Iran, China and Russia are all neo-imperialist powers and they intend to geographically expand in accordance with their respective geostrategic master plans. America in contrast which is no empire and has no imperialist designs has no master plan across presidencies for its foreign policy since every new president in the 21st century has devised his own brand new foreign policy in contrast to the US foreign policy continuity of the 20th century.
The US assumes that the planned Russian invasion of Ukraine is a matter of the whims of President Putin rather than Ukraine being the first stage in a larger plan of expansion. The US assumes that China’s imperialism is limited to designs for domination through trade, investments and technologies. The US assumes that Iran can be appeased and accommodated within Pax Americana. All this implies that the US government is severely misreading its adversaries.
China
China is densely populated and China is intensely colonizing Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet with ethnic Han Chinese. Any student of Chinese history is well aware that China has expanded for thousands of years through Han colonialism. Many nations to the south and east of China are already densely populated and therefore not ideal lands for Chinese colonization. Central Asia, Mongolia and Siberia are in contrast thinly populated. In the short to medium term is Central Asia a target for Chinese conquest and Han colonization and in the long term is Siberia as well. Russia is keenly aware that Siberia is Russia’s soft belly and because of this are China and Russia only tactical allies and not strategic allies.
America needs to encircle China by establishing new US-led defense alliances both in the Asia-Pacific and crucially in Central Asia to deter Chinese expansionist aggression.
Russia
Russia is well aware that in the medium to long term it is China and not the United States that is Russia’s main enemy. It is questionable whether Russia will be able to militarily defend Siberia from Chinese attack and conquest and therefore does Russia in the meantime plan to strengthen itself by territorially expanding elsewhere. Russia intends to take over the rest of Europe and reach the Indian Ocean. Russia is well aware that it must once more become a formidable superpower in order to be able to defeat a Chinese attempted conquest of Siberia.
The US needs to urgently grant NATO membership to Ukraine in order to stop a Russian invasion of the country. The European Union needs to create a unified confederal military that will be able to defeat Russia on its own without being dependent on American participation. It is outrageous that the European Union is unable to defend itself by itself because of not having agreed to form a confederal military.
Iran
Iranian expansionism is still in an early stage of its master plan and is focused on taking over the Iranian eschatological region. What is the Iranian eschatological region? The Hidden Imam (Mahdi) is expected to appear in Mecca, the Deceitful Messiah (Al-Masih ad-Dajjal) is expected to appear in Jerusalem and Jesus (Isa ibn Maryam) is expected to appear in Damascus. This is the part of the world on which Iranian expansionism is currently focused although Iranian intelligence and Hezbollah are active worldwide. Iranian geostrategy seeks world rule for the Hidden Imam and therefore focuses initially on the region where the three messianic figures are expected to appear in order to prompt the reappearance of the Hidden Imam. Israel is the only other great power in Islamdom and thus Iran’s rival and the US is the global hegemon and thus Iran’s rival as well although the designation of the Israel and America as enemies of Iran are originally based in Islamist Anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. After taking over the eschatological region does Iran intend to take over the rest of the Arabophonie, then the rest of Islamdom and subsequently the entire world. Nevertheless, it might seem strange that Central Asia and Azerbaijan are not currently a prioritized arena of expansion for Iran despite being Iran’s back yard but they are not part of the eschatological region.
The Iranian diplomatic track is doomed and a US-Israeli destruction of the Iranian nuclear weapons program as combined with the imposition of an allied no-fly zone over Iran that will provide air support to armed rebellions throughout the country are inevitable. If Iran is not deterred from lashing out with weapons of mass destruction against the homelands of the nations of the emerging US-led coalition and the insurrection fails in Persian areas (in contrast to the ethnic periphery where success is guaranteed), then will a US invasion of Iran become reality. In either case is the dystopian apocalyptic regime in Tehran doomed by its own actions.
What then will be the future of Iran after the fall of the regime? It will certainly be a challenge for the US to impose Pax Americana in Iran. Russia and China are highly likely to try to take over Iran since Iran for Russia and China can provide access to the Indian Ocean. The fall of the Khomeinist regime may signal the beginning of open rivalry between Russia and China in the Central Asia region and the Middle East.
The US should learn from the successful examples of Germany and Japan as well as from the unsuccessful examples of Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran should be transformed into a confederation of language-based member states and it is essential that confederal boundaries are fairly drawn in order to prevent future ethnic conflicts. Afghanistan would surely have turned out differently if it had been partitioned according to language between its neighbors with Pakistan annexing the Pashto-language region, Tajikistan annexing the Persian-language region, Uzbekistan annexing the Uzbek-language region and Turkmenistan annexing the Turkmen-language region. Iraq would surely have turned out differently if the country had been divided into three separate nation states (Kurdish, Sunni and Shia) as advocated by Senator Joe Biden. This is the lesson for the highly Westernized, secularized, pro-American Iran which is ready for comprehensive introduction of liberal democracy after four decades of theocratic totalitarianism.
As America itself is increasingly disinterested in “the annoying Middle East” where it has less and less interests left, America needs to empower Israel as the sole remaining regional great power of Islamdom after the fall of the Khomeinist regime. It is not in Israel’s interest that China or Russia take over the Middle East and hence should the United States rest assured that Israel intends to continue to be aligned with the United States. The US empowering Israel as the remaining great power in Islamdom will further reinforce the relationship between Israel and America so that it would survive an Anti-Israel or even Anti-Semitic president in the United States.
Aliyah Organization 