BRICS Kazan Meeting DESTROYS Western Hegemony Once And For All | Dr. Michael Rossi

## Opening Wave: The Strategic Shock of Day One The exchange captured in the conversation presents a striking tableau: within hours of a high‑stakes strike on Iran, familiar patterns of misrepresentation, overreach, and strategic miscalculation became visible. What emerged from the discussion is not just a tally of explosions and casualties but an anatomy of a crisis that threatens to accelerate the erosion of American influence, reshape regional alignments, and expose the fragility of norms that once governed the use of force. This was a war that began in the gray — on the fringes of public verification and inside the vacuum of rushed presidential decision‑making — and the first day already laid bare several durable consequences. The conversation’s participants traced those consequences across military logistics, regional sovereignty, domestic constitutional practice, and the larger political economy of global order. ## Immediate Military and Humanitarian Fallout From the outset the conversation emphasized the blunt realities of war: damage to cities, civilian deaths, and the unpredictability of battlefield facts. The discussants noted reports of significant urban destruction in Iran and, chillingly, a “mistargeted missile” in Minab that killed schoolgirls. Military censorship and information control — especially within Israel — complicate efforts to form an accurate picture, and claims about the fate of Iran’s Supreme Leader circulated in a fog of rumor and counter‑denial. That confusion matters not as mere noise but as an accelerant. When leadership decapitation is alleged — whether true or false — escalation dynamics tighten: assassination claims encourage reciprocal logic, make de‑escalation more difficult, and feed cycles of revenge that can push a conflict beyond control. On the logistics side, the discussants warned about the depletion of U.S. munitions and the limits of the American military‑industrial base. Even a militarily “successful” campaign carries a hidden cost: inventory runs down, readiness frays, and the ability to project force against other contingencies is weakened. Meanwhile, the closure of critical maritime chokepoints — reports of the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea becoming effectively impassable for insurers and commercial shipping — demonstrates how regional warfare can produce immediate global economic shock. Supply chains, energy prices, and the commerce of three continents can be placed at risk in a matter of hours. ## The Credibility Deficit: Diplomacy as Smoke Screen One of the most consequential threads in the discussion concerned the reputation of negotiation itself. The idea that talks were used as a cover for preparing or timing an attack — that diplomacy served as a smoke screen rather than a genuine attempt at conflict resolution — was a recurrent worry. The discussants argued that if adversaries come to see diplomatic engagement as a ruse, the result is predictable: fewer parties will trust U.S. commitments, and negotiation will lose its political utility. This credibility deficit extends beyond a single theatre. The conversation tied the present episode to other recent negotiations that failed to produce peace and sometimes preceded new rounds of violence. The implication is systemic: when an interlocutor’s word cannot be trusted, third parties — states and non‑state actors alike — have an incentive to hedge, to build retaliatory capabilities, or to seek counter‑alliances. The broader repercussion is a harder world for diplomacy and a more militarized one for resolving grievances. ## Constitutional and Domestic Political Implications The exchange placed heavy emphasis on internal American governance. Several participants framed the unilateral decision to use force as symptomatic of a deeper collapse of constitutional order: a president acting without meaningful congressional authorization, mobilizing forces and striking actors abroad on a timetable driven by executive and allied impulses rather than by deliberative democratic institutions. The discussants invoked public‑opinion statistics demonstrating widespread domestic opposition to the war and underscored how executive action that bypasses legislatures undermines the separation of powers. The political landscape inside the United States compounds the constitutional worry. The conversation noted that partisan loyalty in Congress — a “cult” of support — may insulate executives from accountability even as public opinion turns against military adventures. The result is not merely legalistic erosion but a breakdown of the political feedback mechanisms that, in healthier polities, curb foreign misadventure. This domestic dynamic has external consequences: it signals to partners and adversaries alike that U.S. commitments are capricious, and that military option will be used without the filter of democratic consent. ## Regional Sovereignty, Neutrality, and the Gulf Dilemma A central regional theme the conversation returned to was the precarious position of Gulf states and other regional actors forced to choose — publicly or privately — between alignment, acquiescence, and neutrality. The discussants emphasized that governments in the Gulf are often “vassalized” in the strategic relationship with the United States; the populations are not. Popular sentiment in the region, especially after images and narratives of large‑scale civilian harm, makes alignment with Israel or the United States politically toxic. For Gulf rulers, this creates a delicate balancing act: hosting U.S. forces and intelligence infrastructure invites retaliation, while overtly siding with Iran risks severing the U.S. security umbrella. The conversation highlighted how events like attacks on bases in Qatar, Bahrain, and Dubai force Gulf governments into a dilemma. On the one hand, their territory is being used by the U.S. military; on the other, their populations and some elite interests have incentives to distance themselves from a conflict that is catalyzed by an outside power’s choice. The discussants suggested that some Gulf states may quietly seek insulation from escalation through back‑channel talks with Tehran — a trend reinforced by recent rapprochement initiatives, including mediated Saudi‑Iranian normalization. The message to Washington is stark: overreliance on military guarantees without sensitivity to local politics can undermine long‑term partnerships. ## Gray‑Zone Warfare, Reciprocity, and the Rule of Law The conversation repeatedly invoked “gray zones” — conflicts fought under thresholds of formal war where deniability, misinformation, and asymmetric methods dominate. This incident exemplifies that pattern: assassinations, covert strikes, proxy attacks, sanctions used as instruments of coercion, and ambiguous claims about nuclear activities. Gray‑zone tactics make it difficult to apply conventional legal frameworks or moral clarity, and they reward actors who can manipulate ambiguity. Yet reciprocity remains a blunt instrument in that space. The discussants observed that when a state resorts to targeted killings or surprise military strikes, it should expect reverberation. Those with fewer conventional means repurpose civilian platforms, proxies, and regional alliances to inflict political and material costs. That logic — the “mafia” rule of retaliation — attenuates conventional deterrence and raises the stakes for escalation every time one actor seeks to demonstrate asymmetric advantage through targeted force. ## Geopolitical Reconfiguration: BRICS, China, and the Waning of Hegemony Beyond immediate military and regional calculations, the discussion connected the crisis to longer‑term shifts in the global balance. China’s diplomatic brokering in the region, the expanding membership of BRICS, and the greater willingness of states to pursue alternatives to the U.S. security order were seen as significant trends. The conversation suggested that rapprochement a

The Iran War: Day 1 | With Michael Rossi & Chas Freeman Updates on the US-Israeli War with Iran #Pascal Welcome, everybody, to another livestream and update about what’s happening in Iran. I’m very, very pleased and grateful to be joined today by two wonderful analysts and one former diplomat — Ambassador Chas Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Assistant Secretary of Defense back in the 1990s. Ambassador Freeman, welcome. We’re also joined by Michael Rossi of Rutgers University, who teaches political science there. Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you, Pascal. #Chas Freeman Good to be with you, Pascal. #Pascal Well, thank you for doing this. Maybe let’s start with you, Ambassador Freeman. This new war with Iran is not even a day old yet. What do you make of it, and what have you learned over the course of the day? It’s now 8 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast, and the whole affair started around 1 a.m. this Saturday, your time. #Chas Freeman Yes, it’s too early to really tell much about what’s happening. This is the opening round in what’s clearly going to be a war of attrition. There are several obvious points to it, I think, that have been made by the U.S. military—apparently not persuasively, because the president went ahead and did this. First, whatever the outcome, it will greatly deplete American stocks of armaments and munitions relevant to other challenges, and therefore it will weaken the United States. Second, we’re already seeing the severance of east–west communications. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Insurance companies will no longer insure ships going through there, which ensures that they won’t try to break the blockade. The Houthis are back enforcing a blockade in the Red Sea, apparently. So both the Persian Gulf— through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for about 20% of the global oil supply—and the Red Sea, as the passage from Asia to Europe through the Suez Canal, are closed. Third, of course, military censorship is in place in Israel, which means there’s no reporting on what damage is being -- 1 of 16 -- done there. We know that in the June so‑called 12‑day war, about 480 buildings were destroyed in Israel. There’s a *Haaretz* editorial today that mentions this, though not the figure. And many Israelis are still homeless as a result of that. Here we go again. So we know there’s damage in many cities in Iran, and that an apparently mistargeted missile in Minab, in southern Iran, killed a lot of schoolgirls. We’ve seen claims from President Trump—though not quite from Prime Minister Netanyahu—that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is dead. Netanyahu said there were indications he was dead but didn’t claim he was. The Iranians have denied that and said he’s very much still in command. So there’s a lot we don’t know. We’re going to have an opportunity to find out a great deal more in the coming days. And I think it’s fair to say there are several legacies from this, regardless of what happens. The first is that I don't think anyone is going to be very eager to negotiate with the United States. This is the second time we've used negotiations as a ruse, as a way to distract attention while planning an attack. And the fact is that someone indiscreet in Israel revealed that the time of the attack—the date—was agreed on December 29th, already at Mar‑a‑Lago. These negotiations, as I suspected, have been an empty exercise meant to support a surprise military strike. And that makes it a little more understandable why the Russians are apparently losing enthusiasm for dealing with Messrs. Witkoff and Kushner, who have, to use an American baseball term, a batting average of zero. They’ve entered many negotiations. They’ve produced wealth for themselves and for the Trump family on occasion—at least potentially—but they haven’t produced peace. Not in Ukraine, not in Gaza, not between Israel and Iran, not with Iran and the United States. And so, um, there’s a legacy here of disrepute for the American diplomatic establishment that’s going to last and make it far more difficult for the United States to be taken seriously internationally. Of course, we are taken seriously as a serial violator of international law and as a militarily potent country. Let me just address that last point. If this war ends, as I suspect it may, with the devastation of Israel, great damage in Iran, and some serious American losses, we’ll see a loss of prestige. That is, prestige is the shadow that power casts, and it's a very important element of leverage internationally. We’ll see a reduction in that for the United States military. Even if the U.S. military is successful, we’ll nonetheless, as I indicated earlier, see a reduced capacity due to shortages of munitions and other weaponry, which reflect the decay of the American military‑industrial base. So all this is not good, and it, one way or another, promises to increase the danger of war. I guess I should say one last thing, and that is that the American objectives in this war, for a long time, were unclear. There was a whole laundry list—one being to stop the so‑called nuclear program, which the intelligence agencies have never verified to have existed. In fact, they've been quite sure that it didn’t. So it’s a fiction, like Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program, which led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Second, there was the need to respond to protests that the Secretary of the Treasury claimed credit for instigating through the collapse of the Iranian rial, which impoverished huge numbers of Iranians and brought them into the streets—where, -- 2 of 16 -- reportedly, 50,000 Starlink receiver sets were in place to coordinate the escalation of the protests into riots and violence. Third, that Iran has developed a formidable deterrent in the form of its missile force, and that should be eliminated. So we’ve been saying in these negotiations, apparently, “You must eliminate your defense capabilities, or we will bomb you. If you do eliminate your defense capabilities, well, you’re on your own.” And fourth, Iran has been in these talks because it wants relief from sanctions, which have crippled the Iranian economy and led to the protests and their aftermath. That has not been on offer in these negotiations. What has been on offer is no new sanctions—but even that was phony. So we have a situation in which a series of demands in the negotiations, clearly calculated to make those negotiations fail, has in fact produced nothing but a deception for a surprise attack. I don't think anything good is going to come out of this for anyone. I suspect Israel will regret having put Trump up to this. I suspect Trump is in a box politically. And I think the Iranians are once again suffering the consequences of the dynamic I’ve just described. I’ll stop. #Pascal Yeah, thank you very much for this assessment. And Michael, I'll let you react to it. I just want to point out that we’re being told that Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, is apparently dead. I mean, this is now making the rounds on Twitter and in the establishment media. #Chas Freeman Let me interrupt. He’s been declared dead on at least six previous occasions by the Israelis. I think the Iranian government has denied that he’s dead and said he’s still in charge. I think it’s an open question. Anyway, here’s a question: if the Supreme Leader is dead as a result of an assassination attempt carried out through a military attack, what’s wrong with trying to assassinate Donald Trump? #Pascal Yeah, precisely. I mean, why wouldn’t they try to do that? Do you actually think, Ambassador Freeman, that this could be on the cards? Could an assassination attempt on Donald Trump be attempted now? #Chas Freeman Well, it's possible. Of course, there’s been what I think was a false claim that there was already an Iranian assassination attempt on Trump. But, you know, this goes back to the unlearned lesson of 9 /11: if you bomb people, they’ll bomb back. If they don’t have an air force, they’ll repurpose passenger planes as cruise missiles. They’ll find some way to retaliate. Reciprocity is the name of the -- 3 of 16 -- game internationally. So if you have no respect for international law, morality, or decency, and you assassinate your counterparts, you should expect them to follow the rule of the mafia and pay you back. #Pascal And of course, until now, this is exactly what Israel has been doing. It always went after the leadership of its enemies—Hamas and Hezbollah. But this is the first time the enemy is big enough that it could actually try to carry out a successful counterstrike. Michael, what do you think this situation will produce politically, and in terms of war? #Michael Rossi Um, well, I'm glad we waited until the end of the day to talk about this. You know, to paraphrase a famous line from Sophocles, one must wait until sunset to see how splendid the day has become. I wouldn’t dare say there’s anything splendid at the end of this day. But to add a few things to what Ambassador Freeman mentioned—just within the past hour, Iran confirmed the deaths of four of Khamenei’s family members: one of his daughters and a grandchild. As for Khamenei himself, his whereabouts remain unknown. People within his family are denying the rumors that he was killed. And until I get confirmation from Iran itself that Khamenei is dead, I’m going to take all of this with not just a grain of salt, but with a salt mine. The United States and the Israeli leadership have already lied—multiple times. It’s a bold lie to make, if it is one. So we’re effectively, within the first 24 hours, dealing with a lot in the so‑called gray zone. I mean, that’s ultimately what we’re dealing with here. One thing before I get to the issue of assassination and international law: again, gray zone here. Iran has managed to successfully hit a number of American military targets within the Middle East, including Bahrain, where a major radar station was destroyed. Locations in Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and Dubai—we’re seeing pictures of missiles flying over Dubai itself. Various targets have been hit. This raises the question of whether the United States and Israel have bitten off more than they can chew. Or is this something the U.S. was prepared to take as retaliatory strikes—hence the reason there were orders for military personnel to evacuate these bases—as a way of then turning to the willing audience that eats this stuff up? As a way of saying, “You see, Iran is declaring war haphazardly on a number of countries.” And we won’t mention the bases, but we will talk about how Iran suddenly struck Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE, getting all these other countries to possibly join the conflict between the United States and Israel. Images of Dubai—of the Burj Khalifa almost being hit—are going to be played up in Western media as a way of showing the brutality and belligerence of this regime. So this is what we come away with within the first day. I think the other thing we need to take into consideration is that if the so‑called rules‑based order had any credibility up until today, it’s gone. It’s just absolutely gone. You and I had this conversation -- 4 of 16 -- yesterday, Pascal Lottaz, which in a way I’m almost glad we did—because we talked about Russia‑Ukraine yesterday, and I think after today, Ukraine is going to be… well, it’s no longer top news. But we were talking about Canada’s Prime Minister Mackey and the importance of the rules‑based order, to which he automatically stands behind the United States today in its attack against Iran, without any congressional approval—unless you consider the Knesset to be the congressional approval that Trump was looking for. #Pascal Ambassador Freeman, how do you think this is going down now in the United States? I've heard there are protests in the U.S. I mean, Donald Trump, in his speech, even used the word “war.” He said casualties will happen in war. But under the U.S. Constitution, the power to