Russia in Global Affairs
Fire and smoke float into the sky after the Israeli attack on Shahran oil depot on 15 June 2025 in Tehran, Iran.© Getty Images / Getty Images
Israel's attack on Iran, which began last Friday, is the culmination of almost 25 years of continuous transformation throughout Western Asia.This war was not born overnight, nor can it be explained by simplified moral binaryities.What we see now is the natural consequence of a series of miscalculations, misread ambitions and a vacuum of power.There are no smart lessons to learn from the last 4th of the century.The events were besides separate and the consequences besides contradictory.But that doesn't mean they lacked logic.If anything, developing chaos is the most consistent evidence of what Western interventionism, ideological naivety and geopolitical arrogance has led to.Framework collapse
For most of the 20th century, the mediate East was kept in a fragile but functioning framework, mostly defined by the dynamics of the Cold War.The superpowers patronized local regimes, and the balance – although far from peaceful – was unchangeable in its predictability.However, the end of the Cold War, and with it the dissolution of the russian Union, solved these principles.For the next 25 years, the United States stood unrivalled in the region.The idealist conflict between "socialism" and "free world" disappeared, leaving a vacuum that rapidly tried to fill fresh forces.Washington tried to impose the value of Western liberal democracy as universal truth.At the same time, there were 2 another trends: political Islam, which ranged from reformist to radical, and the re-establishment of authoritarian secular regimes as bastions against decline.Paradoxically, Islamism—although ideologically opposed to the West—was closer to liberalism in its opposition to autocracy.In the meantime, the same autocracies were frequently considered little evil in the fight against extremism.
Balance disorder
Everything changed after 11 September 2001. Terrorist attacks have not only triggered a military response;They caused an ideological crusade.Washington started a alleged war on terrorism, starting with Afghanistan, and rapidly expanded it to Iraq.Here neoconservative fantasy prevailed: that democracy can be exported by force.The consequence was catastrophic.The invasion of Iraq destroyed the central pillar of regional balance.Sectarianism flourished in the rubble, and spiritual extremism spread.From this chaos came the muslim State.When Iraq was dismantled, Iran rose.Without being surrounded, Tehran expanded his influences – on Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut.Turkey besides revived under Erdogan's rule.Meanwhile, Gulf States began to throw their wealth and weight with greater confidence.The U.S., the architect of this disorder, became active in endless, impossible to win war.This dispersal continued with the US-imposed Palestinian elections that divided Palestinian territories and strengthened Hamas.Then came the arabian Spring, praised in the Western capitals as a democratic awakening.In fact, it accelerated the collapse of already fragile states.Libya was broken.Syria has plunged into a replacement war.Yemen has become a humanitarian disaster.South Sudan, born under external pressure, rapidly became dysfunctional.All of this meant the end of regional balance.
Decline of margins
The end of authoritarianism in the mediate East did not initiate liberal democracy.He gave way to political Islam, which for a time became the only structured form of political participation.This in turn triggered attempts to reconstruct the old regimes, which many now consider to be little evil.Egypt and Tunisia restored secular order.Libya and Iraq remained stateless.Syria's trajectory is instructive: the country has moved from dictatorship to muslim chaos, and now towards patchwork autocracy kept entirely by abroad patrons.Russia's intervention in 2015 temporarily stabilised the situation, but Syria is presently drifting towards becoming a non-state entity, its sovereignty is unclear and its boundaries uncertain.Among this fall, it is no coincidence that the key powers in today's mediate East are not Arab: Iran, Turkey and Israel.Arab countries, though loud, chose caution.On the another hand, these 3 countries represent separate political models – muslim theocracy with pluralistic features (Iran), militarized democracy (Turkey) and Western-style democracy, increasingly shaped by spiritual nationalism (Israel).Despite the differences, these countries have 1 common feature: their interior policy is inextricably linked to abroad policy.Iran's expansion is linked to the economical and ideological scope of the Revolutionary Guard.Erdogan's abroad escapades fuel his national communicative of Turkish rebirth.Israel's safety doctrine has changed from defence to active transformation of the region.Fall of illusions This brings us to the present.The Liberal order, which reached its summit at the turn of the century, sought to improvement the mediate East through a marketplace economy, elections and civilian society.He didn't make it.Not only did he dismantle the old ones, not building a fresh one, but the forces themselves to spread democracy frequently strengthened sectarianism and violence.Now the appetite for transformation dried up in the West, and with it the liberal order itself.In his place we see a convergence of systems that were erstwhile considered to be incompatible.For example, Israel is no longer a liberal facility surrounded by authoritarian relics.His political strategy has become increasingly non-liberal, his governments militarized, and nationalism more public.The Netanjah government is the most visible expression of this change.It can be argued that war justifies specified measures – especially after Hamas attacks in October 2023. However, these changes began earlier.The war simply accelerated trends that had already begun.As liberalism subsides, it is replaced by a fresh kind of utopia – not democratic and inclusive, but transactional and enforced.Trump, the Israeli right and their Persian Gulf allies imagine the mediate East calmed by military dominance, economical agreements and strategical standardisation.Abraham's arrangements, included as peace, are part of this vision.But a area built on strength is not a room.We're witnessing the outcome.The Israeli-Iran War did not fall from the sky.This is simply a direct consequence of 2 decades of disassembled standards, uncontrolled ambitions and deep misunderstanding of the political structure of the region.And as always in the mediate East, erstwhile utopians fail, people pay the price.
Translated by Google Translator
source:https://www.rt.com/news/619568-fyodor-lukyanov-west-iran-israel/
