Chas Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former Assistant Secretary of Defense, has commented extensively on US-Israeli relations and on conflicts within the Middle East for many years

In a recent interview with Dialogue Works, an online news platform, he provided valuable insights into the US-Israel war on Iran, insights rarely found in the mainstream media’s coverage of the conflict.

Below is a summary of some key points made during that interview. 

The assassination of Ali Khamenei

Despite Donald Trump’s expectation, the assassination of Ali Khamenei by a direct Israeli strike, will not bring about regime change. The Iranian regime is a much more complex system than that.

Further, one of the proposed objectives of the war on Iran – none of them very plausible – is to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. The assassination of Ali Khamenei will do little to achieve this goal. Ironically, Ali Khamenei was adamantly opposed to Iran developing weapons of mass destruction, which he described as ‘haram’ or ‘forbidden’ under Islam.

Among the potential candidates, including his son, likely to be appointed as supreme leader, all appear to be in favour of building a nuclear bomb. So what the US and Israel have done is not prevent Iran going nuclear, but rather encourage it to do so.

US-Israel bombardment of Iran

The US and Israel have been carrying out extensive air strikes on Iranian military assets and critical infrastructure from day one of the war. Again, contrary to Donald Trump’s expectations, regime chance cannot be achieved by air strikes alone.

During WW2, Nazi Germany was extensively bombed by the US and allied forces, but that failed to change the regime.

Again, during the WW2, the German army invaded the Soviet Union. While many people in the Soviet Union feared and loathed the Stalinist system, they didn’t turn against the Stalinist regime. Rather they rallied behind Stalin. Freeman argues that the same phenomenon will occur in Iran.

Furthermore, the US dropped 6,727,084 tons of bombs on 60-70 million people in Indochina, more than triple what it dropped on hundreds of millions of people throughout Europe and the entire Pacific Theatre during WW2. The US bombing campaign during Vietnam war failed to undermine the Vietnamese resistance movement led by Hồ Chí Minh that later succeeded in defeating the US and re-unifying North and South Vietnam.

Iran’s defence strategy

While the US doesn’t have a strategy other than the Israeli strategy of dominating West Asia, Iran does have a strategy and it has two parts.

One part is to respond to the existential threat from Israel by mounting an existential threat to Israel. As such, Iran will do everything it can to devastate Israel. It will not hold back with targeting Israeli facilities as it did during the June war last year.

The second part of the Iranian campaign is to persuade the Gulf Arab states, who host US bases, that they can’t afford to have those bases in their territory.

Freeman claims that these states accepted American bases in their territory on the grounds that these bases would defend them. But this has not been the case. In fact, they have invited an attack from Iran.

Iran has had a long-term objective of removing the military presence of the United States from the Persian Gulf and it is pursuing that objective in the current war.

Freeman argues that the Iranian campaign plan is to emulate Muhammad Ali’s strategy called ‘rope a dope’. That is, to absorb the opponent’s punches until they are exhausted, and then to go on the attack. Freeman asserts that when hostile Gulf states have depleted their ability to intercept Iranian drones and missiles and to fight effectively, then Iran is likely to retaliate by hitting them hard.

Freeman also notes that the Israelis are taking advantage of this war to seize and annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani River and to turn Dahiyeh in Beirut into a version of Gaza. In this sense, Israel is trying to profit from the general confusion of the war.

False flag operations

Azerbaijan has accused Iran of a drone attack that struck an airport and injured four civilians, raising concerns that the conflict could spread beyond the Middle East.

The strike would be the first Iranian attack on a Caucasus state since the beginning of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said that his regime would “not tolerate an unprovoked act of terror and aggression against Azerbaijan.”

Iran, however, has denied it was responsible for the attack.

In commenting on this situation, Freeman stated that from the very outset of the establishment of the Zionist state in Israel, one of its routine techniques has been false flag attacks. For example, it attacked Muslims in Egypt in order to scare them into leaving Egypt and emigrating to Israel. This was in the 1940s

As for Azerbaijan, Freeman considers the same could be true. He noted that Azerbaijan has had a close military and intelligence relationship with Israel. He said that “it may very well be seen as possible to energise that [special relationship] if the Azeris can be convinced that Iran is attacking them.” Given the circumstances, Freeman said that he suspected a false flag operation.

Notes

A transcript of the first half of the interview can be accessed here.

The full video of the interview can be viewed here.