce showed<\/a> how it is no longer constrained by the physical distance between its airfields and Iran.<\/p>\n In publicly claiming <\/a>that its agents were on streets of Iran at the height of the recent economic protests, Mossad thought it was spooking the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n Its braggadocio had the opposite effect. Mossad did not help the opposition. It tarnished it and after a pro-state mass demonstration<\/a>, the protest folded.<\/p>\n Before the next bout of folly starts, it is worth stating a very obvious fact: Iran is not Venezuela.<\/p>\n To take the most obvious differences – and this list is not exhaustive – Venezuela had no regional cards to play when Maduro was seized. Iran abounds in them.<\/p>\n The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>, is not just Iran\u2019s head of state, commander in chief of its armed forces and its supreme political and religious authority.<\/p>\n He is the spiritual leader of tens of millions of Shia Muslims around the world. The most significant Shia populations in the Middle East – outside Iran- are Iraq<\/a>, Bahrain<\/a>, Lebanon<\/a>, Kuwait<\/a> and Saudi Arabia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ayatollah Khamenei has direct control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). And here is the second major difference from Venezuela.<\/p>\n Whereas a small Delta Force armed with a blowtorch<\/a> was enough to seize Maduro, a very different prospect awaits any invader who tries to neutralise the IRGC, a force as large as the US Marine Corps.<\/p>\n The IRGC<\/a> can count on 150,000 <\/a>ground troops, 20,000 naval personnel<\/a>, and a 15,000-strong air force<\/a>, plus the large Basij militia. It alone has the capacity to block the Strait of Hormuz <\/a>with naval mines, fast attack boats, and naval drones.<\/p>\n This strait is considered a maritime “choke point<\/a>“. Twenty million barrels<\/a>\u00a0of crude oil, condensates, and refined petroleum products\u00a0pass each day through a stretch of water 33 km wide at its narrowest. Through it, too, goes 20 percent<\/a> of the world\u2019s trade in liquefied natural gas.<\/p>\n Furthermore, if Trump were to fulfil his dream of arm-twisting a battered Iran into selling him all its oil, he would first have to dismantle the IRGC as an economic powerhouse<\/a>.<\/p>\nUS diktat<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Iran is not Venezuela<\/strong><\/h2>\n