- Karine Alexandrovna, why has the Middle East exploded right now?
- Since the global crisis, the crisis of Pax Americana and the previous paradigm of globalization has finally arrived, and the point of no return was passed in 2021, it is now clear that in order to maintain dominance, the United States needs to reform its military component — arms production, etc. What are they interested in and what can be the consensus not for life, but for death, in order to maintain U.S. dominance? For the sake of this dominance, it is necessary to buy time in the Old World against a variety of players: China, Russia, India, Iran, etc. In other words, stir up conflicts wherever possible. Create problems to buy time. The Ukrainian conflict also refers to this. So nothing personal, as they say.
As for Hamas, I make the assumption that the British, knowing about this scenario, were somewhat hasty and decided to take matters into their own hands. And in this sense, the British have more ties with Turkey, with the «Muslim Brotherhood», with Hamas, and more agents in these entities. So, from my point of view, they simply tried to seize the initiative associated with the scenario of so-called managed chaos, thus making the Americans dependent on these situations somewhat earlier than the Americans themselves would have liked.
- How will things develop further in the Middle East?
- It is very difficult to predict now in this fight, because it is not quite clear how the larger actors will be involved in this situation. I mean Turkey and Iran. Turkey is ready to send its peacekeepers to Israel, to stand on the line of demarcation and has already agreed with the United States on this, on the one hand, and on the other — the «Turkish street» and Erdogan’s speech at Ataturk airport. That is, it is not quite clear how this situation will be resolved further. Turkey claims to be a peacemaker who can regulate the situation and thus strengthen its position in Israel and Palestine. How will the situation develop further? Will Israel agree to a Turkish peacekeeping mission? It will be interesting. It’s hard to predict. So far we don’t see it. On the other hand, negotiations are going on, and there seems to be some sort of agreement. We’ll see.
- Is there a religious background to the events taking place in the Middle East, and isn’t it time for the fulfillment of John the Apostle’s prophecies about the Al-Aqsa Mosque?
- Let’s reason calmly and intelligently on this subject. I would say the following. There is no political and economic power on earth, no authority as such, without sacred grounds. Another question is how to interpret and project these sacral grounds on the events actually taking place before our eyes. This is a very serious question. We cannot discount what you have mentioned here, but we must not forget that every religious doctrine has its own political component. It is present in Orthodoxy and Islam.
And we see, if we talk about Islamic madhhabs, that, for example, the Shiite madhhab denies the possibility of creating a caliphate, i.e. a confederation of Muslim nations — a globalist confederation with supranational power. They are supporters of the nation-state theory. In this sense, we agree. Our Orthodox doctrine, on the other hand, assumes that the Church, that is, you and me, is inside the empire. The empire can only be Christian and Orthodox. We have stopped claiming to be a project with supranational power. The project «Moscow — the Third Rome», in which we would act as such an authority, as Andrei Devyatov believes, has failed. And so far we have not developed our own projection of a modern value project — a political and power project. These are all very complex points — we need to understand specific orientalist and not only orientalist religious doctrines, and this information, and the projectivity that emerges on the basis of these doctrines.
I would not try to make direct projections of the Apocalypse level of the Revelation of John the Apostle. They may turn out to be wrong. There is a certain phasing here. I do not deny this possibility. It is a huge work. Whether it is carried out by the relevant experts of Orthodoxy, I do not know.
- How do you assess the year 2023, and what is your forecast for the next year?
- The points of no return (worldwide, on the globe) were passed in 2021. 2022 is the beginning of the special military operation. The continuation of these events is a complete reformatting of the world and a very specific, as someone calls it, World War III. That is, the aggravation of situations in very different parts of the world. And if we look at the globe, we see that basically all events are taking place in the Old World. I see a continuation of these events: rate hikes, the US rushing around, fighting to preside over this controlled chaos, as they see it, in the Old World. Conflicts will be stoked point by point and somehow chaotically. Events in the Middle East — and then the airport in Makhachkala. It may burst out in Central Asia — Southeast Kazakhstan, Fergana or somewhere else. Everyone misses and throws out of these scenarios the events that took place in Karabakh and are now taking place in the South Caucasus, although they are links of one chain and parts of one scenario. Or the tension that may arise in the Baltic Sea. All this is aimed at undermining the trust in the Russian authorities both on the external and internal contours of Russia. And this can happen in a collapse. As we know, water sharpens stone. Because Russia’s reputation in the Near and Middle East after the events in Transcaucasia has not clearly, but judging by the consultations that are being held, fallen. The possibility of building strategic relations and long-term cooperation is still in doubt, and this is not related to sympathy for the Armenian side and the events in Karabakh. It was Russia that provided security there. And what happened, just happened. And it happened radically, which strengthened the position of the Turkey-Azerbaijan tandem. This was followed by opening of NATO center in Kazakhstan, which is actually Turkish, although it was opened by the American ambassador. The CSTO, an organization created on Russia’s initiative, where Russia is the most powerful member, is already falling apart. So far we have no answers to this. That is, the events in the Transcaucasus have triggered a sluggish «domino effect».