James Lindsay Opinion Piece on the Iran Deal

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I'm still chewing on this "deal" and trying to figure out what the strategy is supposed to be, obviously given a shortage of information. I'm starting to think it's similar to Reagan's strategy that choked the Soviet Union, which Aleksandr Dugin describes as an Atlanticist "anaconda."

The rough idea of the "anaconda" strategy is that of a constrictor snake. It doesn't bite except to control small parts at necessity. It squeezes. And it doesn't just crush. It tightens, puts pressure, and when the target squirms, it tightens again. This continues until the target is suffocated.

Dugin accuses the Atlanticist West (first Britain, then the US/NATO) of having done this not only to the USSR but to Russia and continuing it. That's worth discussing at another time.

The way he says it happened is by controlling all the regions around the target (then: USSR) and by increasing various demands and sanctions to crush the target. There's no striking (like biting) except in the narrow sense to punish specific transgression. It's just fatally expensive for the target to move.

So this plan might actually be meant to work this way against the Iranian Regime, with a few updated caveats because Trump's geopolitical strategy and Reagan's aren't the same, for good reasons. Trump's is not only likely better overall but learned from the mistakes and shortcomings of Reagan's.

The idea is that by having hit them militarily 13,000+ times and degraded their capabilities, military, and infrastructure to a very bad level, while apparently offering them a "golden bridge" out (Sun Tzu), including some rocketry capabilities, Iran's Regime is desperate, particularly economically.


The "deal" with the economic carrot ($300B in Gulf Coast state investment possibilities, totally contingent on good behavior, plus loosened sanctions and unfrozen assets, all contingent) is meant to get Iran to squirm while releasing the global pressure caused by Hormuz. Iran can't afford not to take it and likely thinks it can outfox the West by taking the money in bad faith. That's "squirming," at which point the snake will either tighten or strike (in narrow fashion) or both.

The IRGC is white-knuckling power, hanging on for dear life in a shattered system that needs relief. The relief is coming from a place that can put massive contingencies on access to the relief, at least in theory. That's like being wrapped in the snake's coils.

Iran's Regime is boxed into needing the relief, but the relief comes at the cost of becoming controlled not just by the U.S. and Israel but by the GCC coalition from which the money is supposed to come.

Every time they betray the deal, which is apparently all based on investment money, not state transfers, the U.S. and/or Israel might hit them again to get them back in line while the GCC tightens the financial noose (with U.S. urging).

The "anaconda" holds them tightly, and if they wiggle to breathe (by violating terms), it tightens. If they get too rough, they get bit (another good, hard military strike or ten). They're stuck, slowly suffocating.
The Regime, over time, cannot sustain this pressure and should crack eventually if this is the strategy and it works. It might not even take long because of how shattered they are now.

Eventually, a coup from inside can displace the faltering regime, and that's likely the ambition. The question is who it will be, of course. Pahlavi's people should be preparing because other factions, most likely most notably the Leftist MEK, will be positioned to seize the moment if better people aren't.

The update from Reagan's strategy is that Reagan was fighting the USSR in a bipolar world: US and USSR were the two superpowers. Thus, Reagan was a unipolarist. He wanted one pole of power in the world: the United States of America.

(Dugin sees this as a "neo-mondialist" or "neo-Atlanticist" strategy we would call "globalism" today in the common parlance, and he's firmly opposed to it but not in the same way or for the same ends as Trump, MAGA, and real America First.)

What we've learned since then is that a unipolar superpower is not geared correctly to handle a regionalist disruptor like Iran (or Russia, frankly). Its military capabilities are geared otherwise, for one thing, and it can stretch the superpower too thin, for another.

That's how you end up with "neo-mondialist" failures in Iraq, which Trump isn't eager to repeat.

Instead, what you need are regional consortiums that act as decentralized regional powers that are broadly in alignment with a U.S.-led world order (thus rejecting Dugin's wretched multipolarism and Russian/Eurasian neo-imperialism).

The GCC plus Israel are meant to accomplish this in the Middle Eastern "Great Space" (Grossraum). It may be that this "deal" is geared toward attempting to build such a thing to constrain and eventually choke out Iran regionally, backed by U.S. (and Israeli) might, if needed.

Meanwhile, there's a special situation going on in this case, which is that the Iranian Regime is full of proper lunatic factions. It's literally kufr (apostasy) in the lunatic Islamist view to make a deal with a jahili (Ignorant) society like the "Great Satan" of the United States, which can carry a death sentence. Thus, the internal fragmentation and fighting inside the Regime will be intense, and we allegedly already see this happening.

Parts of the Regime, hoping to white-knuckle power (in the anaconda's coils), has to make the deal. Other more lunatic parts refuse it as rank treason and want to kill the people who make the deals or agree to them. This is not a stable situation for someone trapped in the coils of a snake that's slowly choking them out.

So, maybe this is the real deep purpose of the plan. I don't know for sure. That plus possibly getting Americans inside in order to do nuclear inspections and such (very tight coiling of snake plus potential for agitation on a whole different level), clearing the nuclear material, keeping the passage of Hormuz open for all the reasons (until workarounds are made), etc.

I cannot imagine, actually, that anyone serious really believes that this "deal" will hold, though. Of course, when it doesn't, the "anaconda" gets to bite (military strikes, heavy sanctions, etc.) to weaken them further and enable tighter coiling in the next round.

In the meantime, perhaps we watch the Regime suffocate. It would be smart to get the right people geared up and positioned to fill the vacuum, if that's right.

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