Venezuela, Iran, BRICS: The Empire Strikes Back | Dr. Pietro Shakarian

## Intro The recent turn of events in Venezuela has exposed a fracture in the post‑1945 international architecture that many had hoped would endure: a shrinking tolerance for the very rules and norms that once constrained great‑power behavior. The conversation with Dr. Pietro Shakarian unspools this moment as more than another episode of geopolitical brinkmanship. It is a symptom of a deeper shift toward multipolar contestation, where unilateral intervention, coercive diplomacy, and the instrumental use of “rules” have become normalized tools of statecraft. What was presented as law‑based order increasingly looks like a discretionary instrument—applied selectively by powerful states—and that selectivity is reshaping alliances, accelerating strategic convergence among Russia, China, and regional actors, and forcing vulnerable states to reconsider their options for survival. ## US Intervention in Venezuela The Venezuelan operation has been framed by its proponents as a restoration of legitimacy; to critics, it is a raw exercise of power that violates international law and established norms of sovereignty. The conversation treats the intervention as emblematic: it is not an isolated aberration but rather a continuation of long patterns of external meddling in Latin America and beyond. Historical analogues—Bay of Pigs, covert action in Chile, the School of the Americas—remind us that the U.S. has repeatedly used a mix of diplomacy, covert influence, and overt force to shape regimes in its perceived sphere of influence. What makes the current moment distinct is the brazenness and speed with which these methods are employed, and the rhetorical willingness to discard legal covers previously deployed to justify intervention. This matters because interventions carry signals. States watching Venezuela—and especially those that fear targeted decapitation or engineered regime collapse—will draw lessons about both capability and intent. The episode undermines claims that Western behavior is rule‑bound and predictable. Instead it projects a readiness to act unilaterally and to reinterpret legal and moral constraints in service of perceived strategic goals. For regimes in Tehran, Caracas, and other capitals, that perception is as consequential as actual military deployments: it recalibrates threat perceptions and incentivizes deeper alignments with powers that promise protection or strategic hedging. ## Russia-Iran Strategic Relations Russia and Iran are not strangers to each other’s strategic anxieties, but recent months have deepened an already pragmatic partnership into something resembling an insurance pact. Conversations highlighted a December agreement to intensify consultations and plan cooperation over an extended timeframe—terms meant to blunt the asymmetric advantages of those willing to use force or coercive diplomacy. This convergence is about capabilities, geography, and the political message it sends: Moscow and Tehran view their relationship as a bulwark against attempts to fragment the Eurasian nodal points critical to trade, energy, and strategic depth. Iran’s geostrategic position—bridging the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia, and abutting sea lanes critical to global commerce—makes it indispensable to any project that seeks to anchor a multipolar Eurasian order. For Russia and China, a weakened or dismembered Iran would sever connective tissue between their spheres of influence and the burgeoning BRICS axis. The partnership therefore serves a dual purpose: practical military and logistical cooperation, and a political deterrent designed to increase the costs of any external attempt at regime removal. The conversation suggests that Moscow and Beijing may now be less inclined to respect sanctions regimes that they perceive as instruments of coercion rather than instruments of impartial law. ## Protests & Regime Change Efforts in Iran Street protests in Iran are a complex mélange: genuine social grievances born of economic distress and resource scarcity, and external efforts to exploit those grievances as pretexts for political operations. The dialogue stresses that inflation, water shortages, and the strains of long‑running sanctions have produced real social pain that fuels protest. Yet external actors have clearly sought to amplify and instrumentalize unrest—public encouragement from foreign intelligence services and political leaders provides an overt form of psychological warfare aimed at eroding the regime’s will to resist. Two dynamics are particularly salient. First, the authenticity of popular anger does not automatically translate into political outcomes desired by external patrons; domestic legitimacy and organizational depth matter. Second, public boasting by intelligence services about fomenting unrest is not simply propaganda for foreign audiences—it is intimidation designed to psych out adversaries and to normalize intervention as an available option. The resulting calculus in Tehran combines caution with contingency planning: avoid panicked reaction that would alienate the public, but prepare for escalation that could follow a foreign‑supported regime‑removal effort. ## Potential War Scenarios & Strait of Hormuz The conversation mapped the immediate military flashpoints: strikes on Iranian military infrastructure, a campaign against ballistic missile capabilities, and the risk of escalation in the maritime domain—most ominously, the Strait of Hormuz. If air strikes focus primarily on missile systems and command nodes rather than nuclear facilities, Iran’s retaliation would likely prioritize demonstrating the ability to disrupt oil flows and to impose costs on global commerce. That implies a regional conflict with outsized economic repercussions. Strategically, the Strait of Hormuz is both a choke point and a pressure valve. Disruption there would not only drive up energy prices but also compel external powers to choose sides more overtly. The conversation underscores that preemption and counterpreemption logic will dominate decision‑making: states will evaluate whether limited strikes can achieve objectives without provoking broader responses and whether retaliation thresholds are credible. The result could be a brittle equilibrium punctuated by episodic escalation rather than a straightforward, contained military campaign. ## The South Caucasus & "TRIP" Corridor The South Caucasus emerges in the exchange as a linchpin of broader Eurasian connectivity. The so‑called “TRIP” corridor—an axis linking Turkey, the South Caucasus, Iran, and beyond—would be strategically disrupted by any fragmentation of Iran or by major shifts in regional alignments. For Russia, preserving corridor integrity matters because it sustains overland routes that bypass maritime bottlenecks and circumvents reliance on Western chokepoints. At the same time, post‑Soviet states and regional powers worry they will be forced to pick between economic incentives and security guarantees. The conversation brings out the paradox of connectivity: infrastructure and trade links promise prosperity, but they also expose transit states to coercion and competition. As BRICS alternatives to Western financial and trade systems expand, the South Caucasus could see intensified diplomatic activity, duplicative infrastructure projects, and a replay of great‑power competition on a local scale. ## Turkey's Geopolitical Dilemma Turkey occupies an awkward center in these emerging dynamics. Straddling NATO and deepening economic ties with Russia and China, Ankara faces a calculus of competing imperatives: maintain Western security relationships while exploiting opportunities to be an Eurasian pivot. The conversation framed Turkey’s position as pragmatic and transactional—willing to cooperate with multiple sides to preserve its regional influence and to secure economic dividends from transit and trade corridors. However, Turkey’s hedging has limits. Domestic politi

Venezuela, Iran, BRICS: The Empire Strikes Back | Dr. Pietro Shakarian With the "mask fully off" regarding the intervention in Venezuela, I’m left wondering: has the international order officially dissolved into the law of the jungle? As the crosshairs shift toward Tehran, will Russia and China finally shatter the sanctions regime to prevent regime change? To understand if we are witnessing the Soviet-style collapse of the West, I’ve invited back Dr. Pietro Shakarian, a lecturer in history at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan, to offer his analysis from the strategic crossroads of the Caucasus. Links: Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Goods Store: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall. com Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:27 US Intervention in Venezuela 00:07:24 Russia-Iran Strategic Relations 00:16:31 Protests & Regime Change Efforts in Iran 00:20:39 Potential War Scenarios & Strait of Hormuz 00:25:40 The South Caucasus & "TRIP" Corridor 00:36:58 Turkey's Geopolitical Dilemma 00:41:27 The Irrelevance of the EU 00:51:11 2026 Geopolitical Outlook #Pascal Welcome back, everybody. Today we’re joined again by Dr. Pietro Shakarian, a lecturer in history at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan. Pietro, welcome back. #Pietro Shakarian Pascal, it's a pleasure to be on your show once again. Thank you for having me. And Happy New Year, too. Happy New Year to you as well. Happy New Year, yeah. #Pascal Although I must say, it doesn’t start very happily—but that’s what we need to talk about. No, it does not start very happily, no. We’re talking about Venezuela now, but I wanted to speak with you because you actually wrote a piece about Iran and its relationship with Russia. Still, I think what’s happening in Venezuela is probably going to impact Iran quite a bit. Could you give us your thoughts on that? #Pietro Shakarian Oh, I think what happened in Venezuela is a crime—against humanity, a crime against international law. I mean, it's absolutely insane to me. Actually, we can even say that, well, the Iraq War, as terrible as that was, at least Bush attempted to go to the U.N. This is not even—Trump isn’t even -- 1 of 21 -- doing that. Trump is just going out to take out the leader straight up. I mean, this is just atrocious. What can I say? I think—yeah, it's a disaster. And I think it's also a warning to Iran about the real agenda of the Trump administration. Despite the rhetoric we got when Trump was running for election—that “I’m the peace president,” right, “America First,” and “I’m going to have our kind of, I guess you could say, come-home moment,” that we’re not going to have forever wars. Right. He even brought in Tulsi Gabbard into the administration. And by the way, Tulsi Gabbard had condemned these kinds of regime-change attempts in Venezuela earlier. Now what we have is a Trump that’s really—it’s kind of the imperialism. I mean, as he said, it’s “imperialism locked and loaded.” He uses this term with reference to Iran because there have recently been protests there that seem to be, again, drumming up—or you could say softening up—Iran for a new round of conflict with Israel. So that’s what we’re seeing right now. I think it’s completely, I mean, completely atrocious and illegal. And what can you say about that? It’s throwing out the whole international order post–World War II. #Pascal Although I must say, other people made the argument—Peter Labelle made the argument in another podcast yesterday—that, look, the liberals pretending this is the first time ever that the United States has done something against international law is laughable, right? I mean, this is a very old kind of tradition, especially in South America, for the U.S. to just go in and take a massive, you know, drag of law enforcement. #Pietro Shakarian Going back, going back decades, as we know—I mean, I could list you several examples of this. We have the Bay of Pigs invasion, we also have, you know, what happened with Allende, right? The insertion of Mr. Pinochet in Chile. So there’s a long and bloody history. I mean, we also have the School of the Americas, right? So the American history in Latin America—or maybe you could say, to use a frankly right term, Usonian—the Usonian or American record in Latin America is not so bright, as it were. It’s very dark. And with Iran, the implications are very straightforward. If I were watching this in Tehran, I’d be taking notes, because it’s not good. Also—what’s interesting, and I want to mention this really quick, Pascal, sorry, excuse me—is how the so‑called liberal leadership in the EU is praising Trump for this. They say, “Well, you know, this is justified because we never recognized Maduro as a legitimate president.” Okay, well, that’s fine for you. But the problem is, at the end of the day, it’s completely illegal for one country. That’s Venezuela’s business, right? If Maduro is illegitimate in the eyes of some Venezuelans, they can protest, they can, you know, have a new election, whatever. But it's not correct for another country—a superpower—to get involved directly in the affairs of another country. So the EU trying to go through Olympic -- 2 of 21 -- gymnastics to justify what's going on is really quite despicable, and it says a lot about the current state of the EU. To say nothing of what the British are saying—you’re hearing statements coming out of the UK that, well, this is completely justified because it corresponds with the rules-based order. I don’t know what rules-based order they’re talking about. #Pascal You know, it must be very clear: “rules-based international order” is a term that was completely, utterly made up by the Americans. It more or less came into vogue under Mr. Biden. The rules- based international order is not a thing. International law is a thing. And international law—just so everybody’s clear on this—does not require a government to be democratic in order for it to be a subject of international law, to be recognized as another state. International law doesn’t care, doesn’ t really care, how a state is run. Absolutely. So they try to make you believe that this is the case. It’s not. You can be a dictatorship and still be a subject of international law with the same rights as everybody else. This is not to say that we should have more dictatorships—we shouldn’t—but it’s just to point out that Trump and the Europeans at the moment make you believe this, and it’s just not true. #Pietro Shakarian And also, look at the way in which international law—or, I mean, the international order—is being run. We want that now, and increasingly, with multipolarity, we’re having a more democratic kind of world order. And the rules-based order, or at least the interpretation of it—well, let’s be charitable and say maybe the rules are supposed to be international law, yeah? But that’s not the interpretation taken in the United States. The idea of a rules-based order there is that, well, we make the rules, we rule the roost, and we have to enforce our global hegemony over everybody else. Which is not very democratic at all. #Pascal We make the rules and order you to follow them, and we change the rules whenever we want— especially when it’s about ourselves. That’s what it means. That’s what the Trump administration now asserts, and that’s what they do. And that’s just going to be a matter of fact, just as Israel is implementing a genocide as a matter of fact. Absolutely. Absolutely. Other states aren’t dumb; they see this. They now understand, okay, the norms that we at least thought we had to pretend to adhere to, that we at least had to pay lip service to, are all gone. So how does that influence, do you think, let’s say, the Iranian-Russian relationship—and Iran knowing that it’s next on the chopping block and probably, again, chopping from the head, right? The Israelis have been doing this, the Americans have been doing this—they’re going after the head, either by taking them out or by killing them, like with Nasrallah and others. So what do you think these regimes will be doing now? #Pietro Shakarian -- 3 of 21 -- Well, I think that when we’re talking about Iran, we’re really—well, Pascal, we often talk about this idea of regime change. But when it comes to Iran specifically, we’re really talking about regime removal. It’s somewhat similar to what we saw in Venezuela, but in that case, it was really just the removal of one man, because at the end of the day, his government is still there. They’re very angry, and you see people protesting on the streets now in Caracas. But in terms of Iran, the idea for Israel is maybe, you know, first and foremost to remove the Islamic Republic, but then also maybe to substitute it—maybe bring in the Shah’s son, as we know—or to kind of turn Iran into a second Syria, where you have these breakaway republics. I don’t know—in Kurdistan, or Azerbaijan, or any number of places—Gilan, we can go on. But that would be, I think, kind of the idea. It’s not necessarily regime removal, but the idea of making Iran so weak that it cannot pose a threat to Israel. Because Israel’s agenda for the whole region is really that there should be no potential competitor to Israeli military supremacy in the region. That’s really what we’re seeing. And Iran, I think, already understood by the end of 2025 that there was going to be a new round—that Israel was making noise, that this was going to happen. And so what I wrote in this most recent piece on Iran and Russia is that on December 17th, Mr. Araghchi and Mr. Lavrov met in Moscow, and they agreed on, I guess you could say, an insurance policy against these new attacks. It was really meant to help shore up—or, you know, solidify even more—the Russian support for Iran at this moment. Because, as we know, as I mentioned on earlier episodes of your show, Iran is crucial for BRICS, and specifically for Russia and China, because you have to think of it as this great, you know, node. I mean, the Iranian plateau as this great node on—uh, as this great node on, kind of, I guess you could say, you know, the Silk Road, historically speaking—the idea of the One Belt, One Road project. If you look at its position in Eurasia, it connects the post-Soviet south—that is to say, the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia—with, you know, China. It connects Russia with China. It’s in this very strategic position. So if Iran were to be completely destabilized, if it were to become fragmented, if the Shah’s son were to come in and install, let’s say, a pro-Western, pro- Israel, pro-NATO government in Iran, then that would be a huge blow to the security of Russia and China, a huge blow to BRICS, and a huge blow to the rise of multipolarity. So that’s why this is so important for both Moscow and Tehran. What they agreed on, on December 17th, was to intensify consultations between their foreign ministries and to really set the agenda for that over a three-year period. This was a big deal. And if you listen to some of the statements made at the press conference, first and foremost, there was the point about how international law is basically being tossed aside by the United States. The idea is that Russia and Iran are saying, “We’re not going to take this anymore. We’re not going to allow the United States and the West to tear up the international order.” And that includes, by the way, the EU, because the EU attempted to—or actually did—reimpose sanctions on Iran. Russia and -- 4 of 21 -- China were against this. So there’s this kind of assertion that they’re not going to let it happen again, and that the United States should not feel this sense of impunity. That’s the term Aragchi used, by the way—they should not feel the sense of impunity to do whatever they want. And we can clearly see that this sense of impunity has carri