VUCA

The acronym has been in wide use in corporate planning for some time now. VUCA condenses the four characteristics of the present business environment: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

These characteristics apply to the present geopolitical environment as the world appears to stand on the precipice of a major conflagration. There are many flashpoints, the most urgent of them must be the Middle East.

Last Wednesday, two suicide bombers detonated explosives close to the tomb of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in southern Iran on the fourth anniversary of this death. An estimated 200 people were killed and many more injured in this attack. This is the deadliest attack in Iran since the 1979 Islamist revolution installed a hardline theocracy in power.

Suleimani commanded the dreaded Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and considered the second most powerful man in that country after the Supreme Leader. He was killed in a targeted drone attack near the Baghdad international airport. The strike was on orders of then US president Donald Trump.

Tehran immediately launched a suicide attack in the city of Kerman on Israel and the US, vowing revenge. Shortly after Tehran cast blame on Israel, however, the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the bombing – even naming the two “martyrs” who undertook it.

The IS is rooted in the Sunni branch of Islam that considers the Shia Muslims heretics. The IS statement claiming responsibility for the bombing criticized the “polytheists,” referring to the Shia devotees. The faction undertook terrorist actions in predominantly Shia Iran over the past years.

This terrorist attack in Iran adds yet another wrinkle to the already complex geopolitics of this region, opening up the line of fissure between the two traditions of the Islamic faith.

Just hours before the bombing attack in Kerman, Israeli drones assassinated a top Hamas leader in Beirut. The target of the attack, Saleh al-Arouri, was a leader of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. He was killed along with five of his close associates in a precision attack that did not injure any civilians nearby. This is considered a major loss for the Hamas. The entire Israeli incursion in the Gaza Strip aims to completely dismantle the Hamas infrastructure.

Shortly after the Beirut drone attack, Israeli forces in Gaza used a drone to kill Mamdouh Lolo, one of the top leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This militia faction is closely allied with Hamas.

The Beirut attack, in particular, raised the possibility of a new war front for Israel. The Hezbollah, a powerful radical armed movement rooted in Palestinians residing in southern Lebanon, promised to exact revenge for the killing of al-Arouri. The Hamas leader lived in a part of Beirut considered to be a Hezbollah stronghold.

There have been continuing skirmishes and exchanges of artillery fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces over the formal border between Israel and Lebanon. The Hezbollah, armed by Iran, basically holds political power in Lebanon. All the other political groups in this forsaken country have been overshadowed by the powerful and radical militia group.

Tehran is believed to have been egging the Hezbollah to scale up hostilities with Israel. But with US naval forces nearby, the radical militia has been reluctant to invite a full-scale war with Israel. Its shrill rhetoric has not been matched by proportional mobilization of its armed followers.

Meanwhile, other armed factions believed to be acting as proxies for Iran in Syria and Lebanon have been firing missiles at US forces in the area. The Americans have responded with force, bombing militia camps and arms caches in the two countries.

Turkey, for its part, has been shrill in its denunciation of the Israeli incursion into Gaza. This despite the Islamic country being a member of NATO. The Erdogan government in Ankara has designated itself to be some sort of leader of the Islamic world.

In the Red Sea, aircraft from a US carrier sunk three boats and killed ten Houthi rebels who were attempting to board a large commercial vessel. The Houthis, pressed by Tehran, have been firing missiles at Israel to no avail. They have boarded and overpowered one commercial vessel in the Red Sea and threatened commercial shipping in the strategic strait. As a result, some large shipping companies have decided to reroute their ships around Africa to avoid the threats.

The US and Britain, along with a few other nations, have sent warships off Yemen to protect commercial shipping. To date, however, they have desisted attacking Houthi bases for fear of upsetting the delicate ceasefire between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. When the situation there was hottest, Houthis started firing missiles at Saudi oil refineries.

In the face of escalating Houthi activity in the Red Sea, however, it has become likely that US and British forces could take military action to disable Houthi capacity to threaten commercial traffic in the Red Sea.

All the seething tensions in this part of the world magnify the significance of the war in Ukraine. This confrontation pits the NATO countries with Russia.

This week, Russia has placed orders for ballistic missiles produced by Iran. This complements North Korean ballistic missiles that the Russians have begun using in their bombardment of Ukrainian cities. In addition, Moscow is now offering citizenship for anyone willing to fight for Russia – although it is not clear how many might be attracted by that.

At any rate, Russia’s need for weaponry to continue fighting in Ukraine strengthens the unseemly alliance between Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang.