Iran is pursuing a “multi-phased strategy” in attacking US military facilities in the Gulf, according to James M Dorsey of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Speaking to CNA’s Asia Tonight, he said the initial strikes were meant to show Gulf states that such facilities on their soil are “a liability” rather than a deterrent.

The expansion of attacks to critical energy facilities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia sends a wider message. It threatens “the lifelines” of Gulf economies and increases pressure on Washington to return to the negotiating table on “equitable terms.”

Dorsey said Gulf states are in a bind. They are being attacked and may feel compelled to respond, but there is “no real good response.” Joining military action alongside the US and Israel is “an image that the Gulf states certainly do not want.”

To watch the video go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/iran-pursuing-multi-phased-strategy

Transcript

[Anchor] And for more on developments in the Middle East, we’re joined by James Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow S. Rajaram School of International Studies at Namyang Technological University, and he joins us live from Manila. Dr. Dorsey, thanks for joining us.

[James M. Dorsey] Pleasure to be with you.

[Anchor] Iran, by attacking U.S. assets in Gulf states, what’s its calculation there?

[James M. Dorsey] I think what you’re seeing is a multi-phased strategy. So the initial attacks were designed to essentially message the Gulf states that if they think that U.S. military facilities on their soil is a deterrence, they may want to rethink that. In fact, U.S. military facilities on their soil is a liability.

What we’re seeing today with the expansion of the attacks on critical energy facilities in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, now with the closing down of Qatari production of liquid natural gas and associated products, the message being this is not only going to affect your lifelines, lifelines of the Gulf states, it’s going to affect the lifelines or significantly the economies of major players, including the United States.

And therefore, in that way, increasing the pressure on the United States to end the hostilities and return to a negotiating table on equitable terms.

[Anchor] But given that we’ve just seen a joint statement out in the last hour or so involving the U.S. and six allied Gulf states, would you say this message maybe has backfired?

[James M. Dorsey] The Gulf states are in a bind in the sense that they’re being attacked. They need to respond. But there is no real good response.

You saw the Gulf states’ foreign ministers last night issue a statement in which, for the first time, they kept open the option of military response. But that’s problematic, too, not just because of what it would mean, but also because you would have the Gulf states attacking Iran alongside Israel and the United States. And that’s something, that’s an image that the Gulf states certainly do not want.

[Anchor] From Iran’s side, the U.S. president wanting, his general preference is for short, targeted clinical strikes with very little pickup after that. But he’s now warning that this could extend into weeks. In fact, some might say that’s an optimistic reading.

What do you think we would need to see for Iran to make the sorts of concessions Mr. Trump would want to end the strike on Iran?

[James M. Dorsey] I think there are two issues here. In my mind, Trump has boxed himself into a corner. Ironically, he yesterday had an opportunity to get out of this quagmire.

With the killing of the Iranian supreme leader, he could have said, we’re done. We’ve cut off the head of the snake. Now you, the Iranian people, have the opportunity to change your regime.

He didn’t do that. And so by not doing that, you have a situation in which victory for the Iranians constitutes survival of the regime, whether that’s the recent supreme leader, whether that’s under the next supreme leader, or even under a third supreme leader. As long as the regime survives, that is a victory for Iran.

The stakes for victory for Trump are far higher. The second problem that you have is that Iran and the United States, and this is a reflection of where we’re going with the international world order, have a very different definition of what constitutes a negotiated solution and what constitutes progress in negotiations. For Donald Trump, the definition of a solution is surrender, capitulation.

That was in fact the word that the U.S. special envoy Steve Whitkoff used in an interview last week. For the Iranians, it’s a much more traditional definition in terms of finding solutions that are mutually beneficial, mutually acceptable, and allow both or all parties to save face.

[Anchor] Very quickly, Dr. Dorsey, Mr. Trump has said, telling the Iranian people we’ll do the heavy lifting, and then why don’t you step in after that to seize the day and remove your own government? You don’t think that would work?

[James M. Dorsey] That’s a deceiving and, in my mind, in fact, misleading proposition. If you go back to the 1979 revolution and you go all through popular revolts since then, Philippines 1986, Indonesia 1998, 2011 Arab popular protests, what mass protests do is set the stage for cracks within the political elite or within the military and security establishment. That’s what happened in 1979.

I stood in the exact street where it happened and watched it happen when the middle ranks of the Iranian air force revolted. And you therefore had a split in the armed forces and there were elements of the Navy who chipped in. You’re not seeing that in Iran today, not in the political elite, not in the military and security elite, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

That’s not to say that there are not differences within those entities, but those are not differences at this point which are going to break them apart, which would enable the protests to lead to a transition.

[James M. Dorsey] Thanks, Dr James M. Dorsey, the Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaram School of International Studies right here in NTU for speaking to us from Manila.

Thank you for joining me today

Your support and loyalty mean a lot to me. It allows me to maintain and expand this column and podcast.

Without subscribers like you, I would not be able to offer an original perspective to an ever more important discussion of what the world should and will look like in the 21st century with a focus on the Middle East and the Muslim world in evolving geopolitics.

The Washington Post’s recent decimation of its journalistic staff, including many foreign correspondents in the Middle East and elsewhere, increases the importance of contributions made by independent reporters and analysts. They matter now more than ever.

Building on decades as a foreign correspondent, my column and podcast has produced for the past 15 years fact-driven, independent reporting and uncompromising, independent analysis of geopolitics, the politics of sports, and the politics of defining Islam in the 21st century.

To do so, I need your continued support. Please consider donating or becoming a paid subscriber and suggesting to your friends and colleagues to do the same. You can do so by clicking here.

Thank you and best wishes.

Iran pursuing ‘multi-phased strategy’, leaving Gulf states in bind was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Qatar, UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait continue to brace for strikes as Iran targets not just US military assets but energy facilities in the region. James M. Dorsey, from the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies explains on TRT World.

To listen to the podcast, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/why-is-iran-bombing-gulf-states-energy

Transcript

[Anchor] Let’s discuss this with James Dorsey. He studies Middle East and religious conflict at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

James, thanks so much for speaking to us. Why do you think Iran is now targeting energy facilities? Because these aren’t US military bases, these belong to those countries.

[James M. Dorsey] I think what you saw in the initial phase of the Iranian response to the US-Israeli attack was to try and prove to the Gulf states that the US military facilities on their territories were not going to defend them against an attack, but in fact were one reason why they ran the risk of being attacked. What you’re seeing now in the second phase is the targeting of energy infrastructure in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, basically to raise the stakes. This goes to the heart of Gulf economies.

It goes to the heart of concerns in the international community. You just saw Qatar announcing that it was halting the production of liquid natural gas, LNG, and associated products. That is a major development that’s going to affect the global economy, and that’s what this is about.

[Anchor] Is this raising the stakes to also force those US allies in the Gulf who are now affected to pick up the phone to speak to Washington to ask them to stop this or at least call for a ceasefire?

[James M. Dorsey] They’ve been on the phone not only since the US-Israeli strikes began, but in advance of that. They did not want this to happen and went out of their way to try and pressure the United States and Donald Trump not to attack Iran. Obviously, that pressure didn’t work.

What the attacks on the Gulf states do, and particularly the attacks on the energy facilities, that raises the stake and raises the pressure not only on the Gulf states, but via the Gulf states on Donald Trump.

[Anchor] What do you think the Gulf states are now going to do? Surely, they do have leverage on the United States to say, look, something needs to be done to stop this.

[James M. Dorsey] They have leverage, but we’re also seeing that that leverage is limited. The Gulf states were very clear in the weeks running up to this conflagration. They were very clear that they did not want to see a military engagement.

They were very clear that they wanted a diplomatic engagement. You saw the Omanis being the mediators in this. That’s been their position all along.

It’s obviously now been reinforced by the U.S.-Israeli attack and by the Iranian response, and it puts the Gulf states in a bind. On the one hand, they have security-wise nowhere else to go but Washington, and they certainly will do that. They’ve seen, to a degree, the limits of their influence in Washington, despite the billions of dollars that they have agreed to invest in the United States in artificial intelligence and other sectors of the economy in the last year.

But on the other hand, and they also have to be seen to defending themselves, you saw the Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers last night talking about or keeping the option open of a military response to the attacks. The problem with that is the Gulf states don’t want to be seen to be attacking Iran alongside the United States and Israel.

[Anchor] They’ve got to really look carefully at how they play this. One of the groups in Yemen, the Houthis, they have yet to get involved in any way in this particular conflict. But do you think if that does happen, what could we see play out, particularly when it comes to Red Sea access?

Because during the war on Gaza, the Houthis did block that, and now we’ve got the Strait of Hormuz, which is also practically closed. This has major implications globally.

[James M. Dorsey] It basically reinforces, whichever way you want to put this, it reinforces the effect of the Iranian strikes against Gulf energy infrastructure. With other words, if you see a closure of the Strait of Hormuz against the backdrop of damaged energy facilities in the Gulf, shutdown of production, some 20 percent of the world’s energy resources flow through the Strait of Hormuz. Particularly Asia would be significantly affected by that.

So all of these are building blocks in what the Iranians would like to do, which is increase the pain on the Gulf, increase the pain on the United States. For example, in the last 24 hours, the death of three U.S. service people. All of that is designed to get the Americans, if you wish, to return to the negotiating table on equitable terms.

[Anchor] James Dorsey, Middle East Analyst. Thank you so much for breaking that all down for us. Appreciate it.

[James M. Dorsey] My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for joining me today

Your support and loyalty mean a lot to me. It allows me to maintain and expand this column and podcast.

Without subscribers like you, I would not be able to offer an original perspective to an ever more important discussion of what the world should and will look like in the 21st century with a focus on the Middle East and the Muslim world in evolving geopolitics.

The Washington Post’s recent decimation of its journalistic staff, including many foreign correspondents in the Middle East and elsewhere, increases the importance of contributions made by independent reporters and analysts. They matter now more than ever.

Building on decades as a foreign correspondent, my column and podcast has produced for the past 15 years fact-driven, independent reporting and uncompromising, independent analysis of geopolitics, the politics of sports, and the politics of defining Islam in the 21st century.

To do so, I need your continued support. Please consider donating or becoming a paid subscriber and suggesting to your friends and colleagues to do the same. You can do so by clicking here.

Thank you and best wishes.

Why is Iran bombing Gulf States’ energy infrastructure? was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By James M. Dorsey

To listen to the podcast or watch the video click here.

Iran is challenging the might-is-right cornerstone of Donald Trump’s foreign policy by refusing to bow to the US president’s demands and fighting a war that within hours expanded across the Middle East.

In doing so, Iran is going where no other country, including Venezuela and NATO ally Denmark has been willing to go when threatened with military force if they did not accept Mr. Trump’s demands.

Iran was betting that Mr. Trump would want a quick strike against Iran that would not entangle the United States in a protracted conflict and potentially force it to put boots on the ground.

It was a miscalculation. Nevertheless, it was a risk Iran and its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, willingly shouldered.

Joined by Israel in the attack on Iran, Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have suggested that regime change was the attack’s goal. Mr. Trump has acknowledged that achieving that goal could involve protracted hostilities in which US troops may be killed.

Mr. Khamenei was killed on the first day of the US and Israeli strikes. So were other officials, including the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, who was appointed by Mr. Khamenei.

Even so, it would be premature for the United States and Israel to declare victory. Mr. Khamenei’s death does not mean the collapse of the regime.

The Supreme Leader’s succession was long in preparation. Iranian officials accelerated preparations after last year’s Israeli and US attack on Iran in which Israel was able to kill much of Iran’s senior military and security command.

Even so, by opting to challenge Mr. Trump’s might-is-right approach, Iran was betting on a reading of post-World War Two American history that no longer applies with Mr. Trump in office.

Iran saw a pattern of US military defeats and withdrawals starting with Vietnam in the 1970s and the 1983 pullback from Beirut following the US embassy and Marines barracks bombing to, most recently, the 2021 retreat from Afghanistan, which Mr. Trump is determined to correct.

Iran may prove a tough nut to crack, even if it is no military match for the United States and the fact that US and Iran scored an early success with Mr. Khamenei’s killing.

Nevertheless, for the regime to declare victory, its leaders need to ensure the regime’s survival.

That is an achievable goal if Mr. Khamenei’s death does not spark renewed anti-government protests and the regime does not fracture in the wake of Mr. Khamenei’s death.

Mr. Khamenei’s death reduces the possibility of Mr. Trump being forced to put boots on the ground in an election year, with some 60 percent of the American public opposed to the US intervention in Iran.

Even so, Mr. Trump has acknowledged that an attack on Iran risked sparking a regionwide war.

Iran’s firing of missiles at US military facilities in Gulf countries in the first hours of the conflagration significantly raised that risk, even if they were mostly intercepted.

While smaller Gulf states like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain that host US military bases may not strike back at Iran, the question is what the region’s behemoth, Saudi Arabia, will do after having been targeted alongside other Gulf states.

The Iranian strikes came as satellite pictures showed an increase in the number of US warplanes, including refuelling tankers, stationed at the kingdom’s Prince Sultan Airbase.

Saudi Arabia has told Iran it would not allow its airspace or territory to be used for military actions against the Islamic Republic.

Saudi Arabia was quick to condemn the Iranian firing of missiles against targets in the vicinity of the capital Riyadh. For now, the Saudi and other Gulf states are likely to adopt a wait-and-see attitude rather than fuel the fire.

However, it is unclear how Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states will respond if Iran and/or the Yemen’s Houthis strike at international shipping in crucial Gulf waterways through which much of Asia’s trade and energy flows.

For Mr. Trump and Israel to declare victory, they will have to either defeat Iran and force it to surrender or, at the very least, destroy what is left of Iran’s nuclear program following the destruction of its main facilities during last June’s 12-day war and obliterate the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile capabilities.

The Gulf states are not the only regional nations worried about being dragged into a war they fervently tried to prevent. So are Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Turkish fears are fuelled by last week’s creation of a coalition of five Iraq-based militant Iranian Kurdish groups, some of which have enjoyed US and/or Israeli support in the past.

Turkey is particularly concerned about the inclusion of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), the best-armed Iranian Kurdish group, which is aligned with the outlawed Turkish Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

The coalition plans to exploit a potential power vacuum in Iran to establish Kurdish rule in the Kurdish-populated regions of the country. The coalition said it was reaching out to other ethnic minorities, including Baloch and Azeri militants.

Ethnic minorities account for 43 percent of the Iranian population, with Azeris constituting up to a quarter of Iran’s 93 million people.

The minorities’ strategic importance is heightened by the fact that they straddle the Islamic Republic’s borders: Azeris in the northwest Turkish-Azerbaijani-Iranian triangle, Kurds in the west along the borders with Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, Arabs in the southwestern oil-rich province of Khuzestan that straddles the frontier with Iraq, and Baluch along the southeastern border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Not to mention the Turkmens in the north and the Lors in the south and southwest.

Despite being the most integrated, Azeris have, in recent years, asserted their identity more vocally, demanding schooling in their own language, turning to satellite Turkish and Azeri-language media for news and entertainment, and participating in cultural programs hosted by Turkish consulates in the Iranian Azeri provincial capitals of Tabriz and Urmia.

In addition, some Azeri municipal and provincial authorities have added Azeri-language designations to Farsi street names and encouraged the use of Azeri in official meetings.

In rare public support for Iranian Azeri nationalism, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cited a poem during a military parade in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, in 2020 that laments Azeri speakers being divided between Iran and Azerbaijan.

The poem, entitled Gulestan, written by Azeri poet Bakhtiyar Vahabzadeh, reads, “They separated the Aras River and filled it with rocks and rods. I will not be separated from you. They have separated us forcibly.”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has warned in the past that Azerbaijan “will do our best to protect the secular lifestyle of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis around the world, including Azerbaijanis in Iran. They are part of our people.”

Rising in Turkey, the 1,072-kilometre-long Aras River separates Iran from Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic.

The poem is an expression of pan-Turkism that seeks the unification of all Turkic peoples, including Iranian Azeris.

A version of this story was first published by Channel NewsAsia.

Thank you for joining me today

Your support and loyalty mean a lot to me. It allows me to maintain and expand this column and podcast.

Without subscribers like you, I would not be able to offer an original perspective to an ever more important discussion of what the world should and will look like in the 21st century with a focus on the Middle East and the Muslim world in evolving geopolitics.

The Washington Post’s recent decimation of its journalistic staff, including many foreign correspondents in the Middle East and elsewhere, increases the importance of contributions made by independent reporters and analysts. They matter now more than ever.

Building on decades as a foreign correspondent, my column and podcast has produced for the past 15 years fact-driven, independent reporting and uncompromising, independent analysis of geopolitics, the politics of sports, and the politics of defining Islam in the 21st century.

To do so, I need your continued support. Please consider donating or becoming a paid subscriber and suggesting to your friends and colleagues to do the same. You can do so by clicking here.

Thank you and best wishes.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Associate Editor of WhoWhatWhy, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.

Putting Trump’s muscular foreign policy to the test was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

James discusses on Radio Islam the Iranian-US standoff, Iran’s ethnic challenges and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel.

To listen to the podcast, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/middle-east-report-ecf

Transcript

[Anchor] Middle East Report with James M. Dorsey on Sabah al-Muslim. Middle East Report. It is about a quarter to eight o’clock in the morning on this Friday.

Right here you are listening to Radio Islam International. Joining us is James M. Dorsey, award-winning scholar and journalist with a different perspective on the Middle East.

And you can follow James’ discussion by subscribing to the Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. Also, you can check some of James’ articles on the website, James M. Dorsey.

Besides James with a J, the rest in smallletters.substack.com. Happy reading and happy engaging with the articles that James has produced. Good day to you, James M. Dorsey.

[James M. Dorsey]

Good morning. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

[Anchor] James, getting to our discussion, Iran and the U.S. have been making front page headlines globally for a few weeks now with U.S. armed forces having stacked themselves up in the Straits of Hormuz. But Iran and the U.S. have made progress in negotiations on curbing Iran’s nuclear programme, but the threat of a military conflagration continues to loom large. Your thoughts on that, James?

[James M. Dorsey] U.S. President Donald Trump is the joker in the deck. The fact that Iran and mediator Oman said that significant progress had been made in some seven hours of talks in Geneva this week is no guarantee that Trump will not launch an attack after amassing a huge armada in the Middle East. Despite the progress, Iran and the United States remain divided on key issues, including Iran’s right to enrich uranium within the limits of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and what happens with some 400 kilogrammes of uranium enriched to 60% or near weapons grade that is believed to be buried under the rubble of nuclear facilities destroyed by the U.S. in attacks last June. Next week’s technical talks in Vienna, home to the International Atomic Energy Agency, are designed to figure out ways to bridge the gap. In weighing whether to attack Iran, Mr. Trump will likely wait and see how the Vienna talks go to avoid accusations that he did not give negotiations a chance to run their course.

[Anchor] James, by refusing to bow to Donald Trump’s demands at the risk of a military confrontation, I’m sure many people are studying Iran’s approach. Iran is challenging the principle of might is right cornerstone of the U.S. President’s foreign policy. What do you make of the position that Iran has taken?

[James M. Dorsey] Iran is taking advantage of the fact that Mr. Trump may have multiple military options but few good options. Refusing to bow to pressure, whether military or economic, particularly from the United States, is written into Iran’s DNA. Iran has in recent weeks cast its willingness to risk a U.S. attack in Shiite Muslim terms of it being better to die on one’s feet and not live on one’s knees than to submit to an unjust ruler. With its rhetoric, Iran is signalling that a U.S. attack on Iran could lead to a protracted region-wide conflagration rather than a one-off tit-for-tat. What this means is that Iran is challenging Mr. Trump’s might-is-right-driven foreign policy in the assumption that the President has no good options to force it to comply without engaging in a protracted war and putting U.S. boots on the ground.

[Anchor] James, in addition to, of course, what’s happening outside its borders, Iran, and I’m sure this would be true of many countries in the Middle East, from Syria to Iraq, ethnic divisions and ethnic unrest within always remain a source of issue. Now, the risk of a military conflagration sparking ethnic unrest is evident with five Iraq-based Iranian Kurdish groups forming a coalition to challenge the government in Tehran. Now, how successful they may be, what of a challenge they may put up, or how serious they are, or maybe just taking advantage of the current situation, but your thoughts on these groups that are pooling their resources together outside the borders of Iran to challenge the authority in Tehran?

[James M. Dorsey] A newly established coalition of Iraq-based anti-regime Kurdish organisations hopes to capitalise on a potential U.S. military attack on Iran to further its goal of achieving self-determination. The coalition of five groups has drafted a plan to administer Kurdish-majority areas of Iran during a transition period that would follow the anticipated collapse of Iran’s Islamic regime. The coalition said Kurds would elect the governing bodies of Kurdistan to take over the administration of the region after the establishment of a new Iranian central government.

The coalition’s creation spotlights the potential for ethnic insurgencies in Iran, possibly supported by the United States and Israel, in the wake of a U.S. attack. Ethnic minorities account for more than 40% of the Iranian population, with Azeris constituting the country’s largest ethnic minority. Azeri militants have suggested that they too would manoeuvre for greater ethnic rights, raising the spectre of a potential expansion of a region-wide war not just to Israel and the Gulf, but also Turkey and Azerbaijan.

[Anchor] Staying in the region, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scores a, well, a rare diplomatic success. Diplomatic success, unless it’s associated with the U.S. these days, may be more rare for, you know, the Prime Minister Netanyahu, but at least he’s probably got one ally by way of, you know, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And he’s, of course, being visited by Narendra Modi.

What are we to make of this recent, or this visitor by the Indian Prime Minister? James, you with us? I think we might have just lost James there for a minute.

We’ll try and get James back on that last question there. I think that is another key question. Yes, James, thank you for joining us.

I was just bringing up the case of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit. What are we to make of that? And is this a continuing bromance between the Israeli Prime Minister and the Indian Prime Minister?

[James M. Dorsey] Modi, a leader of a key country in the global south, has handed his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu a victory on a silver platter by visiting the Jewish majority state at a time that much of the world condemns it for its conduct of the Gaza War and fears of its entanglement in a potential US military conflagration with Iran. The visit allows Netanyahu to claim that Israel is not isolated and not at risk of becoming an international pariah. The visit should not come as a surprise.

Beyond the significant economic, security, and military ties between the two countries, Modi and Netanyahu are ideological kinsmen. They think in civilisational terms, believe in the supremacy of their dominant religious communities, pursue anti-Muslim policies, and harbour expansionist ambitions. Ironically, India, under a previous government, was the first to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

That hasn’t stopped Modi and Netanyahu seeing one another as natural allies in a changing world order.

[Anchor] James M. Dorsey, a pleasure talking to you this morning for us here in South Africa. Have a good weekend ahead of you, James. Thank you for your time once again.

[James M. Dorsey] The pleasure is always mine. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for joining me today

Your support and loyalty mean a lot to me. It allows me to maintain and expand this column and podcast.

Without subscribers like you, I would not be able to offer an original perspective to an ever more important discussion of what the world should and will look like in the 21st century with a focus on the Middle East and the Muslim world in evolving geopolitics.

The Washington Post’s recent decimation of its journalistic staff, including many foreign correspondents in the Middle East and elsewhere, increases the importance of contributions made by independent reporters and analysts. They matter now more than ever.

Building on decades as a foreign correspondent, my column and podcast has produced for the past 15 years fact-driven, independent reporting and uncompromising, independent analysis of geopolitics, the politics of sports, and the politics of defining Islam in the 21st century.

To do so, I need your continued support. Please consider donating or becoming a paid subscriber and suggesting to your friends and colleagues to do the same. You can do so by clicking here.

Thank you and best wishes.

Middle East Report was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Trump administration is once again accusing Iran of building up its nuclear and non-nuclear weaponry. It comes as the third round of indirect talks between the US and Iranian officials have begun in Geneva. James M. Dorsey, from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies has more on TRT World.

To watch the video or read the transcript, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/can-trump-secure-total-iranian-surrender

Transcript

[Anchor] Okay, let’s get analysis now from James Dorsey, who’s in Singapore. He’s an adjunct senior fellow at S. Rajarathnam School of International Studies.

Welcome, James. When I think back to last year, it feels like it was a different world. The US claimed it had destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

It seemed like it was, you know, everything was basically done and dusted at that point. Now, it feels like there is this urgency to get Iran to acquiesce to its demands. How have we gone from this all being done to suddenly now this urgency they need to give into the US right now?

Why the urgency?

[James M. Dorsey] The question is whether Donald Trump has boxed himself into a corner. You have on the one hand, the Iranian position, which is willing to negotiate and willing to some degree to make concessions. But at the same time, its failure to cave into Donald Trump’s demands effectively amounts to a challenging of a basic cornerstone of Trump’s foreign policy, which is the belief that you can bully, coerce or intimidate other countries into bowing to your will.

On top of that, you have the contradiction, of course, between a significant military buildup in the Middle East, and Trump’s statements that he prefers a negotiated solution, a negotiated solution meaning Iran capitulates. And then the third element in all of this is that Trump, in a sense, yesterday in his State of the Union speech, by saying Iran has not said it will not have nuclear weapons, in effect is leaving himself a few choices, given that Iran has been very clear in its statements that it does not intend and does not want to have a nuclear weapon.

[Anchor] Again, it’s this urgency. So I mean, Iran gives the impression it wants to go to the negotiating table and discuss this. It’s not likely to develop nuclear weapons overnight.

Is the United States not willing to just sit down and let the negotiations play out?

[James M. Dorsey] That’s, again, that’s the big question. What Trump wants is a total surrender by Iran. He’s not going to get that.

And Iran is going to take the risk of a military conflagration. Now, fact of the matter is that fundamentally, neither Iran nor Trump wants a military confrontation. And so I think what you might see coming out of these talks today is not so much an agreement, or a breakdown, but some formula to prolong the talks, and at the same time have managed escalation, if you wish.

[Anchor] He’s making lots of threats, Donald Trump, of carrying out military action. But it doesn’t seem like public sentiment at home is necessarily in favour of that. And Trump’s approval ratings are not good at all.

Can he actually take that risk, do you think, of instigating a conflict with Iran, you know, considering the harm it might do him at home?

[James M. Dorsey] I think what you also saw yesterday in the State of the Union, given that his polling is very low, among the lowest until now, is the fact that Trump is betting on his Make America Great Again support base. In fact, his speech yesterday was targeting his support base, rather than Americans at large. So he may very well feel that he can afford a military conflagration, particularly if he’s able to claim significant success.

[Anchor] James, great to speak to you. Thank you. James Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

[James M. Dorsey] Neil, always a pleasure. Thank you.

Thank you for joining me today

Your support and loyalty mean a lot to me. It allows me to maintain and expand this column and podcast.

Without subscribers like you, I would not be able to offer an original perspective to an ever more important discussion of what the world should and will look like in the 21st century with a focus on the Middle East and the Muslim world in evolving geopolitics.

The Washington Post’s recent decimation of its journalistic staff, including many foreign correspondents in the Middle East and elsewhere, increases the importance of contributions made by independent reporters and analysts. They matter now more than ever.

Building on decades as a foreign correspondent, my column and podcast has produced for the past 15 years fact-driven, independent reporting and uncompromising, independent analysis of geopolitics, the politics of sports, and the politics of defining Islam in the 21st century

Can Trump secure total Iranian surrender in nuclear talks? was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Although US-Iran nuclear talks continue, the US is building up its military presence in the region while Iran has reportedly secured missiles from Russia. Is there a diplomatic path to prevent tensions from boiling over? BFM 89.9 discuss these developments with Dr. James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

To listen to the podcast, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/can-the-us-and-iran-avoid-conflagration

Transcript

[Anchor] This is a podcast from BFM 89.9, The Business Station. 8.36 AM, you are listening to The Morning Run. I’m Shahzana Mokhtar with Wong Xiaoning and Keith Kab.

Now in half an hour, we have the opening bell where we check out how Bursa Malaysia begins the trading day. But before that, we’re turning our attention to what’s happening over in Iran. So the United States and Iran are preparing for a third round of nuclear talks in Geneva this Thursday amid high tension and cautious signals from both sides.

While Iran says previous discussions were encouraging, the US has bolstered its military presence in the region, sending aircraft carriers, destroyers, and more than 60 attack jets to bases in the Gulf and Jordan. President Donald Trump has warned that a limited military strike could follow if diplomacy falls. This will hinge and pass on the judgement of Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Iran has reportedly secured a 500 million euro missiles deal with Russia to rebuild its air defences following last year’s conflict with Israel. So can diplomacy succeed under the shadow of such heavy military pressure? And will both sides make the concessions needed to avoid a regional conflict?

For some insights on this crisis, we’re joined by Dr. James Dorsey, adjunct senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. James, good morning.

So we see that the US has given Iran 10 to 15 days to reach a nuclear deal while also deploying forces to the region. Meanwhile, Iran has also reportedly secured a secret 500 million euro missile deal from Russia. How likely is a military strike at this stage?

[James M. Dorsey] Good morning. Preventing a military conflagration depends on two factors. Trump’s willingness to limit negotiations to the nuclear issue rather than seeking a package deal, including curbs on Iran’s missile programme and its relations with non-state actors like Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and Iran’s willingness to give Trump an off-ramp.

The nuclear issue is issue that lends itself most to an agreement that would allow the United States and Iran to both save face and make concessions. Trump needs to be able to claim that he has secured a deal that is substantially better than the 2015 international agreement from which he walked away in 2018. Iran needs a deal that lifts sanctions and secures investments without impinging on its sovereignty or appearing to have caved in to US military pressure.

[Anchor] So, James, we’ve seen months of indirect negotiations as well as military threats. The US and Iran, they’ll be meeting again this Thursday in Geneva. What do you make of the possibility of a deal happening and what can we expect from these talks?

[James M. Dorsey] I think there’s space for a deal. There’s little question about it, and we’ve seen the outlines of a deal. So, with other words, Iran insists on retaining its right to enrich uranium.

Iran has not been enriching uranium since last June when its facilities, its nuclear facilities, were bombed by the United States and Israel attacked the Islamic Republic. So, suspension of enrichment on Iranian soil for a period of time is something that would retain Iran’s right while de facto conceding to Trump’s demands. The same is true in terms of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

You saw the Iranian foreign minister last week meet with Grossi, the head of the agency. So, there is that room. The question is, do you have the political willingness and what is Trump’s intent?

What does he want to achieve, and that we’re not clear on.

[Anchor] Can we do a bit of a discussion on Iran’s willingness to do this deal? Is there pressure domestically for them to do so considering the round of protests that we’ve seen in the last few months?

[James M. Dorsey] First of all, I don’t think that either Trump nor the Iranians want a military conflagration. Both of them would like to see a negotiated agreement. In both countries, a military conflagration would be highly unpopular.

We’ve seen the mass protests in Iran in December and January. We’ve seen in the last few days renewed protests at Iranian universities. Iran needs sanction relief.

The government needs to demonstrate that it can address Iran’s dire economic problems. At the same time, a majority of Americans don’t want a military conflagration. And keep in mind, it’s election year in the United States.

So, in that sense, you have the building blocks. That’s not a guarantee that you’re going to get a positive result.

[Anchor] James, how influential are Donald Trump’s aides, I suppose? We see Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff. They are leading the assessment of Iran’s intentions ahead of the Geneva talks.

How influential are they on the president in terms of possible airstrikes?

[James M. Dorsey] They’re influential, there’s no doubt about it. But there are various pressures on Trump. You have, on the one hand, his negotiators.

And you also had Steve Whitkoff this weekend say that Trump was surprised that Iran had not capitulated, which would suggest that he’s not getting accurate briefings on Iran if he were surprised. Because no one should be surprised that Iran is not simply going to cave in. But you also have the pressures of, from within his Make America Great Again support base, particularly between those who describe themselves as America firsters and therefore don’t want to see U.S. engagement in military conflagrations beyond America’s borders, and those that are more supportive of Israel. And you have, of course, the pressures by the Gulf states. And that’s a bit more complex. The Gulf states certainly do not want to see a military engagement, because their territory could be the target of Iranian retaliation.

But as a matter of principle, the Gulf states are less concerned about Iran’s nuclear programme and far more concerned about its ballistic missile programme and its relationships with non-state allies.

[Anchor] James, just a while ago you mentioned about the protests, the renewed protests in the past three days at Iranian universities. What do you make of the lack of force from the Iranian government in countering these protests as they had in the previous ones?

[James M. Dorsey] Well, first of all, these protests are primarily at three Iranian universities. They’re not the mass protests that we saw in the streets of Iranian cities, sustained over weeks in December and January. So the government can sort of let this happen at this point.

It also does not want to be seen to be brutally repressing at a moment at which there’s an international focus on what’s happening in Iran and an Iranian, a sincere Iranian effort, like a sincere US effort to get to an agreement. So they’re important. They tell you something about what the mood is in Iran, but they’re not the major issue for the government at this point.

[Anchor] James, would you say then that the Iranian government has effectively quashed mainstream dissent or large-scale dissent for the moment?

[James M. Dorsey] For the moment, and I think one has to stress that it’s for the moment. Iran has a history of protest. The Islamic Republic has a history of protest.

What we saw in December and January was just the latest installation of those protests, fuelled, of course, by the fact that the economic and social situation is increasingly becoming very dire as a result of, on the one hand, the sanctions, but also as a result of mismanagement by the government of the Iranian economy. So this was the latest round, and we are likely to see further rounds now. A lot will depend on whether or not Iran gets a degree of sanctions relief and therefore can start tackling some of its economic problems, employment, inflation, collapse of the currency.

We can go down the line. But I would put my hand in fire that over time you will see protests, whether they are economically motivated or more political.

[Anchor] James, this is a bit looking into the crystal ball, but do you see Trump executing something like what he did in Venezuela, which is just to capture the spiritual leader, Khamenei, and take him out rather than put troops on the ground?

[James M. Dorsey] First of all, I don’t think that Trump really has good military options. In other words, he does not want a prolonged military engagement. He wants something that’s quick, that gives him great theoretical, theatrical optics.

In and out, he does not want troops on the ground. So what does that mean? He can strike at Iranian targets, one-off strikes, whether that is military installations, security installations, senior officials of the government, including if he is attempting to abduct the supreme leader.

And he can go into strikes that are more sustained over several days, maybe even several weeks. Fact of the matter is Iran is not Venezuela. Whatever change comes in Iran is going to be from within Iran and from within the regime itself.

It’s very well possible that you would see a regime emerge that is more willing to cooperate or more receptive to some of the Western and American concerns about Iran. But it’s not going to be a regime that simply has a Simon Says relationship with the United States, i.e. United States says and Iran does.

[Anchor] James, thank you so much for speaking with us. That was Dr. James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, walking us through the various factors at play when it comes to this US-Iran standoff, and I think highlighting some of the things that we have to keep watch in the days and weeks to come.

Lots at stake here, especially when it comes to stability in the Middle East. But what’s interesting is the press like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times saying that the Iranian government is almost preparing for war. It’s got its military on full alert.

It’s trying to get its weapons up and ready. It’s got missiles targeting Israel. Well, I suppose something to bear in mind is this from the Western press.

Yes, it is. It’s very hard to get reliable information at the moment, right, coming out of Iran. They did clamp down on the internet, although we do have some videos, for example, knowing that’s how we know that there were at the university, but not enough information.

Thank you for joining me today

Your support and loyalty mean a lot to me. It allows me to maintain and expand this column and podcast.

Without subscribers like you, I would not be able to offer an original perspective to an ever more important discussion of what the world should and will look like in the 21st century with a focus on the Middle East and the Muslim world in evolving geopolitics.

The Washington Post’s recent decimation of its journalistic staff, including many foreign correspondents in the Middle East and elsewhere, increases the importance of contributions made by independent reporters and analysts. They matter now more than ever.

Building on decades as a foreign correspondent, my column and podcast has produced for the past 15 years fact-driven, independent reporting and uncompromising, independent analysis of geopolitics, the politics of sports, and the politics of defining Islam in the 21st century.

To do so, I need your continued support. Please consider donating or becoming a paid subscriber and suggesting to your friends and colleagues to do the same. You can do so by clicking here.

Thank you and best wishes.

Can the US and Iran Avoid Conflagration? was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

James discusses on Radio Islam the prospects of a US military attack on Iran, the fallout of the dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Africa, and Israeli support for the UAE in its Washington-focused war of words with the kingdom.

To listen the podcast or watch the video, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/middle-east-report-6ad

Transcript

[Anchor] This morning’s Middle East report, Iran and the United States as well as various power struggles happening between Saudi and the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, not just in Yemen, not just in the whole of Africa or Sudan, but in other places as well. Is this the new power struggle that we are going to see in the decade ahead? No longer Iran and Saudi Arabia, but rather Saudi Arabia and the UAE with Middle Eastern countries being forced to take sides on either one.

Anyway, to get into the latest discussions coming out of that part of the world, we are joined by James M. Dorsey, award-winning scholar and journalist with a different perspective on the Middle East and a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

You can follow James as we’ve always liked to announce at jamesmdorsey.substack.com and listen to or subscribe to James’ newsletter and blog, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey. Good day to James. Thank you for joining us.

[James M. Dorsey] Good morning. Happy Ramadan. Pleasure to be with you.

[Anchor] And indeed, pleasant greetings to you too, James, and thank you for the warm ones. James, getting into our discussion, Iran and the United States. Crawl back from the brink, or is it a crawl back from the brink?

Are we likely to see Obama 2.0 when it comes to Iran and the United States, this time under Trump? Some say likely not, but the question is for how long, James?

[James M. Dorsey] Indeed, rather than creating an environment conducive to compromise, Trump’s military buildup in the Middle East and continued threats of attacking Iran makes any concession Iran offers look like a surrender. Trump’s concept of peace making is rooted in an approach that involves bullying, coercion, and intimidation. He has given Iran 10 days to come to the table on his terms.

It’s hard to see Iran caving in. Iran put a good face on this week’s talks in Geneva between US and Iranian negotiators, even though the two countries are nowhere closer to narrowing their differences, which means that the risk of a military confrontation remains high. With that in mind, how bad things can get will depend on the nature of a potential US attack, which in turn will determine how Iran responds.

Trump’s problem is that after unilaterally walking away from the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear programme, he needs to demonstrate that he can produce a new agreement that is significantly better. That limits Trump’s ability to find a compromise that would allow him and Iran to save face.

[Anchor] James, moving the discussion of course to Donald Trump’s Board of Peace. So it was it was crunch time when Donald Trump’s board of peace met in Washington this week to finalise the implementation of the second phase of the president’s Gaza ceasefire plan. And you know, it’s been called of course Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, but what are we to make of it and how did that meeting go, James?

[James M. Dorsey] The Board of Peace and the reality of Gaza seem worlds apart despite Trump announcing pledges of some 17 billion dollars for Gaza, the willingness of five nations, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Azerbaijan, and Albania to contribute to an international stabilisation force for the strip, and the creation of a Palestinian police force. The Board’s vision for Gaza involving high-rises, luxury hotels, and artificial islands is a far cry from the needs of a traumatised population that lives in a moonscape-like wasteland. Ali Shaath, the head of the committee of Palestinian technocrats tasked with running Gaza’s day-to-day affairs under the board’s supervision, said as much when he listed his priorities, security, job creation, emergency relief, and restoration of services.

In addition, the international forces mandate remains nebulous. Indonesia, which will supply the force’s deputy commander and largest contingent, sees its role as supporting humanitarian efforts rather than disarming Hamas and demilitarising Gaza as Israel demands. Like with Iran, Hamas is unlikely to unconditionally decommission what heavy weaponry it has left, raising the spectre of a renewed Israeli assault on the war-ravaged strip.

[Anchor] James, African leaders meeting in Addis Ababa this weekend and continuing to struggle to remain on the sidelines of a Saudi-UAE dispute that is playing out in multiple, you know, countries. You have Africa, Yemen, which is not technically, of course, in Africa, but just across the DC there from a regional point of view, one in the same region. And how are we to likely see this meeting go, noting that it’s unlikely that everybody is going to remain out of this foray between the Saudi and UAE, the rising power struggle in the Middle East?

[James M. Dorsey] African leaders walked a thin line at this month’s African Union summit, despite much of the escalating dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates playing out on African soil in fractured countries like Somalia, Sudan, and Libya. The leaders were careful not to choose sides between the two wealthy Gulf states that have invested heavily in Africa. Even so, African leaders fear that the dispute will expand beyond the horn of Africa into the Sahel.

At the heart of the dispute are competing Saudi and UAE ambitions for regional dominance. African leaders fear that Emirati support for secessionist and rebel forces will destabilise rather than stabilise countries. Nevertheless, they are careful not to cross the UAE, given its expeditionary military presence on the African continent and its financial and economic networks.

So far, Somalia is the exception to the rule. Somalia cut all ties with the UAE after Israel, with Emirati help, established diplomatic relations with the breakaway republic of Somaliland.

[Anchor] Saudi-UAE competition, James, for regional hegemony has shifted from the horn of Africa. I mean, we discussed in the previous mention there, the previous statement that it was concentrated in parts of Africa. But in reality, it’s gone further than the Red Sea battlefields to the parlours of Washington, D.C., with Israel fuelling the fires. Israel, no doubt, has made it clear on which side it stands for a while now. But how are we to see this play out in an international scenario with Washington also being a political battleground between the Saudi and the UAE?

[James M. Dorsey] U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham made that clear when he this week announced that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had asked him to publicly convey his amazement at the level of cooperation between Israel and the UAE. Netanyahu’s message was designed to help the UAE garner increased favour among supporters of Israel in the United States, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE wage an information war that has put the kingdom on the defensive in the U.S. capital. Graham’s unvarnished portrayal of the Israeli-Emirati relationship came on the heels of comments suggesting that he blames Saudi Arabia for escalating tensions between the kingdom and the UAE.

Emirati influencers and pro-Israeli media and pundits accused Saudi Arabia of reverting to anti-Semitic tropes and harsher anti-Israel rhetoric and pivoting away from establishing formal ties with Israel and towards alliances with alleged Islamists like Qatar and Turkey. In response to the Israeli and Emirati allegations, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan this week met Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the U.S. anti-Semitism envoy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

[Anchor] James Dorsey, thank you for joining us on Radio Islam International this Friday morning for us here, this first Friday of Ramadan, and have a good day and good weekend ahead of you, James.

[James M. Dorsey] Thank you for having me and I wish you all the best.

Thank you for joining me today

Your support and loyalty mean a lot to me. It allows me to maintain and expand this column and podcast.

Without subscribers like you, I would not be able to offer an original perspective to an ever more important discussion of what the world should and will look like in the 21st century with a focus on the Middle East and the Muslim world in evolving geopolitics.

The Washington Post’s recent decimation of its journalistic staff, including many foreign correspondents in the Middle East and elsewhere, increases the importance of contributions made by independent reporters and analysts. They matter now more than ever.

Building on decades as a foreign correspondent, my column and podcast has produced for the past 15 years fact-driven, independent reporting and uncompromising, independent analysis of geopolitics, the politics of sports, and the politics of defining Islam in the 21st century.

To do so, I need your continued support. Please consider donating or becoming a paid subscriber and suggesting to your friends and colleagues to do the same. You can do so by clicking here.

Thank you and best wishes.

Middle East Report was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

To listen to the podcast, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/trump-hosts-first-board-of-peace

Transcript

[Anchor] (0:10) The inaugural Board of Peace meeting that kicked off in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump announcing plans for Gaza. (0:19) Nine members have agreed to pledge $7 billion toward a Gaza relief package, and five countries are set to deploy troops. Mr. Trump also says the U.S. itself is pledging $10 billion for the Board of Peace, but he did not specify what that money will be used for. Most countries send high-level officials, but a few leaders, including from Indonesia, Argentina, and Hungary, travelled to Washington for the gathering. The board was initiated as part of Trump’s 20-point peace plan to end the conflict in Gaza, but the Trump administration has ambitions to go beyond that.

Let’s discuss all this now with James M.Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at NTU. Dr. Dorsey, good of you to join us today. Thanks very much for making the time, all the way from Manila as well. $7 billion, troops from nine members and five countries respectively. At the same time, President Donald Trump called the Gaza war over. Is this a good start for the inaugural Board of Peace?

[James M. Dorsey] I think it remains to be seen. There are as many questions as there are answers. For starters, the nations that have committed, particularly Indonesia, that have said that they would commit troops to an international stabilisation force, all of the Muslim nations have a very different view of what that force is about.

The Indonesians who are going to supply the deputy commander of the force, the commander himself being a U.S. general, have been very clear theirs is a humanitarian mission, theirs is not a policing mission as such, certainly not a mission to potentially disarm Hamas. So I think there are lots of questions on that front. There’s also lots of questions of what is the money that has been pledged going to be used for, and what is the vision of Gaza?

In many ways, you saw a board meeting yesterday that was the Donald Trump fan show, and that was divorced or devoid of the reality that exists in Gaza itself.

[Anchor] Yes, so that’s one of the many criticisms of the board. It was held like just another cabinet meeting at the White House. How optimistic are you that this particular Board of Peace could improve the situation in Gaza and possibly help with other conflict resolutions?

[James M. Dorsey] I’m sceptical. I’m sceptical both in terms of Gaza, as in terms of whatever broader vision Trump may have for the Board of Peace. Most member states in the board are there not because they believe that a replacement of the U.N. is needed. They’re there because essentially what the Indonesian president has privately told various people, that the only way to influence this is from within. There is no other game in town. And that’s what many of those nations feel.

In addition to that, being on the board earns them brownie points with Trump, brownie points that are important in terms of trade negotiations, for example, and being in Trump’s good books. You saw that this week with Indonesia, which signed almost $35 billion in agreements, trade agreements and investment agreements, and hopes that this will lead to a reduction of tariffs that have been imposed on Indonesia by Trump.

[Anchor] Indeed, key Western allies have expressed concerns that the alliance has strayed from the U.N.-endorsed mandate, even views it as an attempt by Washington to rival the U.N. Could that actually happen? As sceptical as you are?

[James M. Dorsey] I doubt it. I mean, this is basically a board that is built around the person of Donald Trump. You cannot build multilateral institutions built around one person.

In addition to that, members of the board have very different visions. Most of them do not favour a replacement of the United Nations. They may favour reforms of the U.N., but certainly not the replacement. So the potential of this becoming an alternative to the U.N., I would not hold my breath. It may or may not intervene — be able to intervene in specific conflicts outside of Gaza, but that doesn’t really make it into a serious rival of the U.N. Two follow-up questions that I have on that note, Dr. Dorsey.

[Anchor] First of all, $7 billion pledge. Let’s exclude the $10 billion pledge by the U.S. for now. That $7 billion, is that really enough?

Whether it gets deployed to Gaza, humanitarian efforts and reconstruction or not, that’s a separate matter. But is that enough, if that were the case?

[James M. Dorsey] The World Bank, the United Nations, other multilateral institutions estimate that rebuilding Gaza is going to cost somewhere between $50 and $70 billion. (6:00) At this point, those pledges are — there’s no way that the Board of Peace could have met yesterday in Washington without coming up with commitments to the International Stabilisation Force, as well as funding, some degree of funding for Gaza. The problem with that is that no nation’s going to invest in the reconstruction of Gaza until you have a stable situation.

A stable situation has to involve a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. It has to involve Palestinians sitting at the table, meaning, for example, being members of the Board of Peace. They are not.

While Israel is, it means an equitable resolution of the root causes here, which is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something that the Israelis have ruled out by definition. So I think we’re very much at the beginning of something that is very uncertain.

[Anchor] And just a final follow-up here, Dr. Dorsey. You talked about how sceptical you were about the Board of Peace rivalling equally to the United Nations. So on the other side of that aisle, what is and will the United Nations be doing right now as all of this is unfolding?

I mean, we’re talking about dozens of countries aligning with President Trump in this Board of Peace. Has the UN effectively lost its grip on some of these countries as well? Are we going to be seeing a United Nations?

[James M. Dorsey] I don’t think it’s lost its grip on some of these countries. (7:45) All of these countries are members of the UN. All of these countries profess to uphold the UN Charter and to maintain that the UN is maybe not a great institution, a great functioning institution, but it’s the only institution you have.

The paralysis is in entities like the Security Council that is almost impossible to find a modus vivendi and a consensus among its members, particularly between the United States on the one hand and many of the other members. And of course, you still have many of the United Nations agencies on the ground in Gaza. So the United Nations will play a role.

(Keep in mind that the United States did go to the UN Security Council and got the endorsement of the Council for the Board of Peace and the structure that is being put in place in Gaza. That gives the Board of Peace within the mandate in which it was presented to the Council rather than within the mandate that Trump is now projecting international legal legitimacy.

[Anchor] And that makes it very clear for us as well, Dr. Dorsey. Thank you so much for joining us from Manila today.

[James M. Dorsey] Always my pleasure. Thank you.

[Anchor] That’s James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Thank you for joining me today

Your support and loyalty mean a lot to me. It allows me to maintain and expand this column and podcast.

Without subscribers like you, I would not be able to offer an original perspective to an ever more important discussion of what the world should and will look like in the 21st century with a focus on the Middle East and the Muslim world in evolving geopolitics.

The Washington Post’s recent decimation of its journalistic staff, including many foreign correspondents in the Middle East and elsewhere, increases the importance of contributions made by independent reporters and analysts. They matter now more than ever.

Building on decades as a foreign correspondent, my column and podcast has produced for the past 15 years fact-driven, independent reporting and uncompromising, independent analysis of geopolitics, the politics of sports, and the politics of defining Islam in the 21st century.

To do so, I need your continued support. Please consider donating or becoming a paid subscriber and suggesting to your friends and colleagues to do the same. You can do so by clicking here.

Thank you and best wishes.

Trump hosts first Board of Peace meeting on Gaza and beyond was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By James M. Dorsey

To participate in the poll, listen to the podcast, or watch the video, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/for-trump-its-crunch-time-in-gaza

It’s crunch time when Donald Trump’s Board of Peace meets in Washington this week to finalise the implementation of the second phase of the president’s Gaza ceasefire plan.

Mr. Trump needs the 20-member Board to demonstrate significant progress on multiple thorny issues that will define the success of his plan and whether war-ravaged Gaza will stabilise or be the target of a renewed full-scale Israeli assault.

The interconnected issues include the disarmament of Hamas, the demilitarisation of Gaza, Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, the introduction of an international stabilisation force and a Palestinian police force, the reconstruction of Gaza, and the linkage between breaking stalemates in Gaza and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Arab and Muslim-majority members of the Board, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan, are reluctant to commit troops to an international stabilisation force and funds for the reconstruction of Gaza without Hamas agreeing to disarm and a timetable for the complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference this weekend, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said, “We need to see a real end to the conflict. That means we need to have clarity on when Israel is going to withdraw, when Hamas is going to disarm, when everyone is going to comply with all 20 points of the 20-point plan.”

Indonesia has gone furthest by preparing up to 8,000 troops for service in Gaza. Even so, Army Chief of Staff Maruli Simanjuntak cautioned, “We are just preparing ourselves in case an agreement is reached.”

In a statement, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry insisted that the potential role of the country’s troops would “focus on protecting civilians, humanitarian and health assistance, reconstruction as well as training and strengthening the capacity of the Palestinian Police,” not disarming Hamas.

The ministry said the West Bank-based, internationally recognised Palestine Authority would have to approve Indonesian participation in the stabilisation force.

Established in January by Mr. Trump and countries eager to cater to the president’s narcissism, the Board projects itself as a potential rival to United Nations peacekeeping efforts with Gaza as its first project.

So far, Mr. Trump’s plan has produced mixed results in its first phase, which saw the release of the remaining living and deceased Hamas-held captives abducted by the group during its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

However, the plan has failed to silence Israeli guns as Israel launches daily air and drone strikes that violate the ceasefire.

While the truce has significantly reduced the number of daily Palestinian casualties, some 600 have been killed since the ceasefire took effect on October 10 of last year.

Similarly, Israel has selectively allowed an increased flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza that averted the risk of a famine but has done little to alleviate the health crisis.

Moreover, Israel severely throttles the number of Palestinians allowed to either leave the Strip for medical treatment or return to Gaza through the recently reopened Rafah Crossing between the territory and Egypt.

Kickstarting the plan’s second phase requires Mr. Trump to twist not only Hamas’s arm but also Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s. So far, Mr. Trump has harped on Hamas, threatening it with dire consequences if it fails to disarm, while turning a blind eye to Israel’s ceasefire violations.

The Board of Peace High Representative for Gaza, Nikolay Mladenov, implicitly suggested that Mr. Trump no longer can afford to do so because it undermines the credibility and legitimacy of the Palestinian committee that is tasked with running Gaza’s day-to-day affairs under the Board’s supervision.

Nikolay Mladenov

“If you put the committee tomorrow in Gaza and the violations of the ceasefire continue the way they are now, we’re only embarrassing the committee and ultimately making it ineffective,” Mr. Mladenov said in Munich.

While insisting on its right to resist Israeli occupation, Hamas has suggested it could decommission what’s left of its heavy weaponry but keep its sidearms. US officials have floated the idea of a weapons buyback that would compensate individual fighters for surrendering their arms and grant them immunity.

Israel has rejected anything but the total disarmament of Hamas and asserted that only it can do so, a goal Israel has failed to achieve in almost 2.5 years of war.

Israeli Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs said this week that Israel intended to give Hamas 60 days to disarm and would renew its assault if it does not.

Israel may have timed the announcement in recent days of widely denounced measures that enhance Israel’s control of the West Bank, curtail the power of the Palestine Authority in those parts it nominally controls, and expand Israel’s ability to seize Palestinian lands to coincide with the Board of Peace’s meeting in Washington.

Many in the international community beyond Arab and Muslim states see the measures as violations of international law and a prelude to Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

Like Israel’s ceasefire violations, the measures are likely to reinforce Hamas’s refusal to unconditionally lay down its arms and Arab and Muslim resolve to condition their commitment of troops to an agreed formula for the disarmament of Hamas, a timetable for the Israeli withdrawal, and steps to pre-empt an Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

In doing so, Mr. Netanyahu hopes Mr. Trump will give him a free hand in Gaza.

For Mr. Trump, it’s a high-stakes game. A renewed Israeli assault on Gaza would generate public pressure on Arab and Muslim-majority states to withdraw from the Board of Peace, which already many view as a vehicle that serves US and Israeli rather than Palestinian interests.

So far, Mr. Trump has gotten away with having Israel’s back when it comes to the Palestinians. However, with deeds rather than words likely to determine the fate of his Gaza ceasefire plan, Mr. Trump may have to accept that it’s crunch time on an issue that will co-define how he is remembered.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Associate Editor of WhoWhatWhy, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.

For Trump, it’s crunch time in Gaza was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

James discusses on Radio Islam this week’s anxiously awaited White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, next week’s Board of Peace gathering in Washington focussed on Gaza, and the future of US-Israeli military relations.

To listen to the podcast or watch the video, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/middle-east-report-19a

Transcript

[Anchor] Well, in today’s Middle East report, we discuss the so-called Gaza peace plan and what the U.S., who is initiating and seemingly heading that particular plan, has in mind, as well as what’s happening in the Middle East, especially the Persian Gulf or the Straits of Hormuz, with a continuing piling up of U.S. military personnel. Is a strike on Iran imminent, or is this bluster that the U.S. feels that amassing troops would be enough of a deterrent upon Iran? Exactly a deterrent for what?

Is it going to be regime change anytime soon? That seems to be highly unlikely. But where is this confrontation between the U.S. and its ally, especially Israel, and the Iranian regime going? Joining us this morning for us here in South Africa is James M. Dorsey, an award-winning scholar and journalist with a different perspective on the Middle East and a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

You can follow James, of course, and subscribe to James’ newsletter, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey, or https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com. Good day to you, James. Thank you for joining us.

[James M. Dorsey] As always, it’s wonderful to be with you. James, talk to us.

[Anchor] U.S. President Donald Trump is deliberately vague about the upshot of his talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran. What are we to expect out of that conversation or that dialogue, James?

[James M. Dorsey] Trump has left everybody guessing what the outcome of his talks with Netanyahu is, beyond stating that he wants a negotiated agreement with Iran. Tellingly, Netanyahu has been conspicuously silent too. It’s not clear what Trump wants to negotiate — an agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear programme or a package deal that would also include curbs on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missiles and relationships with groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and Iraqi Shiite militias, which Netanyahu wants to see.

Trump and Iran have wiggle room to negotiate a nuclear deal that would allow both parts to claim victory without losing face. Including ballistic missiles at this point would mean no deal and a likely military conflagration that could spark a regional war. For now, Trump has suggested that negotiators have a month to conclude whatever deal before he would consider military action with a U.S. armada already in Middle Eastern waters.

[Anchor] James, even so, Jerusalem is the joker in the deck, meaning that, you know, many may say the wild card over here. Israel has already warned that it could unilaterally strike Iranian ballistic missile sites, not, you know, considering the fact that negotiations may be on that month type of a, you know, timeline has been posted by President Trump. But the reality is that Israel may not consider any timeline possible.

What are we to expect out of coming out of, you know, that particular side, the Israeli side?

[James M. Dorsey] Netanyahu is the wild card. If Trump does not seek a deal on ballistic missiles or makes concessions on nuclear, such as Iran’s right to limited uranium enrichment, Netanyahu could decide that Israel will strike unilaterally. The risk of a nuclear deal that is not to Netanyahu’s liking is enhanced by the fact that Trump needs to make a nuclear deal that he can claim is better than the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear programme.

Trump withdrew from that agreement in 2018 during his first term in office, declaring that it was the worst agreement ever concluded. Israel has already said that it reserves the right to strike unilaterally at Iranian ballistic missile facilities. The risk of Iranian retaliation at either Israel or U.S. bases in the Gulf that could spark a regional war is equally high whether the U.S. hits Iran or Israel acts on its own.

[Anchor] James, this week’s meeting, when Trump was the first instance in which U.S. and Israeli positions may have diverged, many people noticed the divergent views. Differences could again emerge at next week’s Board of Peace meeting in Washington on the implementation of the second phase of Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan. Certainly that peace meeting or the Board of Peace meeting is a worthy discussion to have next week, whether it’s really a Board of Peace.

Many already, even U.S. allies, are critical of its makeup, etc., but no doubt that’s a topic for another week, very likely next week. The issue of the implementation of the second phase of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, what are we to make of the divergent views that the U.S. and Israel seem to have in this current buildup?

[James M. Dorsey] It’s hard not to assume that Trump and Netanyahu did not see eye to eye on Iran during this week’s meeting. That is likely to have been the case not only regarding Iran, but also Gaza. Israel’s security cabinet adopted several measures on the eve of the White House meeting that enhanced Israeli control of the West Bank, diminished the authority of the internationally recognised Palestine Authority, and constitutes a likely prelude to annexation.

That is unlikely to have gone down well with Trump, who has ruled out Israeli annexation. Trump is preparing for next week’s meeting in Washington of his Board of Peace that is supposed to oversee implementation of the second phase of the president’s Gaza ceasefire plan. Key elements of that plan are an international stabilisation force that would police Gaza as Israel withdraws and reconstruction.

With the prospect of annexation, rather than progress towards the creation of a Palestinian state, Arab and Muslim-majority states are likely to remain reluctant to contribute to the stabilisation force or invest in reconstruction.

[Anchor] James, finally, looming in the background is a potential paradigm change in the U.S.-Israeli military relationship. And, you know, of course, this doesn’t give, it’s given less attention that they have got, no doubt, a 10-year relationship, a military relationship, as the two countries prepare to negotiate new arrangements for when the current 10-year memorandum of understanding expires in 2028. With all likelihood, there will be a renewal of that agreement, whether it’s 10 years or five years, it’s anybody’s guess.

However, what are we to expect in the years ahead, or should I say in the months ahead, as we come to the expiration of the 2028 memorandum of understanding?

[James M. Dorsey] Indeed, the U.S.-Israeli military relationship is likely to change significantly in coming years, as the two countries negotiate a deal that would replace the current expiring arrangement. Trump’s America First supporters are proposing an agreement that would wean Israel off a yearly subsidy of some $3.8 billion to be spent on buying U.S. military hardware, and turn Israel into a strategic partner rather than an aid recipient who increasingly buys U.S. weaponry. Wanting to preempt U.S. moves, Netanyahu sought to put the horse in front of the cart by saying he wants Israel to be self-sufficient within 10 years. That’s a far shorter period than the 21-year timeline proposed by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, widely seen as the Trump administration’s brain trust. In a sign of which way the wind is blowing, influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham responded to Netanyahu, saying the process could be sped up to achieve the transition in less than 10 years.

[Anchor] James Dorsey, thank you for your time this morning for us here in South Africa. Have a good weekend ahead of you, James.

[James M. Dorsey] Thank you for having me. Have a good weekend and happy Ramadan.

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Middle East Report was originally published in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.