Let's be real here. Nothing this administration ever does is planned.
You are joking, right? Project 2025 has achieved 50% of its goals in record time[0]. Trump disavowed both it and invading Iran, but make no mistake. Both were “the plan”.
After the dust settles:
- GCC is knocked down a few notches and that oil and gas money is no longer competing for influence
- US is out of MENA and Centcom will return to Florida; there is no way Arab governments will let US rebuild its bases in their countries. See burning infrastructure, airports, and decimated trade in tourism, air travel, hitech, ... You thought the Orange One thought up the idea of burning all our aliances, pissing off Europe, alarming Asia allies, and making "fortress America" all by his lonesome? Really?
- Israel will be lording it over the area. Maybe they will start having bases on Arab lands.
- China will be at the mercy of whoever now controls Middle East
- Project 2025 is really about controlling us natives here in America when the coin finally (dear lord) drops over here.
In Syria it might have taken years, but considering the reaction of the US, Israel and Russia to the sudden Syria push, I guarantee the admin in power wasn't informed. What is more likely is that they lost actionable assets during COVID. At best the CIA was aware but didn't inform Mossad not the US, but that would be giving them a lot of credit.
Deals done in Yuan will still get through Hormuz. EU could switch currencies for fossil fuels, get their energy, and further lessen their dependence on a US that expresses nothing but hate and disgust for the EU.
If Trump's popularity falls to Nixon levels, and the MAGA coalition continues to fracture at the current rate it's falling apart, within a year or tow, there could very well be 60 votes in the senate that go against Trump.
He did say he wanted regime change after all
Sorry, but this will never not be not amusing. Where Trump being a stopped clock warns the UN about relying on foreign energy and the German delegation laughs as they were shutting down their nuclear and increasing reliance on Russia for energy.
There is no case of they just needed to pay attention earlier. The problem is known. There is just no good solution. Drastically scaling back energy consumption isn't going to happen any time soon and would harm the economy. So we can choose between Russia, the Middle East and the USA. Best would be of course to reduce fossil use, but that is orthogonal.
Refraining from shutting down their nuclear plants for no good reason would have been a start.
Trump is completely inconsistent anyway. First he blamed the EU for wanting to continue the Ukraine war. Then he periodically floats lifting Russia sanctions. But if the EU were to lift Russia sanctions, that of course would lead to severe repercussions.
Trump is about economic suppression of the EU.
If you say "nuclear energy". The US has imported Russian uranium to at least 2025.
Finally, both Nordstream 1 AND Nordstream 2 still have a gaping holes in them from the bombings so restarting deliveries will probably take several years at least.
All in all, this plan gets only a 2 out of 10 for being impractical, too slow AND depending on factors outside our control. 1 point because it does at least sound spy-ish and proactive.
Before 2022 we had the big EU auto companies in Russia, we also had nice handbags, shoes and outfits to sell to Russia. Plus we could have them hide their money in London property. Machine tools were also a brisk trade.
Nowadays Russia needs nothing from Europe. Nothing apart from peace and their 300 billion back. But we have gone past that stage. The Russians have never broken any energy contracts in this, the West has cut themselves off.
Regarding the EU not wanting the former Ukraine to lose, there is a difference between what the officials want and what the people want. From Finland to Portugal I am sure most people would want no war and cheap energy, however, their 'leaders' are just doing what Washington tells them to do.
Not really. Putin will not deal with Europe honestly.
A better idea is to try to get Russia to join the EU and use an open market to exert control over the more extreme behaviors and tendencies in Russia. A lot of Russian behavior is based on paranoia (completely justifiable paranoia when you see the way the US is behaving) so perhaps having them in the European fold will chill them out a bit - obviously this is far fetched but it's at least a way to fix this long term.
As a Russian? Absolutely yes.
We had a dry run 3 years ago, during Prigozhin's mutiny. He was advancing towards Moscow at freeway speeds, and the population was happily taking pictures. Nobody was organizing barricades, protests, or pro-government rallies.
Putin's regime is purely authoritarian ("information autocracy") it has _no_ ideology. Moreover, the government in Russia does everything it can to keep the population passive.
And before you ask, Iran was different because it's _not_ an authoritarian country. It's a full-blown totalitarian theocracy with an official ideology and the elites there actually _believe_ in their doctrine. They have a core of people who will die rather than betray it. And most importantly, they have actual institutions that can survive the death of individuals.
Eventually nobody will want the job.
It may have been true in the case of Maduro, but the jury is out (we also "decapitated" Hugo Chavez in the early 2000s but he came roaring back).
It is emphatically not true in the case of Iran, Russia, China, DPRK or any state that has been truly sovereign for a couple generations. These states have deep political power structures that don't rely on the whims of one individual.