Category Archives: gaza

“12-Day War”: Why no energy crisis? Iran regime was cornered. Seeing USA’s limited aims, it dared not escalate, gave up. | My Al Jazeera comments

The ceasefire Trump brokered will hopefully end this “12-Day War.” I want to discuss here why this war did not trigger a global energy crisis. [Here’s what I said about this to Al Jazeera last week, in the last five paragraphs. A PDF is also embedded below. I’ll also post a TRT-London show on Iran’s nuclear strategy, recorded Tuesday, soon.]

To assess the risk to energy supplies, understanding the aims of the combatants is key. Throughout this war, it was the USA-Israel side setting the agenda, and there were two strategic aims they could pursue. One was to “only” destroy Iran’s nuclear program and its existing conventional regional power-projection capacities. The second was to go beyond this to undermine the viability of the Islamic Republic, up to forcing a regime change. Why do I say this?

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1st “Berlin Energy Forum” 21 May | A monthly disruption of the local ‘energy echo chamber.’

Dear Colleagues & friends, Below is an invite to our first Berlin Energy Forum (jump to details | jump to register), but first a personal note.

First, a personal note: As some of you know, this is an idea I’ve been floating in Berlin since well before Corona. Then, last October, I had an experimental test run, a one-off, sponsored by the Qatari embassy’s Divan – and it went very well.

However, the biggest success from that event was that Ben Aris, co-founder and editor-in-chief of bne IntelliNews enthusiastically joined me to found the Berlin Energy Forum as a regular monthly sort of membership club. Amongst the longest serving foreign correspondents in Eastern Europe, Ben has been covering Russia since 1993, with stints in the Baltics and Central Asia. He is a former Moscow bureau chief for the Daily Telegraph and was a contributing editor at The Banker and Euromoney for a decade amongst writing for many other publications. He is also a professional photographer, and nowadays based in Berlin.

Ben is one of those rare people who relishes doing analysis and data-driven writing (non-stop!), AND who knows how to do business – and thoroughly enjoys doing it. Just the partner for this endeavor.

My model and inspiration for this forum was always the New York Energy Forum, which has run for over 40 years now. I happily attended while teaching in NYC. My experience with that forum, plus familiarity with a few top DC think tanks, and various foreign diplomats (esp. in NYC/UN), is how, as an academic, I got to know a broad spectrum of USA oil and gas executives, journalists, financial-institution analysts and government officials. Those personal connections have, over the years, anchored my assessments of USA, of OPEC MENA-and-Latin American members’, and of Russian and Chinese strategy. This sort of community doesn’t exist in Europe in such a focused manner, save perhaps in London. Perhaps we can now bring a bit of that world to Berlin with our new BEF.

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Jerusalem Post asked me: “Why can’t Israel make unilateral decisions on its multifront war?”

I was asked by Debbie Mohblatt for the Jerusalem Post on Thursday: Why can’t Israel make unilateral decisions [i.e., as to whether and how to attack Iran]? Two other geopolitical experts interviewed were Jack Kennedy, head of Middle East and North Africa Country Risk at S&P Global Market Intelligence, and Noa Meir, founder of the Gideon Meir Diplomacy Center. My quoted remarks follow, the full article is here, and farther below I put today’s performative Israeli response in perspective..

Israel dependent on American decisions

Dr. Thomas O’Donnell, a global fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington who teaches in Berlin, told The Media Line that Israel was very dependent on American decisions. He added that in this case, Israel could carry out some small-scale symbolic response that would not necessarily draw an additional Iranian attack leading to escalation.

“Israel has always gotten huge amounts of support from the United States—military and otherwise. It’s quite clear that it [Israel] can’t sustain a protracted war, especially a protracted war of the nature it would be against Iran, without the United States’ support, and there’s no other country that is capable or willing to give that support,” he said.

O’Donnell added that very few of the world’s countries can make these kinds of decisions without considering their allies. “A small country can go to war with another small country. But if this is going to bring in larger powers, they have to be very careful,” he continued.

… O’Donnell explained that ever since President George W. Bush’s administration, which came before Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the United States has been very clear that it made a mistake by putting too many boots on the ground in the Middle East and that it must get out of the region. “It has to focus on great power competition against Russia and China. And this is becoming more urgent by the day,” he continued, explaining part of the rationale behind the US not wanting a major escalation between Israel and Iran. (Read the entire article for the others’ comments.)

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