Pepe Escobar
Relish the ambiguity. And the deliberate opaqueness.
Hop on a new adventure: let's look at RIC (Russia-Iran-China), the new Primakov triangle, as I have defined them, in a more playful way.
These three civilization-states that are coordinating the new phase of Eurasia integration, and also established as full BRICS and SCO members, as in fact The Three Musketeers.
As highlighted by delightfully insightful West Asia analyst AHHfrican, the Three RIC Musketeers are already applying in full force timely shortcuts towards a new international order via three velvet-wrapped titanium nutcrackers.
The titanium nutcrackers are being applied respectively by Iran, Russia and China on the Strait of Hormuz, SWIFT and the U.S. Treasury.
The IRGC Navy/PGSA enforceable new rules over navigation in the Strait of Hormuz - coupled with the selected blockade (only against the House of Saud) in the Red Sea by Ansarallah - sooner rather than later will bury the GCC petrosheikh gang: the immediate translation is the end of U.S. recycling, debt servicing and petrodollar-based free lunch/financialized turbo-capitalism.
Russia for its part has deployed the A7 system - which is becoming a winner across a great deal of the Global South.
Pyotr Fradkov, the CEO of Promsvyazbank and general director of the Russian Export Center, hit the nail on the head on the A7 international payment system - duly sanctioned by U.S., UK and EU - now becoming wildly popular across Africa and also Asia. Official A7 offices have already been opened in Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
Fradkov went straight to the heart of the matter: "Many African countries still don't have a central bank. There are only about ten."
So what better solution than an alternative cross-border settlement system - a stablecoin - bypassing the U.S. dollar ? And all that to be used by anyone, independent from trading with Russia. No wonder Reuters sounded the alarm bells.
So, in practical terms, A7 goes way beyond endless BRICS dithering - to be continued at the annual meeting next month in India - about the finer points of a new financial architecture connected to gold and commodities.
Papa's got a brand new bag. And the name of the bag is A7.
Finally, we have China dumping en masse their toilet paper greenbacks while epically defanging OFAC sanctions.
China's Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law is strict: damn OFAC. If you help enforce "discriminatory restrictions" against a Chinese company, there will be hell to pay. In a nutshell: if anyone complies with U.S. sanctions in a Chinese jurisdiction, you're gonna get sued to death. Talk about Sun Tzu blowback.
When strategic ambiguity is the policy
Now let's go back once again to that dodgy Sunni NATO (perhaps Salafi NATO?) Mecca deal, featuring the Sunni - or Salafi - Triple Entente of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
All scenarios will continue to apply because the full Mecca text has not been released - apart from predictable spin about "deterrence".
The least one can say about the response by the Empire of Chaos, Lies, Plunder and Piracy is that they seem discombobulated. Assuming they did not order MbS to pull the Mecca stunt.
The pact may also be interpreted as pre-emptive - against the death cult, which, predictably, is enraged by the stunt. The death cult does not have much of a room to maneuver against it. So all that nonsense about Turkey being "next" after Iran has vanished.
So is this a MbS ploy against Ansarallah/the Yemeni Armed Forces ? Hardly: neither the neo-Ottoman Sultan nor the Pakistanis - as much as they have a military pact with Riyadh - will be dragged into a war against Yemen fabricated by the Saudis, who broke their own MoU with Sana'a, continue to enforce an illegal blockade, and already received some serious shellacking.
Saudis and/or proxies/mercenaries inside Yemen are already being duly incinerated by Yemeni ISR, drones and missiles. If Saudis + NATO (no Turkey) go on a bombing spree, Saudi oil refineries and pipelines will be blown to dust - as Sana'a promised under the new rules of engagement.
And obviously no one, anywhere with an IQ over 10 will risk a ground war against the Yemenis.
All that is happening while the Saudi stash is inexorably drying up day after day, deprived of oil sales and with the entire loot stashed in London and New York, which will gleefully "freeze" it or steal it outright because this is the Last Chance Looting Saloon.
Then what about "diplomacy"?
Everybody should ask The Man. As in Mohsen Rezaee, the new secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and also personal representative of Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
As many of us have been extensively debating it , Tehran will not abandon the - currently smashed - negotiating table. The difference is that now Tehran's positioning is designed to preserve maximum leverage.
Iran's position on the Strait of Hormuz is completely solidified - and already expressed via the MoU. Pakistan and Qatar remain the central diplomatic channels. Oman has an important technical role around all maritime arrangements in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Let's assume that the framework for an endgame already exists - even though implementation depends on only one thing: neo-Crassus on the War-a-Lago/Washington axis having a Road to Damascus moment.
Tehran will not move on the Strait of Hormuz. It's Washington that should begin implementing sanctions or asset-release measures - all inbuilt in the MoU - side by side with flexible Iran/Oman maritime arrangements. That's the only way the probability of an agreed settlement would rise.
The new complicating factor once again is the Mecca stunt. It's so heartening to frame it as a conjunction between Saudi capital and energy, Turkey's industrial and conventional military (NATO) power, and Pakistan's military depth and (nuclear) strategic deterrence.
But all that does not necessarily translate into the foundation for an independent security pole. Because none of these three actors are truly independent - and sovereign - like the Three RIC Musketeers.
What Mecca accomplishes in theory in this first stage is no immediate expulsion of the U.S. from West Asia; no Turkey exit from NATO; and no need for Pakistan to publicly announce a new security umbrella for West Asia.
Everything is oh so ambiguous. Perhaps the only serious question to be asked is this: "What does a potential enemy now have to assume could happen in case Saudi Arabia or Turkey faces an existential attack?"
So the ambiguity is the policy. Even if this new architecture "potentially" - and that's the operative term - creates a new indigenous, strategic deterrence structure not entirely dependent upon Washington.
Pay attention, once again, to "not entirely".
So relish the ambiguity. And the deliberate opaqueness. As for The Three Musketeers, they are already several moves ahead.