Weakening Irans Geopolitical Toxicity: What Is Donald Trump Really Seeking with the Middle East War, as the End of the Ultimatum Approaches?

The world awaits the end of the new ultimatum launched in Tehran by the White House tenant. Geopolitical doctor Frédéric Encel analyzes the international situation in “Quid Juris, the podcast of the Club des Juristes” in terms of law and the antics of the American president.

What can France do in the face of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz? Does the UN still have a role to play in this conflict? Can the war in Iran signal the end of NATO? Can Donald Trump escape the trap of Tehran? The new episode of the podcast Quid Juris, the podcast of the Club des Juristes tries to answer all these questions. Laurent Neumann welcomes Frédéric Encel, geopolitics doctor, conference master at Sciences-Po, founder of Geopolitical Meetings of Trouville, and author of a recent book at Odile Jacob, “There Will Be No World War.”

Laurent Neumann: To bounce back on the title of your book, at what point can we say that a war is global? Frédéric Encel: It is a central question. There is no love, only proofs of love. There is no global war, only proof of global wars. Among these parameters, there is an empirical one, through the two major wars of the 20th century, which was the existence of two opposed military alliance blocs.

Today, that doesn’t exist. There is a coalition of two states, America and Israel, facing a third country, Iran. In this conflict, you have the Latin prefix “con” with conflictuality. A bellicosity, in a way. That’s what conflictuality is. In reality, the Arab states, it will not have escaped you, are not reacting. Therefore, they do not form an alliance.

LN: Iran considers all Gulf countries as belligerent, because they help the United States and Israel in a certain way, just like European countries. Aren’t they co-belligerents, at least enemies? FE: Tehran’s propaganda doesn’t match reality. You mention states that host American or Western bases. Oman has none on its soil, neither does Saudi Arabia. The same goes for Azerbaijan, none.

As for European states, they are officially, very concretely non-belligerent. Moreover, they said so from the start and most European states, in fact almost all, do not have military bases in the region. Except the UK in Jordan and France in the United Arab Emirates. To honor its contract for mutual defense with the UAE, France flies its Rafale, but for exclusively defensive purposes.

It’s not because a state, dominated by a regime extraordinarily fanatical and contemptuous of international law, designates enemies that it corresponds to a geopolitical or legal reality.

LN: What interests the French is what is happening at the Strait of Hormuz. There used to be 120 ships passing through before the war, now between 0 and 5. However, the freedom of navigation is a fundamental principle of international law that Iran does not respect… FE: Maritime freedom of movement, as you pointed out, is fundamental. It is in the Montego Bay Convention of 1982. From this point of view, the Iranians do not respect it today. Iran violates the sovereignty of the Gulf states in the air, sea, and ultimately on land.

LN: We don’t know how this war will end, or when it will end. But one of the potential consequences is that Iran is starting to privatize the Strait of Hormuz in a way, demanding $2 million per ship. FE: Of course. This is how rogue states behave. We’re outside the law. To be intellectually very honest, I would say that the American-Israeli attack, if we stick strictly to international law and the UN Charter, does not correspond to a recognized right by the United Nations since Iran is a sovereign state and can rightfully retaliate. But beware, to retaliate against belligerents, against attackers, certainly not against the Sultanate of Oman.

LN: The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz can have incalculable consequences. Donald Trump once said that when the war is over, it will be the countries that need to use that strait that will organize its security. The UK and France plan to gather a coalition of about thirty countries to organize the security of this strait… FE: But for that, you would need a UN mandate at minimum. In principle, you even have to go through the UN executive. Obviously, the executive body is the Security Council. Now, I won’t remind you that Russia and China sit on the Security Council. So, how do we proceed?

The French, the British, rightfully, could submit resolutions together, as they have been doing regularly since March 15, 2011, from the Libyan crisis. We were in the time of the Arab Spring, but since then, Paris and London almost systematically, by mutual agreement, submit resolutions to the Security Council.

What I formally approve, as a European and as a geopolitician. But that is not enough, because if one of the other three permanent members vetoes it, obviously, it will amount to nothing. And this is where we come, it seems to me, to the fundamental question of international law as it has existed since 1945 and which, in my opinion, is outdated. We can regret it perfectly and we can obviously remain, which is my case, very attached to a form of international law allowing at the very least a multilateralism. But it is outdated. Not since Donald Trump in the Middle East, but at least since Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.

LN: Since the beginning of this conflict, the UN seems remarkably absent. It is supposed to be the place of multilateralism and diplomacy… FE: Yes, it is supposed to be, but since 1945, it has not escaped anyone that it is the great powers on the Security Council, the permanent members, therefore endowed with the famous veto right, who impose their views. The UN was built in a particular moment and on an extremely particular balance of power. And today, things have changed.

LN: Why do you think Donald Trump keeps postponing his ultimatum? FE: Because negotiations are ongoing. And then because it’s Trump. On the political and military level, he is almost completely unpredictable. He is not on the economic level. He is an absolute mercantilist. He is so unpredictable that I don’t even know to what extent he himself knows what decision he is going to make the next day.

And I’m not kidding. We rarely have, in the long history of international relations, to deal with this kind of situation. If he organized his own unpredictability to deceive his enemies, it might not be stupid. Except that I’m not at all certain that the majority, the critical mass, let’s say, of his erratic statements and actions, is part of this “strategy.”

I think there is also a significant part of nonsense in Mr. Trump. What can be said is that he is not primarily seeking to overthrow the Tehran regime, but he is seeking in the long term to pacify, I mean pacify – not sure he will succeed – the region to the benefit obviously of the United States, but also of Gulf countries that he does not consider allies but as clients.

LN: Weakening Iran would be enough… FE: Weakening Iran and its geopolitical toxicity. And from this point of view, look at how much the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, all affected by Iran, have been buying protection means worth hundreds of billions of dollars in recent decades from the United States and other countries, including France. For the United States, for the American economy, for the Trump family’s economy, it is extremely important.

LN: What about the Iranian people in all this? FE: In an extraordinarily cynical way, Donald Trump called on Iranians to continue to revolt by promising them immediate support, which incidentally took several weeks to come, to say the least. I will be extremely frank with you, Mr. Trump doesn’t care at all about the Iranian population. He doesn’t care about the democracy on which he is also undermining in the United States.

But was it any different for Obama with Syria? Or for Clinton in Rwanda? I’m fine with demonizing Trump but, in reality, he fits into a kind of icy realpolitik that unfortunately has almost always prevailed. And, no, nothing will be done for the unfortunate Iranian population.