Subtle messaging at peace-making reeks of self-promotion
Decoding the reports from Tehran about the request of French President Emmanuel Macron to the Iranian leadership to act as a mediator in the military conflict on the territory of Ukraine
By Valentin Yakushik
What is hidden behind the reports from Tehran about the request of French President Emmanuel Macron to the Iranian leadership to act as a mediator in the military conflict on the territory of Ukraine?
First, the planned and mutually agreed “leakage of confidential information” between Iran and France is aimed at gradually forming a stable image of peacekeepers by the leaders of France and Iran, as well as strengthening the real potential of peacekeeping initiatives (for different regions of the world) emanating from these countries. At the same time, the political status of this “leak” contrasts sharply with the status and consequences of the relatively recent “leak” through the French press of information about some details of the telephone conversation of President Emmanuel Macron with his Russian counterpart in February 2022. After that unilaterally sanctioned “leak”, all direct contacts between the presidents of the two countries ceased for several months.
Second, this is an information occasion to draw attention to the importance for the West of cooperation with Iran, in particular, to re-enact the “nuclear deal” with Iran and form the prerequisites for the gradual strengthening of the influence of the pro-Western faction in the Iranian Islamic political system. It should be borne in mind that the current Iranian geopolitical and geo-economic strategy fluctuates between two opposing approaches:
The first approach is that of achieving a moderate mutual understanding with the West with the lifting of the main financial, economic and organizational-political sanctions from Iran and, as a result, a huge increase in the volume of Iranian hydrocarbon exports to the world market. The other is the formation of a broad anti-Western alliance in the transition from tactical and “point” cooperation between Iran and the Russian Federation to multilateral strategic Eurasian cooperation.
Third, in Western Europe and Asia, vast political and economic forces start actively showing their “fatigue” from the most brutal destructive war in the centre of Europe and are ready for a certain cautious confrontation with supporters of uncompromising war till a victorious end.
Fourth, such attempts to find “compromise peaceful solutions” will so far be limited to self-promotion by certain leaders of countries with significant international actorness.
Fifth, in the nearest future (in September-November 2022), there are hardly any real prospects for an immediate cessation of bloodshed and further destruction of the infrastructures of economic life in Ukraine. (Unless a universal tragedy that surpasses the 1986 Chernobyl accident intervenes in politics.) Only as a result of the fierce fighting that is now unfolding in the south, east and north of Ukraine, there will be new attempts made to formulate the conceptual and practical foundations of temporary compromise solutions. But their authors and carriers will be other geopolitical players, of a higher rank.
The author is a political scientist and scholar, based in Kiev, Ukraine.
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