Opinion: The following article is commentary and its views are solely those of the author. This article was first published the 14th of March, 2025 via The Angry Demagogue.
There is so much going on that it really is difficult to keep up. Israel is at the center of many of the regional developments, as would be expected. But it is not just Israel as Israel, but Israel as an ally of the United States that is interesting. The Syria problem we have written about and it is still not clear what the Trump administration’s policy is there as they look skeptically but hopefully at Al-Julani’s Syria. In our opinion that decision will be made for them, since the chances that Al-Julani has changed his stripes to a Western democrat is small and even if we are wrong there – the armed Jihadist groups that he needs to control seem more interested in ridding Syria of 'heretics' than stabilizing the country.
Lebanon has changed enough for the United States and Israel to take chances. While it is too bad that Israel did not do more in ridding the country of Hezbollah, the fact that Syria is no longer part of the Shiite crescent means that they are isolated and not able to get funding and arms from Iran with the same ease. What is important about the current Lebanese government is that Hezbollah is not a part of it. That does not leave them powerless, but it allows the government to act more independently. The Lebanese Shiites, under Hezbollah and the less but still militant Amal, will have to rethink their loyalty to these two organizations. At the least, it should move Amal away from their stronger partner.
Iran now has no land route to Hezbollah and will have a harder time arming the Houthis, too. But it is in Iraq that they are facing problems which could cause as much damage to their projection of power as did the loss of Syria. Due to US pressure, Iraq has stopped buying Iranian electricity although they can still buy gas. It seems that the US is giving Iraq some time to find alternatives to Iranian gas and the Iraqi government is moving away from Iran on other issues too and are trying to get rid of Iran’s Shiite militias.
But the most interesting thing to happen is Israel’s attempt to strengthen America’s relationship with Azerbaijan, a country that Israel is in close contact with regarding Iran. Israel has always been rumored to plan to use Azeri air force bases in a possible attack on Iran. The Azeri official responsible for regional development was in Israel last month and is trying to bridge differences between Israel and Turkey. The Azeri’s next stop after Israel was to Turkey. Steve Witkoff is reported to have stopped in Baku after his visit to Moscow.
An Azeri company has also bought rights to Israel’s Tamar gas field. Israel currently gets oil from Azerbaijan via a pipeline that goes through Turkey so the energy relationship is strong and longstanding between Israel and Azerbaijan. It seems that Turkey’s relationship with Azerbaijan is more important to them than their animosity towards Israel – probably because the Azeris and Armenians are enemies. It seems that sometimes not only friendships have to be ranked but enemies, too.
Trump’s game with Ukraine is not necessarily to my taste but it could be that there is something much bigger going on here and that is connecting Israel, Russia, Central Asia and Turkey to a grand alliance with the United States. I don’t think that Trump will succeed in pulling Russia away from Iran and China and that Erdogan’s Turkey will not give up their dream of destroying Israel. But what if the Iranian regime falls after a combination of harsh sanctions, economic collapse and Israeli military attacks? What if Iran is pulled away from the alliance leaving Russia with just China? What if a Russian base in Syria is dependent upon their moving away from China?
Last year the Axis held a near continuous land bridge from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. China was moving into Russia’s “sphere of influence” in the “Stans” of Central Asia with their economic bear hugs. This was something that the Biden administration ignored, but could be a bigger headache for Putin than a well armed but non-NATO Ukraine with American businessmen instead of soldiers as a tripwire.
Are we giving too much credit to Trump and his foreign policy team and to Israel’s influence in the expanded region that reaches beyond Syria? Is there more going on than we know or less?
On October 7 and the days that followed, the Biden Administration was sure that Israel was in such a panic that it would agree to anything, and they could force the Obama Middle East of a hegemonic Iran and a Palestinian state down Israel’s throats – and overthrow Netanyahu as an extra. None of those things happened.
Only a fool would predict what will be in a year, but what we have discussed above is one scenario no one would have considered even six months ago. The post WWII world looked nothing like the world of 1937, and the post WWIII world (the one we wrote about a year ago and may or may not have happened!) will look nothing like September 2023 – no matter how hard the UN yells and screams.
Could Israel and Azerbaijan be the keys to a realigned world?
It is against my nature to be optimistic, especially since Israel is still not done with Gaza, the hostages are not yet home and the internal politics are reaching levels that border on a soft coup.
However, while we don’t know where the aces are, we know that the Obama-Biden jokers are no longer in the deck.
Disclaimer: the views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of the author, and not necessarily the opinions reflected by angrymetatraders.com or its associated parties.
You can follow Ira Slomowitz via The Angry Demagogue on Substack https://iraslomowitz.substack.com/
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