To understand the military maelstrom of our time, few voices are more authoritative than that of Jesús Manuel Pérez Triana (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1975), a security and defense analyst and editor of several publications that address the interconnections of the wars currently ravaging the world.
What is happening in the Persian Gulf?
The fact is that the US and Israel have chosen this war. It is not a war imposed on them by the Iranians: they entered it and set the moment to attack. But what is clear is that they have no plan to withdraw. Everything depends on Iran's willingness to sit down at the negotiating table and swallow what Khomeini once called "a cup as bitter as poison." In other words, the United States has a series of demands that a month ago were completely unacceptable to the Iranian government, and this entire conflict revolves around Iran adhering to those conditions. Now Iran feels that by not losing, it is winning the war: it is withstanding blows and believes that the regional crisis it is creating could ultimately force the aggressor to seek a quick exit and fail to achieve its objectives. In other words, the search for a balance between a US that imposes conditions by force and a US that finds itself in a region ablaze may lead it to lower its demands and leave this matter merely postponed, delaying a definitive solution.
What are the objectives of Israel and the United States?
First, that Iran renounce its nuclear weapons program; second, that it renounce the ballistic missile technology that allows it to strike from a distance throughout the Middle East and parts of Europe; And third, that it stop supporting irregular groups—that is, guerrillas or terrorist movements that act as pawns and are the lever with which Iran operates in the region: the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq... For the regime, this is completely unacceptable, because it's like clipping the cat's claws, leaving it defenseless. And they understand that, precisely, not having a nuclear weapon puts them in this situation. Unlike North Korea, they are currently being bombed. I think this has created an incentive for them: they need weapons that will allow them to have ultimate deterrence. Furthermore, they understand that there is a regime change operation underway, which makes this war an existential one. In other words, the sacrifices that Iran is willing to make and its will to resist are now greater.
What would it take for Iran to renounce all of this?
It would only be possible if the United States committed to maintaining the status quo. In other words: forget about any initiative to democratize Iran. If Iran guarantees that it will not attack its neighbors, that it will renounce the means and instruments with which it could do so, the US would accept the political status quo. And that would be a major blow to the Iranian population, because they would feel utterly abandoned. They have been promised: "Aid is on the way," President Trump literally said. There is a sense that this operation, deep down, hopes to create the conditions for the uprisings and protests to succeed this time, to generate fractures within the regime.
Are there other options?
That after a harsh campaign of eliminating leaders and inflicting damage, someone within Iran assumes the role of Ayatollah Delcy Rodríguez. That there is a transition, a transformation, some changes, but that a leader emerges in Iran who accepts maintaining the status quo. Thus, the country would not be the target of further attacks, the Iranian political system would be accepted, but it would have to introduce changes. For example, one of the systems the regime uses to maintain itself is to carry out a very thorough vetting process for candidates who can run in elections.
Anything else?
There's another possibility, which would be a regime implosion and a scenario similar to Syria. That is, a faction of the army might declare that it's intolerable, that they are the ones dying so that ayatollahs—because we mustn't forget that the Revolutionary Guard is a state within a state and has a whole apparatus of industries and factories, and some leaders are involved in the real estate sector—can live very well. And let's not forget the separatist groups in Balochistan and Kurdistan.
What would be the worst and best scenarios for the regime?
The worst-case scenario is a series of internal fractures within the regime that generate a crisis and chaos. The most benign scenario is that the United States and Israel realize that what they have started has no easy solution, that there is too much pressure from petro-monarchies, like Qatar, which has halted liquefied natural gas production, that the lack of Iranian oil will cause problems for China and India, and that inflation—filling the gas tank for Americans—will weigh heavily in the lead-up to the midterm elections, forcing them to stop the war. If there is a rushed peace in which Iran makes minimal concessions and the United States continues with the idea of "we must stop nuclear Iran," this would be a step backward, leaving the door open for a third attack.
What can the world learn from this confrontation?
For me, it is no coincidence that Maduro, "El Mencho," and Ayatollah Khamenei have all fallen in three months. I have the feeling that a technological revolution is underway here with the application of artificial intelligence to the world of military intelligence. While there's a lot of stock market hype and ideological speculation surrounding the role of artificial intelligence in the future economy, I think there's one area where it is indeed yielding results, and that's the cataloging, organization, and massive cross-referencing of data. We live in a world where technological means of gathering information—photographic satellites or cyber penetration, as we know has occurred in Iranian systems—generate a mountain of data. And that's leading us to a world where it's possible to pinpoint which building in Fort Tiuna President Maduro is in, allowing for an assault that won't give him time to hide in the panic room. For years, drug cartel leaders have been running rampant in Mexico, and it's been little more than a year since the United States declared a new global war on terror and adapted those mechanisms and tools to the war on drugs. And in that same year, we have the result: the leader of Mexico's deadliest and most powerful cartel is captured in a safe house where his lover had gone to visit him. It's important to understand that this isn't just a Mexican cartel, but an organization with global tentacles, as demonstrated by the arrest a few months ago of the person responsible for its attempt to establish itself here. And now, the leader of Iran, a country that had been in Israel's sights for months, falls on the very first night. What's more, the conflict begins because they locate him.
There's a pattern there.
And not only the supreme leader, but also the Minister of Defense, the head of the strategic missile forces, the head of the special operations forces... There have been 40 Iranian leaders who have been eliminated very quickly. And this not only allows us to speculate about the deep penetration of Israeli intelligence services in Iran, but I'm beginning to suspect that this has to do with this revolution in the way artificial intelligence is producing results.
There's a story circulating—I don't know if it's true—that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad created a unit against Mossad...
Yes, and shortly afterward he came out saying, "This can't go on; we created an intelligence control unit specializing in hunting Mossad spies, and then we discovered that the guy running it was a Mossad spy." When he said "Mossad spy," it could mean two things: one, that he was someone who had risen through the ranks, which would mean having a sleeper agent there for a long time; or two, simply that he was an agent who switched sides.
Incredible.
We have to consider the enormous discontent within the regime—this is said quietly; people with access to contacts within the Revolutionary Guard itself speak of a widespread feeling that things have to change. That doesn't necessarily mean the regime will fall. But there are relatives of people who have been executed according to the most arbitrary and despicable criteria the regime has employed. This is especially noticeable in the case of athletes, not only because of their public profile, but also because they are role models for their virtues, and yet they have been punished simply for making a statement or a gesture. And if this has happened to people with a public profile, what is happening to poor farmers, civil servants, and others? Within this resentment against a regime that has defended itself like a blind giant, lashing out and knowing that terror is a way to quell a protesting population, enough grievances have been generated that Israel no longer only has to infiltrate an Israeli spy with a false passport, but can easily recruit many members of the security and intelligence apparatus.
What echoes does this conflict evoke for you?
Although the situations are quite different, there's a parallel with Venezuela. And that's the perception the people have: "We tried at the ballot box and it wasn't possible; we took to the streets and suffered deaths." Because in both countries, beyond the cultural, political, and social differences, these same phenomena are occurring. This leads a sector of the population to say: we've gone as far as we could, and what's needed here is an external element. The problem is whether it's possible to democratize by bombing. Because in Maduro's case, a leader was removed from the equation knowing there was a replacement. Here it's more complicated. First, because there have been, in a jocular and even worrying way, voices from the United States speculating about who could be the pragmatic leader with whom to sign an agreement... when they had surely killed him in one of their attacks. If you eliminate the person with whom to sign a peace treaty, peace will be delayed. And then you're cornering the regime.
What would have to change?
Things need to happen on the ground. There needs to be an internal fracture within the regime. The shameful secret of every revolution is that it succeeds when a part of the security apparatus accepts that everything has to change, and there's a negotiation in which everything changes so that everything stays the same. That is, there's a moment when a general or a minister picks up the phone and orders tanks into the streets, and there's a police chief and an intelligence chief who say no, that they're not going to kill their fellow citizens. The regime has always known this and has always had a double-edged system. There are the armed forces, the 'Artesh,' and there are the Pasdaran, which has land, sea, and air forces, special operations forces, and strategic missile units. It's like a deeply ideologized secondary army, which also has a reserve force, the 'Basij,' to assist the Pasdaran in case of war and also for public order duties. Therefore, if the army falters, the regime has a whole backup security apparatus. And we would even have to see fractures within that backup army for anything to happen. And we haven't seen that yet. We are now in phase two of the bombing; launch sites have already been destroyed, there has been a brutal drop in missile launches by Iran, and now we will see more and more attacks on military installations, torture centers, secret service headquarters... There has to be a weakening of the security apparatus, and there have to be elements within the police and intelligence services that renounce repression. Then things will happen.
What consequences of the war will we see in Spain?
Approximately a quarter of the world's traded oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. And it's not just about oil and liquefied natural gas. Spain is a country that invested not only in a gas pipeline from Algeria but also, when the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2022, claimed there was no problem, since it doesn't rely on pipelines but rather on ships carrying liquefied natural gas: between 5 and 10% of the natural gas consumed in Spain comes from Qatar. Now, alternative suppliers will have to be found. Fortunately, Spain has them... like the US. But, well, what's happened in the US? What the average citizen will notice is, first, a rise in gasoline prices; second, that supermarket shelves are being filled thanks to enormous trucks arriving with everything, which will increase transportation costs and, consequently, the cost of groceries.
Now that you mention it, what do you think of Pedro Sánchez's behavior toward the US regarding this military confrontation?
My personal assessment is that President Pedro Sánchez uses foreign policy issues for domestic purposes. He makes statements and adopts positions that win him the sympathy of his electorate, who rally around the leader's banner. Just as he did when he proclaimed that he was confronting Israel. Because when you create a conflict abroad, anyone who opposes you is a traitor. You're not even going against the opposition party, but against a country. This also generates sympathy for him abroad. For example, in Turkey. And perhaps that benefits us Spaniards if we go on vacation to Turkey and get a pat on the back. But this enmity and confrontation that he seeks out on the international stage have an impact. We have repeatedly seen that the president takes positions on foreign policy and only later analyzes the domestic effect.
Can you give an example?
The Spanish Armed Forces possessed a great deal of Israeli technology, and only after the conflict with Tel Aviv did anyone stop to consider the sheer number of systems and devices that would cease to function because we wouldn't receive updates and spare parts. And now we have to throw away a lot of things, like the Spike anti-tank missiles, to make a shoddy solution, because they're going to buy Spike missiles manufactured in the Czech Republic. And since they're made in the Czech Republic by a company with 25% Israeli capital, they're now selling the idea that they're Czech missiles. The same thing is happening with the tactical radios. It seems that the consequences of confronting the United States haven't been properly assessed, a country with which, regardless of the sympathy or antipathy we may feel toward its president—and there is clearly an element of irrationality and exuberance in his behavior—much more caution is required. Furthermore, in this crisis, it was very easy to remain neutral. There aren't any bombers taking off from Spanish bases, only logistical flights. It was easy to make no statement whatsoever, to tell the United States that we wouldn't allow offensive flights to take off from Spain, which wasn't happening. There were many ways to avoid conflict.
What does war reveal about human nature?
Technology evolves, but the same human passions of pride, honor, and revenge that we found in classical Greek literature remain. And when you see how the United States speaks to and addresses Iran, you have to understand that it's not only carrying out military aggression, but also treating it in a humiliating way. And all that will do is harden the regime's position and corner it. This demonstrates that, beyond the difference between bronze helmets and drones, human nature contains a series of feelings, passions, and thoughts that are eternal. In the case of the United States, I would say that we could identify what it's experiencing with a sentiment that comes from Greek culture: 'hubris'.
How will we wage war in the future?
Before, there was a unipolar world, with a single global superpower. We might have considered that better or worse, but there was an asymmetry of power in which the United States acted as the global policeman. That has completely broken down in the multipolar world. We see a US in retreat, trying to close ranks in Venezuela and Iran so it can focus all its resources on China. And this multipolar world is far more unstable and violent because we are seeing regional actors realize there is no longer a global policeman to restrain them. That is why Turkey is invading Syria, why Azerbaijan is eliminating Nagorno-Karabakh, why we have seen ever more disasters of war in Sudan and Libya, while the world looks the other way. This is happening at a time of technological acceleration. Sooner or later, that acceleration will fall into the wrong hands. And it will make war even more dangerous.