Iranians cheer a missile launch. Photo: IRNA/Mostafa Qotbi.
By Pepe Escobar – Jun 17, 2025
This is as serious as it gets. Let’s survey the chessboard—from micro to macro.
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
Israel’s shock’n awe on Iran—straight from the trademark US playbook—essentially failed, despite the initial combination of speed, meticulous military planning and the element of surprise, including hacking the Iranian electronic communications within the military grid; decapitation of the vertical IRGC nomenklatura; the spiderweb drone attack playbook; and bombing—ultimately ineffectual—of key nodes of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
It took hours for top Iranian technicians to get their grid back. And once that happened, the tide began to turn, to the point that after surgical missile volleys deep in the night on Sunday, the IRGC announced its capability to seriously disrupt Israel’s command and control systems using “enhanced intelligence,” thus breaching Iron—or Paper—Dome.
Absolutely key infrastructure nodes in Tel Aviv and Haifa have been destroyed—from the Rafael weapons complex (specialized in missiles, drones, cyber warfare and Iron Dome components) to the power plant and oil refinery in Haifa. This is historic in more ways than one.
Compound the cries of joy all across the lands of Islam to the massive psychological trauma inflicted on Israel. The myth of Israeli invincibility has been definitely shattered. Unleashing hell from above, killing women and children and spinning like there’s no tomorrow does not win a war against a real opponent.
The tweaked IRGC strategy—applied by an instantly revamped leadership—is being fine-tuned day by day in a calculated, surgical manner. It’s not that hard for the IRGC to totally paralyze Israel’s economy. Israel has only one oil refinery (already bombed); three ports, of which one is already bankrupt (Eilat) and another is on fire (Haifa); and one airport (already in dire straits).
The blowback on Tel Aviv’s desperate, indeed suicidal move—no chess involved—is in effect. Tehran is proving that every Zionist axis calculation that Iran could—and was—bled dry in a matter of hours was, predictably, false.
The POTUS, for his part, fell into a voracious trap. His MAGA base is already fractured—in depth. Non-Zionist MAGA is the overwhelming majority. He admitted in a stunning infantilist post that he knew everything about the Israeli shock’n awe all along.
Less than 10 days ago, in a meeting in New York packed with billionaire usual suspects, Steve Witkoff himself—Trump’s Talleyrand—explicitly noted that Iranian ballistic missiles are “a threat to America.” Considering their performance in the last 48 hours, everything points to Washington de facto entering the Hot War.
Diplomatic sources in Tehran point out that the leadership is working under this scenario. That’s why they are essentially still holding their capabilities—and carefully calibrating the next big steps in the escalatory ladder. Once again: Iranian strategic patience on display.
The question then is, in a scenario of the US de facto at war, what will it take for Russia and China, in concertation, to lose their own strategic patience.
Persian pride—and trust in their own capabilities, as I observed last month in Iran—rules that they consider to have all the necessary resources to outlast the Zionist axis, US included. After all they are only now starting to use their really advanced missiles—from the Kheybar-Shekan 2 and the Fattah-1 to the Haji Qassem.
The real war: against BRICS
So, in a nutshell, the Iranian response turned the chessboard completely upside down. The Circus Ringmaster—complete with hosting a pathetic military parade in Washington—is naked. And unmasked.
He now owns not one but two proxy wars: against Russia, and against Iran, with neo-nazis in Kiev and genocidals in Tel Aviv on the frontlines. All part of the Big Picture War: against BRICS.
By now it’s clear even for the deaf, dumb and blind that this was never about the Iranian nuclear program, or the “effort” to construct a Trump-owned JCPOA 2.0. It is about the lifelong Zionist axis obsession: regime change in Tehran.
That is the Holy Grail, dreamed of since the late 1990s, capable of opening the door for the deeply troubled Empire of Chaos of Iran’s immense wealth in natural resources—from energy to rare earth deposits, thus prolonging the life of the multi-trillion-dollar-indebted Empire.
Blackout: ‘Israel’ Bans Live Aerial Feeds as Iranian Missiles Pound Occupied Territories
The extra bonuses are even more seductive: cutting off China from a matter of national security—energy imports—and from crucial New Silk Road connectivity corridors, in tandem with opening a monster abscess in Russia’s underbelly. A definitive trifecta blow, in one swoop, to three top BRICS—Iran, Russia, China; to Eurasia integration; and to the drive towards a multi-nodal (italics mine), multipolar system of international relations.
Even as top civilization-states are doing somersaults to outlast the Empire of Chaos and its masters’ drive to unleash WWIII, there are no illusions in Moscow and Beijing that to confront this scenario it’s imperative to act asymmetrically—with supreme cunning, instead of merely responding to provocations (which has been the predominant Russian playbook in the proxy war in Ukraine).
Russian intel, meanwhile, has already done the math on the mirror effect of Israel’s own Operation Spiderweb, which employed exactly the same modus operandi of what Ukraine’s SBU—fronting for MI6 and Mossad—unleashed against Russian strategic bombers that are part of the nuclear triad.
Serious questions are being asked about Tel Aviv being directly involved in sabotaging Moscow. Just as serious questions are now popping up regarding the Ukrainian track. Intel information silos in Moscow consider that the Trump “ceasefire” process walks and talks like a crude camouflage to force Russia to back off for a while, as NATO chihuahuas on the beck and call of the deep state prepare a first strike (at least in their warped dreams).
So sooner rather than later, we may see Russia actually expanding on the current Iranian strategy: a massive infrastructural war, plunging Ukraine into complete blackout, metaphorical and otherwise—just like the bombing of a power plant in Haifa plunged the city into a complete blackout.
Why Iran must not be allowed to fail
Of course the current, insane escalatory ladder would be non-existent if Trump had been mature enough to accept the offer by Ali Shamkhani—later assassinated by Israel: Iran could get rid of its highly enriched uranium and sign a new nuclear deal if sanctions were lifted. Tehran would then only enrich uranium at low levels for its civilian program.
In parallel, Tehran had also even suggested a joint nuclear enrichment project with US investment plus Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi personally outlined it to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman—before the talks broke down.
The Global South, meanwhile, watches the horrendously deadly ping-pong between Israel and Iran—with increasing awareness that the cornered West is an even more dangerous animal day after day, waging Total War under the mask of peace.
Tel Aviv burning is the beginning of a new era. In their rage, they now threaten the “Beirut” model on Tehran: wanton destruction of civilian neighborhoods. Once again, what they do best: terrorism.
And yet, there will be no impunity for a genocidal system anymore. Consequences will be inevitably discussed this week at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, all the way to Putin’s address at the plenary session on Friday, and all the way to the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro in early July.
Taking the pulse of the Global South, the feeling is that Iran de facto is in the process of restoring ethics and geopolitical authority all across West Asia, as the Persian empire exercised it for centuries. That’s what civilization-states do: their role as privileged guardians of their sphere of influence is always essential.
It’s unlikely—under the Brazilian presidency; but BRICS sooner or later will have to make the strategic transition from a hyper-polite declaration machine to become the true, solid, unbreakable spine of the Global South and the Global Axis of Resistance.
Because the enraged, discombobulated West is not in hybrid war mode anymore; it has gone Totalen Krieg—as hot as it comes. Hence, the Global South’s got to switch on to a post-hybrid, Rebels with a Cause mode.
From Nigeria to Indonesia to Vietnam—BRICS members and BRICS partners—there’s a growing consensus that Iran must not be allowed to fall. It’s that serious. The spell of unrestricted Western diktat has finally been broken: all that will survive is “the loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.” It takes a—failed—shock’n awe to break the camel’s back.
(Sputnik)
Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist. He writes a column – The Roving Eye – for Asia Times Online, and works as an analyst for RT, Sputnik News, and Press TV. In addition, he previously worked for Al Jazeera.
