The New Great Game, revisited
By Pepe Escobar and first posted on Geopolitics Prime
(So, I hear a large part of ‘our world’ shouting out at me. And they are saying … Amarynth! What the hell are you doing? Shhhhh grasshoppers – I’ll explain. I just started a new essay titled Those Pesky Middle Countries and have another one in the hopper, working title “Break, then harvest”. )
I made a commitment some months ago that should Pepe bring his head together again, I will post his work again. I’m carrying out my commitment. So now we see a full circle with a clear recognition of the Viper’s Nest. But I warn you now, there will be a debunk coming right inside Those Pesky Middle Countries. Thank-you Pepe, for now. Stay in this mode as I begged and threatened, kicked and howled out before. Shhhh grasshopper, there are many that looked forward to this moment and if anyone asks me, which they have stopped doing, I will say: I will treat ’em moment by moment. Gather beloveds, for some lovely writing just after some Stones to set a mood. We may be seeing a moment 😀).
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It took only a few Yemeni missiles on Saudi refineries to wake up “leadership” vectors of the Ummah; not over 100,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza by the death cult.
The Mecca Sunni NATO pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan remains a puzzle. Or dodgy sub-standard theatre – complete with photo ops and sparse intel sharing. The full text has not been released. Everything is quite vague, only stressing “collective deterrence”.
Against whom, it’s in the eyes of the beholder. All options – Eretz Israel, US-Israel, India (in case of attacking Pakistan) – might apply. The operative concept is “might”. Add to it Turkiye’s myriad NATO constraints: a viper’s nest in itself.
Significantly, Turkiye informed Iran before signing the Mecca deal. Extra layers of spin even promote Iran joining the deal in a later stage, as Riyadh in theory rejects military strikes on Tehran, and Iran might be covered by Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella.
Geography, once again, will dictate matters. Turkiye will remain in NATO – because Turkish elites are essentially Atlanticist. Saudi Arabia would have to perform miracles to extricate itself from the US security umbrella – and Indian labour. Pakistan’s priority is China and the New Silk Roads, plus the IP gas pipeline from Iran. Mecca is essentially Deterrence Theater.
A different, more intriguing scenario would point to the instrumentalization of Greater Turan – a key Turkiye objective – to the benefit of the US/Zionist combo. That would point to a neo-Ottoman remix, now reconfigured as the leadership of comprador Arab affairs. As in Ankara recreating the Ottoman hierarchy with itself at the center – as a matter of “saving” Zionists and Salafis from themselves.
It seems that the Mecca spark came from MbS himself (no one really knows, as things in Riyadh are so opaque). As Riyadh is being deprived of exporting oil via the Red Sea by Yemen – and might even lose their oil wells if things get rough – why not bet on benign neo-Ottomanism?
Why the US can never lift sanctions on Iran
Meanwhile in Iran, under a revamped – by Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the solidified consensus is that Tehran will never compromise, especially under the current “no war, no peace” status.
Washington would have to meet a set of very harsh conditions before the Strait of Hormuz reopens, including:
- The end to US threats and “insults”;
- Permanent end to US wars against Iran and its allies in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq;
- Lifting of the American naval blockade and withdrawal of all US forces;
- No less than $300 billion in compensation for war damages;
- Lifting of all sanctions;
- Unconditional release of all frozen assets;
- Iran’s right to charge up to 7% on cargo transit;
- A ban on US and Israeli vessels;
- A 20% violation toll on ships if conditions are breached.
Call it an intimation for a US surrender: a capitulation on every front – from “follow the money” to military expulsion, end of sanctions and total Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Even grains of sand across the Old and New Silk Roads are aware that humongous US debt is avid for new mechanisms to be fed with control over natural resources – from oil and gold to rare earth minerals. And these natural resources must be priced in US dollars and the petrodollar.
Iran – the key crossroads of Eurasia – has absolutely everything the US needs. Yet it’s sovereign, independent and intimately aligned with the Russia-China strategic partnership.
So this has all the makings of a Forever War. Washington will never lift sanctions on Iran. That’s politically – and geoeconomically – impossible. And Washington, whoever is in power, will never accept Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, administrative fees included, because that seals, in practice, the imperial failure to use economic sanctions as its “diplomatic” tool of choice.
The result is that some of the serious consequences of the war unleashed on February 28 are already quite clear. Those include the possible financial destruction of the GCC, complete with the collapse of their ruling regimes; Yemen’s nearly inevitable geographical expansion; virtually complete international isolation of the death cult; a massive global economic crisis in tandem with a US financial crisis; and Iran’s accession to the status of prominent West Asia power, prominent Eurasia power, and prominent Global South power.
All that implies a massive geoeconomic game-changer facilitating a much faster rise for BRICS – and BRICS+ – complete with the solidification of Shanghai as the ideal solution for Global South capital to secure their savings.
Watch out for the “Eurasian Axis”!
The Empire of Chaos, Lies, Plunder and Piracy will not take any of that lying down. So the chessboard will continue to be destabilized even in nodes that in theory are controlled by the Sovereign Independents.
Enter the Caspian Sea – a key node of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), one of the premier connectivity corridors of 21st century pan-Eurasia trade, linking BRICS members Russia, Iran and India to Central Asia while bypassing Western sanctions and NATO-controlled maritime chokepoints.
Hybrid War in the Caspian perfectly fits the imperial scenario of provoking negative systemic fallout expanding beyond Russia and Iran all the way to China and Europe. After all China regards the Caspian as a key connectivity channel between Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects and Central Asia and Europe.
So the Caspian could become the apex of a geopolitical divide near the center of Eurasia, contraposing Washington/Tel Aviv/Kiev to the BRICS/SCO Sovereign Independent civilization-states.
Enter, once again, Turkiye – now as the possible missing link in the Zionist axis drive to connect both wars (NATO on Ukraine, US/Israel on Iran): after all they are the one and same war from the beginning.
Still it will be a hard sell to seduce Sultan Erdogan to go after Russian and Iranian strategic assets in the Caspian, even indirectly via Azerbaijan. An even more complex replacement would be Kazakhstan, which for all of its “multi-vector” policies is a full SCO member, a full Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) member and a BRICS+ partner.
Turkiye’s actions should be ultimately measured by the official drive to strengthen the Organization of Turkic States (OTS; Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are both members) and what they might come up with to try to choke Iran’s geopolitical maneuvering.
Once again: it’s all about how they will play the Greater Turan card across the Caucasus and especially Central Asia, with their vast reserves of oil, uranium, lithium and critical minerals.
Moscow is carefully observing it all, with extreme discretion. Incidentally, last November Kazakhstan became the first Central Asian “stan” to join the Abraham Accords, in connection with a massive US-Kazakhstan minerals deal.
History Repeating is always quirky: we’re back to the original, late 19th century Russia-Britain Great Game. MI6 after all fully supports Greater Turan – as a premier counterpunch to the Three Sovereigns, Russia, Iran and China. Or what Trump has recently defined, for the first time ever (Elbridge Colby whispering in his ear?) as the “Eurasian Axis”.
At the National Museum in Astana, Kazakhstan, there’s a flashy panel representing all Turkic peoples, over 40 ethnic groups. Uygurs are in the mix, as well as Kazakhs and Azeris. But to translate that into Turkiye moving as a great player across Eurasia – complete with support from fake mythological narratives – is a whole new ball game.
The whole drive is not more sophisticated than creating a market for outright Turkic nationalism, with the Central Asian “stans” incorporated at best as junior partners.
Mecca as a Hail Mary pass
As the imperial pressure over The Three Sovereigns won’t relent, interlocked signature moves make all the difference. For instance: China investing in the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan as an extra road to reach Iran.
It’s The Great Game all over again: the Wakhan Corridor came out of nowhere at the end of the 19th century to “protect” British India from Russia’s advances in Turkestan. It connects with China’s Xinjiang for only 70 km or so, as I saw during my Pamir Highway travels before Covid.
This is one of the most high-altitude strategic borders on the planet. Only 5 months ago, Beijing came up with a new county in Xinjiang, Cenling, overlooking the border. Everything in this mountain wilderness is run from Kashgar, where the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) begins.
Translation: on top of the China-Iran railway – previously bombed during the war on Iran by the Americans – this is an extra overland path from China to Iran bypassing the maritime routes, susceptible to Trump’s blockades.
China, in trademark win-win mode, will go all the way betting on both options simultaneously: CPEC, via Pakistan, and the Wakhan, via Afghanistan.
To round up our travels across selected spots of the New Great Game: in the end everything will be decided in West Asia. And that brings us back to the Mecca Sunni NATO pact.
This sharp analysis points to Mecca as a Hail Mary pass linked to the current sore lack of petrodollar recycling by the petro-monarchies – the mechanism propping up that monster, unpayable US debt; the pyramid of derivatives; and Wall Street’s solitary AI mega-bubble.
And this is what’s really driving the imperial desperation to settle something, anything with the Persians.
Because Iran has defined the prime geoeconomic battleground for the RICs (Russia, Iran, China, the new Primakov triangle), much more efficiently than endless BRICS discussions: the collapse of the GCC petrodollar racket.
Without this racket, a financialized neo-colonial empire run by remote control is absolutely impossible.