What will the world be like in 2021? What influence will Covid19 have on the Middle East? The slowdown in international dynamics did not inhibit the recovery of ante-virus trends, an aspect that allows us to hypothesize different scenarios: taste, in which there is a change in the models preceding the pandemic with the configuration of an illiberal order of Chinese mold; that of break, in which the international structure sinks into chaos with significant changes in MO; that of the reconstruction, in which the US, taking back the initiative, cut China out.
So let's play with the future, with a range of hypothetical scenarios but linked to the Middle Eastern strategic realities characterized by competition, globalization and cybernetic evolution according to a paradigm that sees a constant weakening of the existing order.
A reliable picture contemplates both the US, focused on the presidential election, and a Middle Eastern aggravation of the problems of governance, unemployment, corruption, inequality, dependence on oil and external aid, with a resumption of popular protests accompanied, in Iran, by ambitions of regional domination and acquisition of nuclear power. To upset the existing order would therefore lead to a conflictual chaos: the Syrian war once again ready to flare up; Hezbollah aimed at regaining control of Lebanon; Iran shaken by clashes between regime and people; Jihad hastens to regain possession of parts of Siraq, the Sinai Peninsula, Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
In the Persian / Arabian Gulf the monarchies, given the unpredictability of the USA highlighted by the lack of reaction to the attacks on the Saudi infrastructure of Aramco and the Emirati oil tankers first, and the elimination of General Soleimani then, try to avoid the clash with Tehran, while fearing the ambitions, to avoid finding themselves like Riyadh, bogged down in Yemen, inconclusive in Lebanon and seeking strategic contact, even indirect, with Tehran careful to cultivate asymmetric actions in an internal political context increasingly characterized by nationalistic elements. The ideal fusion between imperial nostalgia and a Shiite soul, enhances and confers an Iranian Islamic identity primacy by modeling the concept of resistance even beyond national borders, and justifying an ambitious parallel political - industrial - military structure, the immortals of 2000, i Pasdaran, deterrents of possible coup d'états organized by Artesh1.
The Iranian defensive concept rests on three bases: self-sufficient war industrial development aimed at a constantly evolving missile that can be equipped with nuclear warheads; establishment of a defensive apparatus capable of facing any hypothesis of invasion; network of regional alliances with entities that share an aversion to America and Israel and which, making the cost of an attack unsustainable, absorb large financial volumes2, as in the case of Hezbollah, which begins to serve its dual military political nature outside Beirut, which begins to be subject to censorship3.
The Gulf is the geopolitical area that separates Iran from both the other regional states and the US bases present there, and remains one of the inevitable hubs of hydrocarbon trade, so much so as to induce both countries to counter the weight of Tehran with specific military missions , both the pasdaran to conduct aggressive conduct with tactics of naval guerrilla need swarming, or the use of thin ships armed with short-range missiles and coming from multiple directions, aspects that have induced the USA to react with usual equal vigor. Not surprisingly, the pasdaran announced their intention to build a permanent naval base in the Indian Ocean by 2021 capable of responding to the pressure exerted by the USA both with the Caesar Act which, by sanctioning the Syrian regime, intends to bring America back to the center of the MO, both in contrast to the Iranian bases frequently hit by Israeli air raids. The latest naval ballistic exercises conducted by Tehran, however, come at the time when the US is working to extend the embargo beyond October 2020, also supported by the suspected Iranian nuclear violations, and after the accident of May 10, when a Tehran's destroyer has centered its own support ship in the Gulf of Oman. Events and politics also demonstrate the American error in believing Soleimani irreplaceable, Considering that Beijing has been careful not to get caught up in the quarrels both globally and regionally given its energy voracity and the need to preserve the BIS, and given the Iranian asymmetric resilience that has made the general more important from dead than alive, also in the light of the new policy which is normalizing the revolutionary agenda with a more diplomatic approach, made of law, aggressive diplomacy and active non-violent measures; the USA, tending to customize the systems with which it is confronted, does not take into account that power often derives from the organization presided over and from the style of command adopted, so it must be considered that the action of Esmail Qaani4 it will not affect the political guidelines that will aim, by way of compensation, to press the American presence both in MO and in the backyard, as happened with Venezuelan crude oil supplies, but without reaching points of no return, not desired even by the USA.
Meanwhile, Covid has hit Iran hard, inflicting heavy economic consequences, in association with the crisis induced by US sanctions, and suggesting the adoption of a self-sufficient disorder management with a partial lockdown, despite the recommendations of the health authorities, which introduced alternative religious forms in format drive in. What appears certain is that the state coffers are suffering from liquidity, also given the instability of crude oil prices, all elements that foreshadow a budget deficit aggravated by the difficulty of accessing international credit lines and by the strong devaluation of the rial.5.
Interior panorama. If it is true that theocratic power, and above all pasdaran, does not seem to present elements of fracture, it is equally true that, socially, the younger generation is emerging, devoid of ideological links both with the Khomeinist experience and with the Iraqi war, very sensitive to the Persian nationalist and imperial imagination, disheartened towards the West, at the moment not so subject to strict Islamic precepts, and attracted to political models external to the institutional context; if the 2020 election results, even if conditioned by the pandemic, are there to remind that the perception of a reformist and anti-regime youth can be misleading, given the conservative majority, on the other hand the aversion to the USA must not draw Khamenei in deception in presuming to be able to enjoy unconditional popular support.
Meanwhile, the failure of the JCPOA6 it thwarted Rohani's attempts to contain the IRGC7, a counterpower that is transforming itself into a state: the lack of normalization of relations with the West has given new impetus to the most intransigent wing, to internal conflicts between factions and to external disturbance actions of the nuclear project, held back by the recent fires that broke out on the site of Natanz, probably the subject of a cyber attack after the one carried out against the Port of Bandar Abbas, following the Iranian cyber attack against the Israeli water network.
In the meantime, a former Pasdaran general, as well as a former police chief and former mayor of Tehran, emerged from the election consultations, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, indicated by many as a possible next president of the Republic, favored by an abstention that can only facilitate the conservative camp, and driven by an electorate disappointed both by Rohani's failed liberalizing promises and the violent repression of the social protests of last November .
The parliamentary elections ended Rohani's reformist experiment, which was penalized by the censorship of Guardian Council influenced by Khamenei; both political factions, pragmatic-reformists and conservatives, have therefore begun to prepare for the presidential elections, with the conservatives who have consolidated control over the centers of power, and with the reformists, moved away from positions of influence.
Popular mistrust, fueled by the results of the Covid management and the abatement of the Ukrainian airbus, will again influence the turnout, and it is likely that Khamenei will exercise its ascendancy for the formation of the list of candidates. As was the case with the parliamentarians, the presidential elections will also present internal struggles between conservatives, centralists and the most radical elements, including supporters of ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wanted to stand up despite Khamenei's aversion.
The pragmatist-reformists face the electoral campaign with the stigma of the loser, unable to answer popular concerns; aware of the conservative rise, they will therefore have to decide which strategy to adopt, either by boycotting the elections or trying to manage independent candidates, in an overall framework that contemplates the dynamics underlying the planned Israeli territorial annexations, and the evolution of the nuclear affair, which has been reignited from the dispute triggered by Iran in connection with the accident that occurred at the underground structure of Natanz, dedicated to uranium enrichment.
1 Regular Armed Forces
2 Yemen has shown that a lower financial commitment makes it possible for a conflict to fail.
3 Germany has begun to identify the entire Hezbollah structure as a terrorist
4 Substitute for Soleimani
5 June 22: 200.000 rials per dollar
6 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
7 Guards of the Islamic Revolution
Photo: IRNA
