Trump, Iran and the New Middle East Power Shift
The Donald has announced that he is considering “annihilating” Iran. But he has also denied our ally, Saudi Arabia, help in dealing with the Houthi insurgency against Saudi colonial rule of Yemen. Less than anything principled, the Donald’s fury at Iran is based on his humiliation at losing a war that he started as a show of power. And the Saudi ruler’s feudal conquest of Yemen seems to be in direct conflict with the August self defense pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.
Let’s step back and look at what we know. Particularly about things that the government does not want you thinking about. Things that historic patterns tell us.
Think about the Russian conquest of Ukraine. It was supposed to take a few days for Russia’s “vastly superior” forces to steamroll the puny Ukrainian military. What happened? It’s been years, and last week Russian Czar Vlad sent instructions to the Donald that he was to ask/order the Ukrainians to stop destroying Russia’s petroleum industry. The same Donald who followed Czar Vlad’s previous instructions to slow down and try to stop U.S. military aid from getting to the Ukrainian forces.
Why has it taken years? Because the Ukrainians don’t have giant multinational corporations controlling their military. They’re stuck with mostly citizen patriots trying to save their fragile independence. Lacking the might of the Russians, they have had to do what the American colonists did in the 1770s, and what the Vietnamese did in the 1970s. When colonized people successfully try to throw off oppression, they generally look for means that don’t mirror their oppressors, but which circumvent them.
So the Ukrainians didn’t try to match the Russians tank for tank, soldier for soldier, boat for boat. Rather they innovated modern weaponry designed to exploit weaknesses in Russia’s vaunted military machine. What seemed impervious to major attack turned out to be vulnerable to hobby shop drones carrying hand grenades. As the war progressed and Russian forces bogged down Ukrainians continued to innovate.
But wait, there’s more! This week, we learned that Houthi militiamen, broadly characterized in U.S. corporate media as mindless, savage, thug, raghead camel-jockeys, have developed actual guided missiles! Primitive, as might be expected from a first effort. But the Houthis used AI, circumventing the protection systems that are supposed to prevent such things, and designed their own first generation missile guidance system.
Not what we are told to expect from ragtag, untrained, undisciplined barely soldiers!
It hasn’t been publicly announced yet. But anyone who has thought about it knows for certain that as soon as the Donald said he was going to follow Czar Vlad’s instructions and withhold patriot missiles from Ukraine, the Ukrainians started developing their own technologies for defeating the Russian supersonic ballistic missiles being used on Ukrainian civilian target.
Just like “professional” soldiers in the 18th century said it was unfair and “unmanly” for Native American and then colonists to hide behind trees and stone walls, instead of standing in formation to fight, Ukrainians and Houthis are going to be criticized for using innovation to circumvent the established military orders they confront. But the Ukrainians and the Houthis are doing it. They seem to have this crazy idea that their own survival, their right to self determination, their freedom, is somehow more important than the established practice of pouring fortunes of tax dollars into vastly expensive war toys, and then letting cannon fodder grunts ram the war toys against each other, while the investors sit at home, watching and collecting their profits.
Our response has been pure Donald. The Ukrainians are cutting into U.S. war toy makers’ profits and into their emerging markets. Other countries are eagerly buying Ukrainian war toys which are cheaper but still effective at taking out the hugely expensive war toys sold by U.S. companies. And when Houthi guided missiles hit Saudi Arabian oil facilities, the Donald rejected Saudi requests for aid.
Saudi Arabia has long been a loyal and obedient client-partner to the U.S., wallowing in oil profits and hosting U.S. troops which prop up and protect a feudal government against its own people. And now the U.S. says “no thanks” when asked to help the feudal Saudis when they are attacked with Houthi missiles designed with U.S. (Anthropic) AI! Will that send a message to the Saudi’s? To others?
Last month, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye formed a defense pact, without European participation. This week we are told that Israeli and U.S. diplomats are meeting with Saudi and UAE diplomats to tell the Saudi and UAE governments how the U.S. and Israel want them to behave in connection to the war on Iran. Will Saudi Arabia and the UAE continue their client state patterns of deference to western powers?
Or might they also consult with their defense pact partners, and with neighboring nations also under threat from the U.S. and Israel? Might they agree with Britain, France and Poland (historic victim of Nazi aggression and of the Auschwitz death camp) that Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing must be opposed before it expands. Israel has made clear its intention to expand its borders into Syria and Lebanon. Can Jordan be far behind?
While the U.S. proudly wallows in xenophobia, the Houthi’s are using U.S. AI to present a new view of Arab power. The Houthis are also a Yemeni nationalistinsurgency group, historically formed to promote the interests of an internally oppressed minority. Their turn to violence responded to oppression of their initial efforts at internal reform.
So a repeating pattern: oppression leads to resistance; which leads to suppression; which leads to insurgency; etc. And the insurgents always use models taught to them by their oppressors to evolve new ways of fighting against oppression.
Could this pattern lead to a new paradigm for the Middle East? Türkiye partners with Sunni Saudi Arabia, and also deals with Shia Iran. Sunni Saudi Arabia deals with Hindu India which oppresses its Muslim population. Pakistan deals with both Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, as well as with nominally secular China and Muslim Afghanistan. All these dealings cross religious lines and involve both democratic and despotic forms of government.
In this mix, Saudi Arabia appears to be experimenting with emergence from feudal rule, even as the U.S. appears to be drifting away from democracy as its imperial power collapses. The Pakistan, Saudi, Türkiye pact could form a framework on which Middle Eastern nations build a framework of cooperation, including the avoidance of wars.
Europe has built both a Common Market and a European Union which avoid military conflicts among members and have strengthened economies while improving the education, healthcare and living standards of members. Pakistan and Türkiye both have robust education systems, with Pakistani astronauts scheduled to launch into space during 2026, while Pakistani scientists explore Antartica. Reality based politicians in the framework nations could push for detente between Shia and Sunni, between republicans and despots and between rich and poor societies.
Such a structure could reduce the violence across the Middle East. It could free nations which have had centuries of dependence and obedience on colonial powers to put their own interests forward. The European offer of associate membership to distant Canada can serve as an example of how oppressive colonial power can lead to peaceful, economically productive responses to colonial over reach. Just as Ukrainian reengineering of western technology has stymied violent over reach.
So far, the Saudi feudalists are clinging to their western training and alliances, and are escalating their attacks against Houthi insurgents. But the examples of peaceful dealings set by Saudi defense partners Pakistan and Türkiye could encourage the Saudi’s to consider regional interests as well as their own short term goals. Particularly as the increasing erratic and demented Donald confirms that merely being a U.S. “ally” doesn’t mean getting support when times get tough.
The Houthi use of U.S. AI to develop guided missiles to oppose foreign rule reminds us that what we are told we know about AI and western power is often a figment of corporate messaging. While the natural desire and impulse of people to struggle to be free is built into the human genome.
The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.
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