Inklings Of Geostrategic Planning

If you do a web search on any phrase like "map of Russia in 2050" or something similar, you can find dozens of fanciful maps of how former Russian territory might be divided following the collapse of the Putin state. I've posted a few here now and then, and here's another one today. But so far, I've seen very little serious discussion of what any such outcome might actually be, even though every indication is that Russian military capability was wildly overestimated before the current war, while Russia's stockpile of obsolescent weapons and its available military manpower have now been seriously depleted.

In other words, the actual balance of world power is shifting big time as we watch. I've run into are a few early glimmers of analysis. In Foreign Policy yesterday:

For the first time, Iran is involved in a major war on the European continent. Iranian military advisors, most likely members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are on the ground in occupied Ukraine—and possibly Belarus—to help Russia rain down deadly Iranian kamikaze drones on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure.

. . . Tehran’s military support is already making its deadly mark on the war, but the geopolitical consequences extend much further. By escalating its support for Russia’s imperial attempt to subjugate Ukraine, Iran hopes to advance its own imperial project in the Middle East. Tehran will likely seek to leverage the deepening Russo-Iranian partnership into arms deals from Moscow while using lessons learned from the Ukrainian battlefield to perfect Iranian drone and missile capabilities. At the same time, the regime in Iran likely hopes that fueling the crisis in Ukraine will further distract the West from confronting Iran’s pursuit of hegemony in the Middle East. With any luck, however, Tehran’s foray into European power politics could help nudge Washington and its Western allies toward a more robust policy to counter Iran.

Unfortunately, that's about it as far as what the authors have to say on what this might mean, and I would think a bright sophomore majoring in international relations could come up with the same sort of thing. But wait a minute -- this is Foreign Policy, a chin-stroking, furrowed-brow publication that's firmly within the range of politically acceptable discourse. Hasn't the Obama-Biden policy been to tilt toward Iran and away from Israel? Yet at the moment, Iran is allied with Russia against Ukraine, a country we're treating as a NATO ally in all but name. Isn't this a contradiction? The authors don't say, and they don't go anywhere near the implications.

In Forbes on Monday, With Moscow Distracted, Xi Jinping Could Turn China’s Gaze To Russia:

As China’s Communist Party Congress wound to a close, China’s “Paramount Leader,” Xi Jinping, emerged stronger than ever. Granting himself a third five-year term, what remained of any internal opposition was ceremonially ushered out of the room. With Xi’s powerbase solid, the West is taking to the fainting couch, anticipating that Xi’s hardline approach towards China’s territorial ambitions will rapidly crystalize into a military confrontation over Taiwan, a key link in the strategic “first island chain” in the Pacific.

The threat is overstated. Even though Party delegates baked new anti-Taiwanese language into the Communist Party’s constitution, the real territorial temptation for China might be to the North, in the Russian Far East, where hundreds of thousands of ethnically Chinese Russian citizens, trapped in a substantially weakened and hollow dictatorship, could potentially be enticed to reconsider their options.

While there’s no way to know what Xi is thinking, China’s long-established pattern of behavior suggests that, as Russia redirects border security units to a grinding conflict in Ukraine, it is worth considering if China might be mulling expansionist contingencies to the north, along the sprawling and sparsely held 2,615 mile Russian frontier.

Again, that's about as far as the analysis in this piece goes, and like the piece in Foreign Policy and the fanciful map at the top of this post, they're worth what you're paying to read them. But they're raising a basic question that hardly anyone is asking: the Putin state is on the verge of collapse, its military resources are effectively depleted, and as of now, any second-rate power on its borders that chooses to exert territorial claims can do so successfully.

But in addition, some international authority will inevitably be needed to enforce order in any of several possible zones once the Ukraine war is settled and Russia becomes unstable. Some of the fanciful maps put the US in charge in far eastern Siberia; this one has Canada there. Some put China in Kamchatka; this one has Japan. One individual who had remarkable foresight was Edward Harriman (1848-1909), whose rail empire was dismantled under the Teddy Roosevelt administration, only to be completely restored by 1996. In 1899, he sponsored an elaborate expedition to Alaska, the purpose of which nobody has ever been able to discern fully:

Edward Harriman was one of the most powerful men in America and controlled several railroads. By early 1899, he was exhausted. His doctor told him that he needed a long vacation. Harriman went to Alaska to hunt Kodiak bears. Rather than go alone, he took a scientific community to explore and document the coast of Alaska.

He contacted Clinton Hart Merriam, the head of the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy at the United States Department of Agriculture, and one of the founders of the National Geographic Society. Harriman told Merriam that he would cover the expenses of scientists, artists, and other experts who would join the voyage. He asked Merriam to choose the scientific party.

Historians question why Harriman wanted to go to Alaska. Some think he was considering developing Alaskan resources. Some think he was considering building a railroad to the Alaskan territory. Some people at the time openly wondered if he was going to buy Alaska, or build a railroad bridge from Alaska to Siberia — a railroad around the world. Nothing seemed impossible for Edward H. Harriman.

I've read several Harriman biographies, and none comes close to an answer to the question. Harriman worked himself to death before he could achieve many of his plans, but I've always thought it's significant that he had a Russia expert, the elder George F Kennan, as a close associate. My money is on the future maps that list far eastern Siberia as "ceded to US". . . .

So What Else Is New?

The overwhelming news this morning was Pennsylvania US Senate candidate John Fetterman's distressing performance in last night's debate with Dr Oz, starting with his opening statement, "Hi, goodnight everybody!" The conventional wisdom discussed his medical condition, although nobody has yet asked how a clearly robust 53-year-old man could suffer a stroke and what that might mean (I wouldn't rule out white powder). But leaving that aside, what we heard was word salad, whatever its cause. In his case, for instance,

My doctors, the real doctors that I believe, they all believe that I am ready to be served,

or,

I absolutely support fracking. . . . I do support fracking and — I don’t, I don’t, I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.

But how does this differ from Vice President Harris? For instance,

We invested an additional $12 billion into community banks, because we know community banks are in the community, and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community,

or,

Our world is more interconnected and interdependent. That is especially true when it comes to the climate crisis, which is why we will work together, and continue to work together, to address these issues, to tackle these challenges, and to work together as we continue to work operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements, that we will convene to work together on to galvanize global action. With that I thank you all. This is a matter of urgent priority for all of us and I know we will work on this together.

Nobody so far has suggested the vice president has a medical condition. President Brandon, it's been suggested, has cognitive issues, but the question I have is how his version of word salad differs in any significant way from those of either Mr Fetterman or Ms Harris. For instance,

“The pandemic is over,” President Joe Biden declared in a Sunday interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, eliciting enthusiastic head nods from some experts—and panic from others fighting to keep precautions at the forefront of American minds.

The quick quip made headlines. But Biden’s full quote wasn’t so simple, or straightforward.

“The pandemic is over, we still have a problem with COVID, we’re still doing a lot of work on it,” he told CBS’s Scott Pelley with nary a pause, while walking the floor of the Detroit Auto Show—the first in three years because of pandemic precautions.

“But the pandemic is over,” Biden continued. “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everyone seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing, and I think this is a perfect example of it."

or,

President Joe Biden fumbled his words during a Wednesday speech, appearing to say he commuted on Amtrak for 36 years as vice president.

His latest word salad came as Biden delivered an address in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

"I commuted [on Amtrak] every single day for 36 years as vice president of the United States after my wife and daughter were killed, I went home to see my family, never stopped," Biden said.

Or for that matter, Speaker Pelosi:

We saved the planet. We're saving the planet with record $360 Billion to save the planet.

The most credible theory for Speaker Pelosi is that she's usually drunk, and I would tend to agree. But whatever the theoretical causes, the practical results are the same in every case -- these people are all the creatures of their handlers, and they can't even read a straight text from a teleprompter. No matter how carefully they try to brief and cosset their subjects, the handlers must inevitably do after-action cleanup.

It reminds me of the remark by a UK commentator during the Liz Truss debacle: she compared the situation with Truss, Biden, and other world leaders to the chairs around a hotel swimming pool -- the chairs are empty, but people have left their sunglasses and towels on them to show they're taken and at some point, they mean to return. Fetterman, Harris, Biden, and Pelosi are all stand-ins, place holders for the people who actually occupy the chairs.

So far, I haven't seen another commentator who's pointed this out, especially about US figures. Whether the latest instance of a word salad politician causes anyone else to see the light is an open question.

It's Not Nice To Dis The Lizard People

I think we're seeing a puzzling phenomenon, which appears to be a schism within the lizard people. If I apply the sort of populist sociopolitical analysis pioneered by Ferdinand Lundberg and C Wright Mills, the best-credentialed member of the power elite currently in Washington is Secretary of State Antony Blinken, member of a wealthy and powerful upper-class family that's had political influence for at least two generations, but possibly more. His close ally is Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, with whom he has been and continues to be a partner in Pine Island Capital Partners, a "strategic partner" of Blinken's WestExec, a geopolitical consulting firm "comparable to Kissinger Associates".

Although Austin initially implemented predictable Biden policies like enforcing COVID measures in the armed forces and discouraging "extremist" views among members, since Putin's invasion of Ukraine, his near-exclusive focus has been managing US military policy vis-s-vis the Russia-Ukraine War in close concert with Secretary Blinken. This policy seems to be an an evolutionary development of State Department Russian policy originated by the younger George Kennan, an Averell Harriman protege; Kennan's great uncle, the elder George Kennan, had been a Russian adviser to Averell's father, the rail magnate Edward Harriman.

Thus we're seeing at least one faction of the lizard people following the generational pattern that's been analyzed by Lundberg, and in this instance among others, the motive is to follow the money -- and here, I can't disagree. We can complain that the 19th century robber barons got rich, but in getting rich, they inevitably promoted the general prosperity. Indeed, in the best cases, their descendants behaved prudently to preserve the family fortunes in the political environment via figures like Rockefeller Jr and the aforementioned Averell Harriman.

I think Blinken and the faction of the lizard people he represents have similar motives to the gilded-age robber barons, who among other things saw a capability in integrating the post-Civil War South into the northeastern US industrial economy. I think they see the same opportunities in Ukraine, and for that matter Belarus, Kaliningrad, and western Russia, which will be good for them and oh by the way good for the people in those regions. But being lizard people, you'd better not stand in their way.

Thus we see the congressional progressive caucus getting spanked:

'Progressive' Democrats have been slammed for penning an open letter to Joe Biden calling on him to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin.

Thirty left-wing politicians - among them Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar - wrote to Biden on Monday saying that 'direct talks with Russia' to 'seek a rapid end to the conflict' should be his 'top priority'.

. . . That suggestion caused fury in Ukraine, with journalist Anastasiia Lapatina tweeting that 'Russia does not accept a sovereign Ukraine - how many times does this have to be reiterated?'

But they were quickly forced to "clarify":

The Congressional Progressive Caucus on Monday evening sought to couch a statement from earlier in the day requesting that President Biden shift his administration’s policies on Ukraine and start some form of negotiations with Russia.

. . . Several hours after the letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post, was released, the caucus sent a rare follow-up statement intended to fine-tune its original message.

“In a letter to President Biden today, my colleagues and I advocated for the administration to continue ongoing military and economic support for Ukrainians while pursuing diplomatic support to Ukraine to ensure we are helpful partners on efforts to reach ‘a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine,” wrote [caucus chair Pramila] Jayapal.

. . . The initial correspondence was met with skepticism from some Democrats who questioned Jayapal’s leadership and motivation for calling for a new strategy. She sought to tweak her caucus’s stance, reaffirming her commitment to Biden’s foreign policy at a time when the party is facing divides over ideology and messaging on a number of fronts ahead of next month’s midterm elections.

Wait a moment -- isn't the Squad running the show? How can the party be "facing divides"? The story stresses,

The letter comes just two weeks before Election Day as Democrats struggle to find an economic message that resonates with voters.

but I don't think the election is the real issue -- the issue is the agenda, in which at this point the key priority is integrating western Russia and its remaining buffer states into the Western industrial economy. This opportunity arose after the 2020 election, and indeed in some measure as a result of it, when Putin and likely Xi miscalculated over who was running the US. They thought it was Biden.

That was a mistake.

UPDATE: The Progressive Caucus has gone farther and completely withdrawn the letter. I don't believe even Speaker Pelosi could have forced this. It came from whomever is actually running things.

Mirror Image Puzzles

Via the Washington Examiner,

President Joe Biden made good on his promise to host TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney at the White House Thursday.

"I get to sit down with Joe Biden with Now This News, and I get to ask him a few questions surrounding trans issues in the United States," Mulvaney said in a TikTok marking the 222nd day of Mulvaney's gender transition.

Mulvaney, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman, said the purpose behind the interview was to represent the transgender community and wore the transgender flag colors, white, blue, and pink, to honor the community.

. . . The interview is set to air on Sunday.

The odd thing is Mulvaney's utter lack of gravitas (photo above). According to the web,

Mulvaney is well-known for chronicling her firsts as a woman in the “Days of Girlhood” series.

In the meantime, Mulvaney stated in the podcast of the cosmetics company Ulta, “The Beauty of…” with gender fluid celebrity hairstylist David Lopez, that she “wants to be a mom one day and I absolutely can, the narrative still has a long way to go.” she added.

Following the interview, a writer at Red State commented,

Sincerely, after watching Joe Biden’s latest interview, I could only come to the conclusion that our society is in a dark place, and it’s getting darker by the minute.

While people across the country are struggling with their bills and facing increases in violent crime, the President of the United States defended the mutilation of children while being interviewed by a man who believes he’s an underage “girl.”

Well, OK, whatever, but the writer misses an even bigger point, that we're in the home stretch to the November election, and even more critical for right now is that Russia is threatening escalation in Ukraine -- isn't that worth discussing? Transgenderism is a boutique issue even for Biden's base, but beyond that, with many ethnic groups abandoning the Democrats, Dylan Mulvaney rubs Latins in particular, but also many Asians, the wrong way -- just before they vote in key areas like Los Angeles, which may flip, if not specifically Republican, pro-social order and anti-woke.

You'd think that with the US Republican right threatening defection from the administration's Ukraine agenda following the election, Biden might take that on as an issue. It's almost a cliche, an easy call, but why can't Biden apostrophize Putin and the ultra-MAGA types with some tough-guy Ukraine talk? But it's plain that Secs Blinken and Austin have told him to stay out of it. So instead, he interviews with the most unserious, divisive figure possible two weeks before a key election. The story that's been put out is he'll make up his mind about 2024 after the results come in, but I think he's already been told.

But speaking of Ukraine, Kos at Daily Kos cites Russian milbloggers who point out a conundrum there:

GreyZone, the Telegram channel managed by Wagner mercenaries, is really frustrated. It doesn’t understand why, while Ukraine systematically uses HIMARS and artillery to degrade Russia’s military infrastructure, Russia would rather terrorize civilians with drone attacks. “This, by the way, is about the fact that the enemy stubbornly hit the bridge for three months, while we rejoice at the arrivals of [Iranian drones] that do not affect absolutely anything [in the war],” they wrote.

We’ve noted that from the beginning of the war—how key Ukrainian military infrastructure remains inexplicably intact (like the Ministry of Defense building in Kyiv!) while Russia lobs expensive missiles at civilian apartment complexes and playgrounds.

. . . Russia’s refusal to systematically hit key military targets, even [though] it clearly has the ability to do so, is one of the greatest mysteries of this war. What kind of perverted honor code spares some of the most important military targets, yet hits civilian bus stops, busy intersections at rush hour, and shopping malls?

The people in charge in both places are working against their own interests. Or at least, some of them. One faction of lizard people seems to be pursuing the only logical poiicy in Ukraine, and they've successfully cut another faction out of that process -- so the other faction has got Brandon playing footsie with Dylan Mulvaney. On the other hand, I can't remotely conceive of what might be going on in Russia.

The War Is Going To Widen

Via CBS News:

The U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division has been deployed to Europe for the first time in almost 80 years amid soaring tension between Russia and the American-led NATO military alliance. The light infantry unit, nicknamed the "Screaming Eagles," is trained to deploy on any battlefield in the world within hours, ready to fight.

CBS News joined the division's Deputy Commander, Brigadier General John Lubas, and Colonel Edwin Matthaidess, Commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, on a Black Hawk helicopter for the hour-long ride to the very edge of NATO territory — only around three miles from Romania's border with Ukraine.

. . . Skirting northward along Romania's Black Sea coast, the Black Hawk eventually touched down at a forward operating site where U.S. and Romanian troops were pounding targets during a joint ground and air assault exercise.

The tank rounds and artillery fire were real. The drill was meant to recreate the battles Ukraine's forces are fighting every day against Russian troops, just across the border. The war games so close to that border are a clear message to Russia and to America's NATO allies, that the U.S. Army is here.

We may assume that with the CBS reporters riding a helicopter with a general, the visit and even the precise wording of the report were fully approved by the Pentagon, and by extension both Secretaries Austin and Blinken. The president was in Delaware.

Meanwhile, from Gen Petraeus, who seems to be the unofficial spokesman for what has been communicated to Putin via channels, we hear:

Former #CIA director and ex-commander of #US and #NATO forces in Afghanistan David Petraeus does not rule out that a US-led multinational contingent may take part in the war in #Ukraine

— C4H10FO2P (@markito0171) October 22, 2022

The last we heard from Petraeus in this vein, it was to imply that the use of nukes in Ukraine would bring a strong US reaction, and this had been communicated to Putin. Opinion now seems to be that with Russia potentially planning to blow the Nova Kakhova dam as part of its retreat from western Kherson, the resulting flooding would represent a humanitarian disaster worse than a nuke, and by the way a war crime.

It appears that Western elites are more and more uncomfortable with ongoing Russian war crimes in Ukraine, which would include the civilian suffering resulting from destruction of the Ukrainian power grid during autumn and winter. There have been interesting comments on the reddit thread reacting to Petraeus's statement:

NATO intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo. It stopped the wars and forced a peace partly because of the unatable security situation caused in Europe. I think NATO has grounds to do intervene in meaningful way as it could be in the collective best interests of North Atlantic countries. In terms of peace, economics, and regional stability.

. . . Nevertheless, presuming what you are saying is "let's not use that as an excuse to not engage", I'd also like to see NATO members (if not the organization itself) with boots on the ground on a volunteer basis.

Even better would be recent NATO intervention performed at the behest or with the approval of the Security Council such as has happened several times in recent history. But clearly that's not going to happen with Russia in the council.

The question I've had from the start, and I've been raising it here, is that any conceivable end state for the war is going to require international enforcement. Even if Ukraine is able to push Russia back to the pre-2014 borders using only current levels of Western aid, that won't solve anything -- Putinist Russia will simply rearm and stage continuing provocations indefinitely, resulting in an even less tenable situation in Europe than was caused by Bosnia and Kosovo.

I've got to assume the lizard people have figured this out and will move to restore stability sooner rather than later. In fact, I think they've even figured it out by now that a "negotiated settlement" that simply restores a status quo ante February 24 won't work, either. One way or another, NATO will be directly involved. There's going to be a need to get this fixed.

Yeah, He's Already Been Told

Scary clip

BIDEN: "It's my intention to run again."

MSNBC: "Dr. Biden is for it?"

BIDEN: crickets

MSNBC: "Mr. President?"

BIDEN: "Dr. Biden thinks that uh, my wife thinks that uh, that I uh, that, that we're, that we're doing something very important."pic.twitter.com/lPVyEi2kv3

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 21, 2022

When I think back on my corporate career, I remember case after case where the Senior VP, or whatever the big boss's title was, had been told he was no longer needed. At that level, they were never escorted out the door, but it was plain they had only weeks remaining. Still, they were allowed to keep up appearances until the end. But you could read the signs. They didn't show up at the planning meeting for next fiscal year, for instance.

Rhetorically, President Brandon's remarks in the interview linked above give the game away: "It's my intention to run again." Not "Don't be silly, of course!" Instead, after a peculiarly worded question, "Dr. Biden is for it?", silence.

"Dr Biden" had nothing to do with the decision. I'm not sure how it was delivered. My estimate is that Secretary Blinken is the highest-ranking, if not the only, lizard person in the administration, and as I've said, I think he has status comparable to Averell Harriman or Nelson Rockefeller. I also think he's fed up with Joe Brandon, who's proven incapable of speaking from his assigned script, to the point where in the current diplomatic environment he's dangerous.

I would theorize that the decision was conveyed via Mr Klain in impersonal, passive-voice terms, it was delivered recently, and it's final. It's looking like the November elections are going to be worse for Democrats tjhan anyone predicted, and with Republicans in committee roles, Hunter will be a focus. The only way to salvage 2024 will be to remove Brandon as a target. Lame duck status also distances the US from future ill-considered remarks that might otherwise be provocative.

In fact, he did the job he was hired for, which was to get rid of Trump in 2020. The whole Democrat strategy was Götterdämmerung, if the world is about to end, then let's run up the credit cards and enjoy ourselves while we can. But the world didn't end after all, the bills still have to be paid, and they didn't even get rid of Trump.

The awkard silence in the interview came as the big guy relived the moment he was told he wasn't running. He didn't even have the chance to invoke Dr Jill.

The Thing About Zelensky

As I suggested yesterday, the world globalist consensus doesn't know quite what to do with President Zelensky. Leading up to February 24, the conventional wisdom across the board was that Russia would reach Kyiv within days, and the humane option was to offer Zelensky and his circle rides out on C-130s. When he refused to do this, it took policymakers by surprise and created an instant bien pensant consensus in favor of Ukraine, without a whole lot of reflection on what this might imply. Witness just this tweet from last night:

At fundraiser tonight, @POTUS blasted GOP for potentially scaling down aid to Ukraine. “It's a lot bigger than Ukraine. It's Eastern Europe. It's NATO. It's real serious, serious consequential outcomes. They have no sense of American foreign policy."

— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) October 20, 2022

But wait, up to late February, American foreign policy was to offer Zelensky a ride out, wasn't it?

The Associated Press reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected an offer to be evacuated from the U.S. government. Zelenskyy's reply, according to a senior American intelligence official: "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."

At least, we may infer that a ride was what the US officially offered, and a "senior intelligence official" was aware of the reply. I would say that this almost immediately put the US foreign policy establishment in a bind -- in the wake of the disaster in Kabul, they couldn't risk a repeat, at least not so soon. This was the start of a pattern whereby Zelensky could use his charisma and his underdog status to force policy decisions on Western politicians that they were in fact reluctant to make. Months later, the US president has done an effective 180, accusing Republicans of not being with the program:

It's a lot bigger than Ukraine. It's Eastern Europe. It's NATO. It's real serious, serious consequential outcomes. They have no sense of American foreign policy.

But this isn't the only area where Zelensky has been forcing changes. Consider dcevelopments over Iran's new involvement in the Ukraine war vis-s-vis former US Iran policy:

During his initial presidential campaign in 2007-08, Barack Obama repeatedly declared his intention to improve US-Iran relations, and he followed through after taking office. However, President Obama took a different approach than his predecessors. Previous US-Iran engagements maintained the US-stated intention of changing the nature of the Islamic regime in Iran, seeking global improvement on a host of issues, and kept the threat of military force ever-present. . . . Obama sought to assure not only the Iranian people but also its leadership that Washington’s intention was not to alter the nature of the Islamic Republic, but to engage the leadership in Tehran through dialogue and multilateralism. He narrowed the topic to encouraging a behavioral change on the specific issue of nuclear fuel enrichment. The US president’s policy approach to Iran’s nuclear question is the best-applied example of what is now known as the Obama Doctrine.

In 2018, Trump backed out of the Obama nuclear deal, but Biden's somewhat vague intent has been

to get Iran to return to compliance with the technical nuclear aspects of the agreement. The second is to commence additional negotiations on three areas beyond the JCPOA: Iran’s ballistic-missile development, its malign activities in the region, and extending timelines on some aspects of its civil nuclear activities.

But now the US is officially acknowkedging that Iran is directly supporting the Russian side in the Ukraine war:

The White House confirmed on October 20 that Iranian military personnel are in Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukraine, to assist Russian forces in conducting drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure. US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that “a relatively small number” of Iranian personnel are in Crimea to train Russian personnel in the use of unfamiliar Iranian-made drones. Kirby emphasized that “Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground and through the provision of weapons that are impacting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, that are killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in Ukraine” and warned that Russia and Iran will continue to lie about their partnership.

At minimum, this makes the Biden foreign policy prospect of a grand deal on the Middle East brokered with the concurrence of Iran even more remote, but with the radical shift in the balance of power illustrated by the Russian collapse in Ukraine, if Iran comes in on the Russian side, this also lowers its world standing. From the Jerusalem Post:

Iran’s increasing role in backing Russia has increased awareness of Iranian threats. This illustrates that although the Islamic Republic was involved in human-rights abuses in Iraq and Syria, backing Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah, and carrying out attacks all over the Middle East, threatening the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, US forces, Turkish forces in Iraq and others, it is Iran’s role in helping Russia that has tipped the scales against itself.

. . . Iran’s crackdown on protests and its decision to grow closer to Russia, at a time when the West is angered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, appears to be a final straw regarding any appeasement of Tehran. Now, it is clear that Iran’s threats won’t remain in the Middle East and that working with it hasn’t helped. Instead, it empowered Tehran to work with Moscow, which is using Iranian-style weapons to kill civilians in Ukraine.

These developments can all be traced back to Zelensky and his leadership in the war. He's actually had wide-ranging impact on global policy, and I have an inkling that most globalists haven't been very comfortable with him. He's an extremely skilled actor with Ukraine's interests primarily, if not exclusively, in mind, and where these conflict with globalist interests, he won't hesitate to resist, which he's shown he can effectively do.