Geopolitics hate vacuums of power. This is one of the basic rules of it. The most powerful countries out there are the ones that have the most powerful weapons (i.e. nuclear) and a large enough territory (also called "strategic depth"). In the recent history, there were only 3 countries qualifying for this: the US, Russia and China. They both have the means to essentially dominate the world and split it to their likings. This is essentially what happened with #Venezuela before, this is exactly what is happening with #Iran today, and it might be something that will happen with #Cuba either tomorrow, in a few days, weeks, months or whenever Trump wants to pull out another adventure for the US military.
Russia is now in regression. #Putin's ambitions in #Ukraine have weakened it and made it regroup, leaving precious "territories" behind - this is what happened with #Syria, where the opposition finally got free hand to do whatever they wanted with Bashar Al-Assad, this is what happened in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh province - where Russia essentially abandoned both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and now it looks like it essentially abandoned Iran - it is true that both Israel and the US had a perfect plan to decapitate #Tehran and made it swiftly, but I did not see any reaction other than diplomatic condemnation (even though there was public information about something since days before); no strong military signals of aligning with Tehran or anything, nothing. Russia simply abandoned it, out of impotence, generated by the war in Ukraine. And it's influence in #CentralAsia albeit still firm in appearance, is shaky as well.
As for China, it is way too far from Iran, and it hasn't been historically under its sphere of influence.
US is far too, this is why it co-opted Israel for today's blitz operation.
There is only one thing that prevents total control by the big-3 of the entire world: state alliances. This could arguably be the decisive factor in deterring #Trump to do a takeover of #Greenland in the same way it did with Venezuela. When #Denmark felt under threat, it asked for help. Nordic countries, Germany, France, all jumped in helping Denmark. The more MAGA friendly countries like #Hungary or those that cannot see there's a divorce going on in the West like #Romania didn't do anything, the latter arguing that it doesn't have troops ready to fight in the Arctic (we do have mountain combat trained units just like the French have, but whatever...), yet it was still enough for Trump to reconsider the borders of his lebensraum.
Anyway, moving back to Iran, what was its response after the strike? Well, it conveniently bombed its Muslim neighbors - the worst move it could make. Iran doesn't have many friendly neighbors, but nor does Israel. Iran failed to use diplomacy to its advantage and prevent such an action, or at least provide proper retaliatory measures together with these. If Iran only wanted to strike the US bases, then it just failed miserably. Iran doesn't have the means of precision strikes perfected by the US and the West along the years. It uses weapons the soviets - and then the Russians - made, which are used only for blanket covering of a designated territory. If Iran actually wanted to revenge for the collaboration of these countries with the US, then it was the worst move it could make.
I am hopeful that both this and the Greenland episode will be a wake-up call for Europe. Russia is stuck in a grinding war in Donbass, taking away its precious resources and weakening it day by day, and Trump no longer even dreams of getting Greenland - at least for now. But to me, it feels clear that the autocrats in both #Moscow and #DC hate the EU. They hate the idea of countries collaborating for the same goal and staying independent of their sphere of influence - and that's why they're playing the long game. Their goal is to impose friendly leaders through elections and their battlefields are the modern social media platforms and their algorithms. We saw it when #CalinGeorgescu was boosted on TikTok, we saw it when #Elmo got mad that he would have to abide by #EU rules and regulations - and when the White House acted in its support. Any move towards less EU is a move that has the goal of destabilizing the continent, putting it one step closer to the vacuum of power that Russia and the US are more than happy to exploit - just like they did in Venezuela, just like they did in Iran, and just like they will likely do in Cuba in the near future.
