Clarity
The Closing Window
The Closing Window: Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing
How America’s Iran Strategy Will Shape the World Order
By Elie Nammour
The week of February 8th represents far more than another round of US-Iran negotiations. It is the fulcrum upon which three interconnected geopolitical crises pivot: Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia’s war in Europe, and China’s designs on Taiwan. What happens between February 13th and March 2nd—before Purim begins —will reverberate across capitals from Moscow to Beijing, fundamentally reshaping the emerging trilateral world order.
Following talks in Oman mediated by the Omani foreign minister, the diplomatic posture from both Washington and Tehran reveals a familiar pattern: bluffing, posturing, and seeking domestic political wins rather than substantive compromise. Neither side has shifted its negotiating position. Iran remains intransigent on ballistic missile limitations, proxy support, and enrichment levels. Meanwhile, American military deployments to the Middle East theater tell a different story—one of integrated defensive and offensive capabilities designed to neutralize Iranian retaliation from multiple vectors.
The Khamenei Calculation
For Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the current moment recalls 1988, when his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini accepted a ceasefire with Iraq—a decision that saved the regime but left deep scars on revolutionary ideology. Khamenei views that concession as necessary but humiliating. Today’s stakes are higher: surrendering key components of Iran’s deterrence concept, particularly its ballistic missile program, appears more dangerous to regime survival than military confrontation itself.
This calculation explains Tehran’s simultaneous diplomatic engagement and preparation for regime defense. Reports indicate Iran is developing plans to restrict international internet access to only trusted regime supporters—a digital lockdown designed to prevent spontaneous protests. Since at least August 2025, the regime has been overhauling Iran’s digital ecosystem: blocking foreign platforms, banning circumvention tools, and enforcing reliance on state-approved technology at every level. The message is clear: Tehran anticipates upheaval and is preparing accordingly.
The recent demonstrations of December and January, which resulted in thousands of deaths under Khamenei’s direct orders, demonstrated both the regime’s fragility and its willingness to employ maximum brutality. Any deal—whether limited in scope or comprehensive—cannot restore stability or return Iran to the status quo ante. The underlying contradictions remain unresolved.
The Military Option: Shock and Awe Redux
US military preparations speak louder than diplomatic communiqués. Current deployments link defensive assets at American bases with offensive capabilities across sea, land, and space—creating integrated coverage against potential Iranian missile retaliation from inside Iran or proxy forces in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and beyond. The deployment of Iraq’s 9th Brigade to the Green Zone protecting the US Embassy represents just the visible tip of this strategic architecture.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announced visit to Washington on February 11th—the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution—carries symbolic weight and operational significance. Netanyahu previously bombed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah while attending the UN, demonstrating his willingness to strike during diplomatic moments. His February 11th visit signals potential coordination with Washington, possibly reflecting the Trump administration’s ‘take the win’ faction willing to settle on the nuclear dossier alone.
Should diplomacy fail (the very likely outcome), a rapid ‘shock and awe’ multi-days campaign would unfold with devastating efficiency. The sequence: Tomahawk cruise missiles erasing fixed nodes C2 and AD in first hour strikes, F-22 and F-35 fighters creating aerial corridors and achieving air superiority within a fast tempo, followed by strategic carpet bombing from B-1B Lancers and B-52’s. Israeli operations would focus on total degradation of Iranian military infrastructure, erasing survival options triggering regime change likely but not compulsory. A regime without leadership, military teeth, economic vitality, nuclear enrichment, or organizational capacity becomes a totalitarian broken shell destined for collapse and replacement through internal bleeding shakeup.
The Russia Connection: Europe’s Off-Ramp
The Iran crisis cannot be separated from the Ukraine conflict and the Post-Maduro Venezuela. The United States has secured a six-month gentleman’s agreement with Russia not to alter New START after its expiry, buying time to negotiate a stronger nuclear framework that also delivers an end to the European war. Delineation is occurring through sequential meetings in Abu Dhabi, creating the architecture for a Donbas off-ramp for Putin.
Trump’s calculus is elegant in its ruthlessness: demonstrate American capability to neutralize two hostile regimes (Iran and Venezuela) in fewer than two months, managing both aftermaths simultaneously. This display of raw power sends an unmistakable message to Moscow—accept the off-ramp to European peace and gradual detachment from vassal status to China, or face comprehensive strategic defeat.
The pressure on Ukraine to exit Donbas is not merely about ending the conflict. It establishes the template for resolving great power competition through managed territorial adjustments rather than unlimited warfare. Putin receives his off-ramp; Ukraine gets serious guarantees, Europe receives peace; and Washington demonstrates the capacity to impose order.
The China Dimension: Taiwan’s Cyprus Moment
Beijing is watching Iran and Ukraine with intense focus. President Trump’s scheduled April visit to China represents the culmination of this three-front strategy. The message to Xi Jinping will be clear: accept delay of the 2027 Taiwan invasion timeline in exchange for a novel solution—perhaps modeled on Greenland or Cyprus base arrangements applied to Kinmen or Matsu islands.
Pressuring Taiwan to renounce partial sovereignty over limited parts of Kinmen could achieve multiple objectives simultaneously: demonstrating to China that Washington can deliver Taiwanese concessions, establishing a precedent for managed territorial compromises, and creating breathing space for a broader Indo-Pacific security architecture. Two birds with one stone: peace in Europe through Ukrainian concessions on Donbas, peace in the Indo-Pacific through Taiwanese concessions on peripheral islands.
The ultimate prize is a trilateral nuclear agreement between the United States, Russia, and China—stabilizing a dangerously shaken world order through mutual recognition of minute spheres of influence and strategic limitations. But this grand bargain requires American demonstration of both military capability and political will.
The Venezuelan Analogy: Instability Through Chaos to Stability
While not perfectly analogous, Venezuela offers instructive lessons. Instability buffers into chaos before reconstituting as a new stability. The question is not whether Iran’s current regime can survive indefinitely—it cannot. The question is whether transition occurs through managed American military action and subsequent governance of the aftermath, or through unpredictable revolutionary upheaval.
Alternatives to Tehran’s existing power model are being debated thoroughly, but such mechanisms will require extended time to yield novel power structures. Gulf states fear the upcoming turbulence will endanger their financial budgets, cause revenue losses, and risk direct hits disrupting oil and gas flows. Their anxiety is justified but irrelevant to American strategic calculations.
The United States’ true power will be demonstrated not merely by neutralizing the Iranian regime, but by governing the aftermath—establishing a post-Khamenei order that serves American interests while preventing chaos from consuming the region. This requires military victory followed by political architecture-building, combining overwhelming force with sophisticated post-conflict management.
The Message to Moscow and Beijing
The closing window between February 13th and March 2nd represents Trump’s most daring message to both Putin and Xi. To Putin: accept the European off-ramp, detach from Chinese vassalage, and join a stabilizing trilateral nuclear framework—or watch American power projection in the Middle East and recognize that similar capabilities can be deployed against Russian interests. To Xi who expurgated his own generals: delay Taiwan action, accept managed compromises on peripheral territories, and participate in great power equilibrium—or face an America that has just demonstrated its capacity to neutralize regional adversaries with devastating efficiency.
How Washington handles the Iranian challenge will determine whether a trilateral nuclear agreement becomes achievable. Success requires not just military victory but also managing the aftermath, demonstrating to both Moscow and Beijing that American power includes both destruction and construction—both the sword and the blueprint for what comes after.
The world order hangs in the balance. Between February 13th and Purim, the Trump administration will signal whether it possesses the will to reshape global power dynamics through coordinated action across three theaters. Iran is not just about Iran—it is the test case for whether America can restore order to a multi-polar world slipping toward chaos.
The clock is ticking. The window is closing. And the world is watching to see if Washington has the strategic clarity and operational capability to seize this unprecedented moment and deliver a nuclear peace. My bet ?? It has.