I really think the Israel tie-in is worth watching here, because they are not coming into this due to altruistic concerns over Ukraine itself. They clearly do not like the speed and direction that the JCPOA renegotiation is moving and there are multiple reports out of Israel saying that they feel betrayed by the US and are concerned that they have lost all influence over the JCPOA negotiations in Vienna. And those negotiations are a cunt hair away from wrapping up.
Considerations in no particular order, and without deep analysis, but rather just a random vomiting of thoughts:
- The West now has a huge incentive to get the JCPOA situation sorted so that an additional 1.5mm bbd can hit the global markets. So essentially, Israel is left somewhat isolated now on an issue that many in their leadership see as critical to Israeli national security.
- Russia has massive influence throughout the ME, not only with Iran, but also with plenty of other actors that impact Israeli security and power.
- The White House apparently gave a grudging go-ahead for Bennett's trip to Moscow, but was not thrilled about it. So Israel is most likely acting in its own interest here, not as an extension of American influence
- For all the mutual influence that Israel and the US share over each others domestic politics, keeping fuel costs in Peoria from hitting 6-7-8 bucks per gallon is way more important to a self-centered politician in DC than ensuring Israel’s security.
- Israel's security is more important to Bennett than that same congressman's electoral chances in Peoria
- Iran is heavily dependent on trade with Russia and Russia have tens of billions of dollars in arms deals in place with Iran at the moment. In fact, before this thing started heating up, Iran was set up on Russia’s SPFS, the alternative to SWIFT, so Russia is an important economic/security lifeline to them and the impact of sanctions on that is yet to fully be understood
- Iran depends on Russia for the influence that they have with Damascus, as Syrian security depends on Russian involvement, but Russia does not depend on Iran to influence Assad and Assad can survive without Iran.
- Reducing/controlling Iranian influence in Damascus is critical to Israel's sense of security.
- Russian influence over Damascus is not particularly objectionable to Israel, and to some degree is beneficial so long as it is used to leash Iran instead of enable it.
- The Gulf Arabs have all kinds of different angles and interests here, ranging from security to energy plays to domestic concerns...too many to even get into.
- Not even getting into the Turkish angle, as that would take pages.
The circular/criss-crossing/clusterfuckerific interconnectivity between all of these players is much more critical to Israel, Iran, Syria, the Gulf States, and to some degree Turkey than it is to the US or Russia. But the amount of relief afforded to the global economy - including the US to a significant degree - from the inevitable blowback of Russia being isolated from global commerce is most easily mitigated by moves from the Middle East…by Iran and by players both for and against Iran.
The fact that Bennett took off - on Shabbat nonetheless - to Moscow for a three hour plus meeting with Vlad and then stopped off in Berlin unannounced to the public to meet with Scholz indicates that something serious is being discussed there. And that doesn’t mean it is something good for the US or bad for the US, notwithstanding the fact that it is one of American’s closes allies in the middle of it. No one knows anything other than it surely is significant.
In an incredible and almost instantaneous 180 degree switch in strategic positioning, Russia would now benefit by blowing up the JCPOA IF it could leverage its willingness to gum up the works for relief elsewhere. Killing the JCPOA would be huge for Israel. And Israel can absolutely influence things relating to Russian market access and sanctions “loopholery”. But Russia’s close ally Iran would be livid over Russia enabling the second death of JCPOA at this late stage. And on and on it goes, ally by ally, enemy by enemy, relationship by relationship.
I am not even going to try to predict all the ways this could unfold. There is no way anyone outside of highly placed actors can truly know what is going on, but I think we can all rest assured that it is very, very complex and that every player is now playing for their own self interests. And those self-interests are for the first time in recent memory not necessarily consistent with traditional post-Cold War alliance structures.
But perhaps one takeaway that we have learned from this past two days is that Naftali Bennett does, in fact, roll on Shabbos.