It’s hard to deny that America’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was impressive. Carried out in total secrecy, with zero casualties, the Americans claim it has now obliterated Iran’s capacity to create nuclear weapons: and that’s a pretty good thing.
But, effective as it may have been, it also contributes to a further fracturing of the world into two increasingly stark sides. The traditional NATO alliance (plus Australia, Israel and others) are facing down an alliance led by China and Russia. The wars in Ukraine, Iran and Israel are essentially proxy wars for this developing divide.
The next inflection point will almost certainly be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The CCP are circling Taiwan like sharks, and Taiwan is braced for China to invade this year. The Western world will need to decide what - if any - support it will give the territory against the CCP army. Its distance from Europe will make support logistically more challenging, and public support weaker than it has been for other conflicts that are closer to home.
But this would be a major turning point for the fractured world. Taiwan produces 90% of the world’s semiconductors and so if China did succeed in its objective for reunification, a crucial part of the future global economy would be in CCP hands. The development of AI, supercomputers and - importantly - advanced weaponry all relies on semiconductors. If China can control their distribution, they can strongarm the globe even more powerfully than they already can.
Further complications come because of internal, domestic strife. It’s unsettling that significant numbers of Brits and Americans will openly their state support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime. You can be opposed to military action in the Middle East and deeply concerned and opposed to the scale of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, without supporting terrorist ideologies. But this internal breakdown will add a new layer of complexity to navigating an increasingly fractured world: there’s internal dispute that didn’t exist during, say, the Cold War.
Peace in reach?
Is there any hope of brokering peace between these two sides?
Well, there is one possibility. The agitators could die. Trump, Xi Jinping and Putin are all well into their 70s, the latter in a country with a significantly lower lifespan than much of the rest of the developed world.
There’s precedent for this: when Stalin died, Khrushchev came out on top as his successor and radically changed the direction of the Soviet Union: thawing hostilities with the rest of the world, closing the gulags and focusing on improving living standards.
Putin’s logical successor, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, was opposed to the war in Ukraine and has remained schtum about it since Russia invaded.
Xi Jinping hasn’t named a successor: which could open the door for a more significant regime change in China if he dies before one is set.
And Trumpian politics and MAGA will die with Trump. He does not have an ideology, he just has a personality: which means there is no playbook that would enable anyone else to win. As the only democratic leader on the list, Trump does not even need to die to enable regime change: this term, by all indications, will be his last. (Whether it will actually be his last is a topic for another week, but the short answer is: he is too old to go beyond this term, whether he wants to or not, and America is still scarred by Biden aging out while in the White House).
It seems only significant new personalities and new regimes could repair the fractured world.
What next in Iran?
Back to Iran, Western intervention in the Middle East does not have a strong record of success. No amount of American bombs or military force will turn Iran into a democratic, rules-based society.
It seems clear that Iran will soon have its entire military resource depleted, neutralising the immediate threat - but instead creating a whole new issue. An unstable state, paramilitary groups and guerilla warfare and terrorism: it’s less of a threat to the West than a nuclear-armed Iranian state, but it’s still a threat.
I suspect Iran will do nothing in retaliation against America. The Ayatollah will lose face by not responding, but any response will trigger an even greater American retaliation (or, potentially, fail): which would be far more damaging than any benefit of a retaliatory attack.
That’s an optimistic read: escalation would be dangerous for the world, and turn more of the globe against America at a time when it needs all the soft power it can get.