A Brief Geo-Political Audit of West Asia on the Two-Year Anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood, 7 Oct

Alastair Crooke, 17 Oct 2025

First, the wider context:

· A doctrine of promoting US ‘dominance’, based on US military and market unstoppable ‘power’, has given rise in Trump 2.0 circles to a zeitgeist that not only discounts fears of war, but rather imposes the US striking out, whether rhetorically or literally, in multiple directions -- principally because the unidirectional war on Russia unexpectedly has failed. And time is running out on America’s deficit and debt crisis.

· Most visibly, this has resulted in ramped pressures on Russia; threats against Venezuela; export controls on China; and preparations for strikes on Iran.

· Israel’s open wars across the region which parallel the Trumpian belligerency are not over: US Envoy Tom Barrak (quoting Netanyahu) has said: “Israel does not believe that what it has done against Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis will be complete -- until the head of the snake in Tehran is cut off”.

· Furthermore, a crisis of de-dollarisation or a bond market blow-up -- juxtaposed with pushback by China and Russia -- is widely viewed in the US as an existential threat to Trump’s political viability.

· Russia and China are responding decisively to the US new policy doctrine: China’s new ‘rare earth’ controls affect the entire semi-conductor supply chain from ASML to TSMC. Not just that, but controls on machines for processing rare earths, high performance batteries and cutting tools for chips are included. If aggressively enforced, these actions threaten to pop the US AI bubble, which could crash the highly leveraged US stock market.

· Russia too has seen the writing on the wall: The Alaska summit has borne no fruit, to date. The prospect is now one of escalation, as Trump searches for leverage.

A Brief Second Anniversary West Asia Balance Sheet --