The confrontation between Iran and Israel once again brings us back to the great debate about the systems of international relations. One part of the international community is once again sounding the alarm about the blatant violation of international law and the inadmissibility of an act of aggression by one Member of the United Nations (UN) against another. The other insists on the right of one side to take a pre-emptive strike to ensure its own safety. All significant (and not very significant) players, regardless of their geopolitical sympathies for one side or the other, will repeatedly call for restraint and a return to diplomacy. Who is right, who is to blame, who will be responsible, and how it will end – these are the key questions of the layman, which are completely unimportant from the point of view of Her Majesty realpolitik.
Real politics is a product of merger of the invariably objective and the infinitely variable subjective. The objective is quite simple: each state, as a form uniting a particular nation, strives to survive in a permanent war of all against all. Survival requires the motivation accepted by the majority to follow a certain model of life (ideology), carefully developed by a minority (national aristocracy, founding fathers, etc.), as well as effectively functioning spiritual, scientific, intelligence, military-technical, economic and other socially significant institutions built on this ideology, implementing tasks of short-, medium- and long-term character. In other words, wanting to survive means taking full responsibility for one’s own destiny, which is determined by making fundamental strategic and everyday tactical political decisions.
By itself, the need to survive means accepting the painful but crucial fact of being alone in a ferocious geopolitical jungle. The Jewish aristocracy, the founders of the modern State of Israel, knew this first-hand. Constant persecution, harassment and exile forced it to accept its loneliness through bitterness, blood and tragedy and to fight for survival by all possible means.
One can view modern Israel and its methods of conducting international activities (that is, survival) differently, but it has been formed and continues to exist solely due to the conscious acceptance of the harsh and cruel rules of the game of the real world. It is impossible to convince an Israeli Jew that the world has become generous, humane and civilised, that there will be no more repetition of the Dreyfus affair or another Holocaust. Any attempt to prove to an Israeli Jew that he/she should relax and enjoy life, ignoring the potential nuclear weapon of a country that aims to destroy it, is futile. A nation that has gone through every imaginable ‘meat grinder’ of history will instinctively look at the whole world as a battlefield where only one right applies – the right of the strongest.
Moreover, destruction does not necessarily mean the physical extermination of a country or a people – it is a form of establishing strategic control and governance. Realpolitik assumes that a state/nation that has come under control of its enemy can be considered destroyed (until control returns to itself). Consequently, for Israel, strategic control over the Middle East and influence on the politics of the great powers in this region is a key condition for its own survival. The geopolitical experience gained in 1950-1970s demonstrated to them that such concepts as alliances and allied obligations are extremely relative and work very selectively. There is a golden rule in real politics: only the mechanism that you can make work works. To put it simply – do not believe, do not be afraid, do not plea.
It is the same with Iran. The descendants of great kings, who were at the heart of the first great empires of antiquity, do not want to tolerate unpleasant and alien elements. Iran (Persia) is the mistress of the Middle East, the cradle of humanity, and the purpose (meaning) of life of the Iranian (imperial Persian) is to protect this heritage at all costs. Enveloped by religious attributes, now the Islamic Republic of Iran is not just the descendant and defender of the Persian Empire, but also the protector of the Muslim world. Israel cannot be allowed to take control of Jerusalem (with support from eternal enemies, Western imperialists), where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located – one of the three main shrines of the Islamic world, under protection of the Persian/The Iranian Empire. For Iran, establishing control over Jerusalem, the centre of the three world religions, means regaining its function as the central power of the entire region. No one can convince the Persians/Iranians that Israel is just an attempt of the Jewish people to find their own home for survival. For them, the Jewish state is a threat to their own survival (that is, control over the region) and a tool in the hands of various forces seeking to rebuild the region in their own image.
Compromise between Israel and Iran is impossible because it is a matter of a collision between two subjective models of survival. This is a zero-sum game where the victory (survival) of one automatically means the defeat (death) of the other. Both sides have long understood and accepted this (unlike us, Armenians, who believe in sincere peace and coexistence with Turkey and Azerbaijan). The Turkish world, represented by Turkey and Azerbaijan, proceeds from the cold-blooded calculation that its survival is possible only if the Armenian world is destroyed (strategically controlled). Unlike the Jews and Iranians, we not only have not understood the essence of real politics, but also have not fundamentally rethought our own historical failures and tragedies (including the Genocide of 1915-1923).
Having accepted the rules of the game, the Jews and Iranians are ready to use anything and everyone – and be used, if it helps – to achieve their goals. In addition to its own solid resource base, Israel uses (and is used by) one of the most powerful forces of our time – Evangelical America. Iran uses (and is used by) other equally influential transnational centres of influence – the Celtic world (Irish-Scottish) in America and China. Israel (along with Ireland) is one of the two states in the world supported by well-organised transnational networks. The Israeli and Celtic transnational nations compete with each other to establish strategic control over the processes of formation and adoption of political and economic decisions within global powers (mainly in the United States).
One of the main sources of power of the Israeli transnational nation is the more than 70-million evangelical Christian group that believes in the need to return Jews to the land of Israel and to unconditionally protect it in order to fulfil the prophecies described in the Holy Scriptures. Evangelicals are one of the largest electoral groups (and the largest in the southern states), and any politician at the regional and federal levels cannot ignore its foreign policy agenda, which comes down to one thing – unconditional support for Israel (Christian Zionism). The Celtic transnational nation unites the Irish and the Scots of Protestant and Catholic affiliation. From the depths of this influential group, the Irish national aristocracy was born, which defeated the great British Empire and liberated Ireland from centuries of colonial oppression. Due to its influence, Ireland (a consistent and harsh critic of Israel) has the status of a unique ally of the United States. The Celtic group supports Iran and other global and regional forces in various ways based on a simple logic – the enemy of my enemy.
Regardless of the final outcome in the conflict between Iran and Israel, it is necessary to prepare for a long, meaningful and multi-layered confrontation. The consequences of this contest (independent of the outcome) will be cataclysmic for the entire region, which creates qualitatively new threats for Armenia. Turkey and Azerbaijan are highly likely to decide to accelerate the process of political and economic colonisation of Armenia. The Turkish collaborationist regime in Yerevan is preparing to renew its mandate for the ultimate dismantling of the country in the so-called ‘elections’ as early as next June. They will certainly take advantage of this situation and tell us that the surrender of Syunik, the rejection of the Declaration of Independence, historical memory and the Armenian Church are inevitable conditions of peace, if we want to save the lives of our children.
However, the Iran-Israel conflict, as well as the ongoing dramatic events in global geopolitics in general, opens up great opportunities for us. It is necessary to accelerate the process of forming a global Armenian aristocracy and build an effective strategy to create our own transnational nation. The emergence and strengthening of the third transnational (Armenian) network stems from the long-term interests of many global forces (including existing transnational nations) that are searching for a balance of power formula within the newly emerging system of international relations. Many players will weaken, and some will disappear altogether, and we need to be ready for another chance in history. We need to understand and accept that the struggle for the decolonisation of Armenia and the building of a meaningful Armenian statehood will depend solely on how successfully we cope with the main mission – the creation of an Armenian transnational nation, i.e. a global Armenian aristocracy.
