Iran is the master key that can destroy the entire multipolar architecture that Russia and China have been systematically building over the past 15 years.

Transcript of the intervention of geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar in his latest live stream broadcast on YouTube

Hello, I’m Pepe Escobar, and I’m here from a location I prefer to keep discreet for reasons you’ll soon understand. What I’m about to tell you isn’t just another story about protests in the Middle East. My dear friends, what’s been happening in Iran these past few days is something that will forever change the global geopolitical landscape.

Here I have my cup of Persian tea. Yes, authentic Iranian tea that I followed on my recent travels along the Silk Road. And as I watch the leaves dance at the bottom of the glass, I can’t help but think about the subterranean currents that are shaking the entire world system as we know it.

The most extraordinary story is just beginning, and what no one is telling you will change everything you thought you knew about the Middle East. Because what no Western media outlet dares to reveal—and here comes today’s first bombshell—is that what we are witnessing is not a simple spontaneous popular uprising, but rather the attempted controlled collapse of one of the last key pieces in the grand Eurasian chess game.

And the implications, my God, the implications go far beyond what any analyst in Washington or London dares to even imagine. We are in the first 72 hours of what could become the most significant event in West Asia since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But there is something the corporate media is deliberately hiding, something that changes the entire narrative.

This is precisely where this story becomes absolutely explosive. Because while CNN and the BBC tell us about spontaneous protests for freedom, while The Washington Post romantically glorifies the fighters for democracy, the reality on the ground is infinitely more complex and, let me tell you bluntly, infinitely more dangerous for the future of humanity. Let’s start from the very beginning, December 2025.

The first demonstrations apparently began because of the cost of living, rampant inflation, the same legitimate economic grievances we’ve seen in dozens of countries in recent years. Nothing particularly extraordinary at first glance, right? But here’s the first detail that should set off alarm bells for any serious analyst: military coordination.

In my three decades of experience covering color revolutions from Georgia to Ukraine, from Hong Kong to Belarus, there are certain operational patterns that simply don’t lie. And what we’re seeing in Iran follows the exact same playbook we’ve observed time and time again.

The first irrefutable indicator is the extraordinary sophistication of their communications. Despite the total and absolute internet blackout implemented by the Iranian gov’t last Thursday, somehow mysteriously, the protesters continue to coordinate with near-military precision. How on earth is this possible? you might ask. Well, this is where the first technological element that no one wants to mention publicly comes into play: the smuggled Starlink terminals that have been arriving in Iran for the past six months via routes through Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

But that’s not even the most shocking part of this whole operation. Because there’s something I’ve just confirmed with intelligence sources on three different continents, and this is going to shake the foundations of everything you thought you understood about current geopolitics. It turns out that the protests in Iran didn’t start spontaneously last December.

The logistical preparations began more than 18 months ago, meticulously coordinated from operations centers ranging from Fort Langley, Virginia, to Tel Aviv, and including specific, easily identifiable buildings in London and Paris. These included training centers in Poland, where student leaders were prepared; camps in Georgia, where urban warfare techniques were taught; and narrative labs in Estonia, where social media messages were crafted.

The pattern is always identical, always exactly the same. First, a country is identified as blocking the geostrategic interests of the declining empire. Second, social media is massively infiltrated with prefabricated narratives and focus groups. Third, student leaders at specific Western universities are groomed for years. Fourth, the necessary financial infrastructure is established to sustain months and months of costly operations, and finally, the perfect moment is chosen to simultaneously activate the entire dormant network.

And what exactly was the perfect moment to activate Operation Iran? This is where everything falls into place in a terrifying way. Exactly when Trump returns to power with his renewed maximum pressure agenda on the Iranian gov’t. Exactly when Israel desperately needs a massive distraction from its completely untenable situation in Gaza and Lebanon. Exactly when the strategic alliance between Iran, Russia, and China is reaching unprecedented levels of military and economic cooperation.

But wait, because here comes the part no one sees, but which changes the entire geopolitical analysis, because it turns out that these protests aren’t really directed against the Iranian theocratic system per se. That’s just the media facade. The real objective is much more ambitious and, frankly, much more terrifying for the future of us all.

The real objective is to definitively destroy the last independent link in the Eurasian energy chain that essentially connects Russia with China, strategically passing through Central Asia and Iran. It is to permanently sever the most crucial energy corridor of the 21st century.

Think about it carefully for a moment. Iran is not just Iran. Iran is the strategically crucial energy corridor between Russian oil and gas and expanding Asian markets. Iran is the geographic link that allows China to access massive energy resources without relying on shipping lanes controlled by the U.S. Navy.

Iran is, quite literally, the master key that can make or completely destroy the entire multipolar architecture that Russia and China have been systematically building over the past 15 years of strategic coordination. And here is the chronological detail that should send shivers down the spine of any serious geopolitical analyst on the planet.

What’s happening in Iran is perfectly synchronized with what just happened in Venezuela with the capture of Maduro. A mere coincidence? Come on, we’re adults. In high-level geopolitics, there are no coincidences, especially when we’re talking about simultaneous operations of this strategic magnitude.

I have verified, confirmed, and independent information from sources in both the Kremlin and Beijing that the precise timing of these coordinated operations is anything but accidental. The American empire and its European vassals have a very specific window of approximately four to six months before the full expansion of BRICS Plus is definitively and irreversibly consolidated. Before the new parallel financial system is fully operational and functional. Before the new overland trade routes of the Belt and Road Initiative render the entire Western system of global maritime control completely irrelevant.

This is their last real chance, and they know it perfectly well in Washington. That’s why the desperation is palpable, why the brutality is so blatant, why they are completely willing to risk a regional conflagration that could spiral completely out of control.

Because let me be absolutely crystal clear about something fundamental that Trump just declared: “If you start shooting, we’re going to start shooting too.” This isn’t empty rhetoric for media consumption. US forces deployed throughout the Persian Gulf have been on high combat alert for 72 hours. The Israelis have quietly placed their nuclear forces on full readiness.

And most disturbing of all, there are very serious and documented talks in US military circles about a massive preemptive strike against all Iranian nuclear facilities using tactical nuclear weapons if necessary.

The difference this time, the crucial difference, is that Iran is not alone as it was in 1979. The difference is that any military attack against Iranian territory automatically triggers the immediate activation of mutual defense treaties with Russia and China. The difference is that we are literally one impulsive decision away from a third nuclear world war. And this is precisely where history takes a completely unexpected turn that no one anticipated, because there is something that Western elites failed to properly account for in their “simulation models.”

There is something that their historical imperial arrogance simply prevents them from seeing or understanding. It turns out that the ordinary Iranian people, beyond their entirely legitimate grievances against the corruption and authoritarianism of their government, perfectly understand what is truly at stake.

It turns out that the vast majority of Iranians have a historical memory and remember exactly what happened in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. It turns out that they do not want, under any circumstances, to become the next “democratic” success story of freedom exported through massive bombing and military occupation. The protests are rapidly losing momentum. And not only because the gov’t has stopped them, although that has undoubtedly been part of it, but because ordinary Iranians are beginning to fully grasp the true geopolitical game.

They are beginning to see clearly that behind the romantic banners of freedom and Western democracy lies the same old predatory imperial agenda, the same agenda that turned Libya into a slave market, the same one that plunged Iraq into 20 years of sectarian war, the same one that has been trying to fragment Syria for over a decade. But there is something more, something extremely significant that sources very close to the Iranian Supreme National Security Council confirmed to me during a conversation I had last night.

The Iranian gov’t has been meticulously preparing for this scenario for years. They have military contingency plans ranging from the complete and immediate shutdown of all oil exports from the Persian Gulf to response options that I frankly prefer not to detail specifically on a public YouTube channel.

The real question now is completely different from everything being discussed in the Western media. The real question that should be keeping us all up at night is: Is the world truly prepared for the cataclysmic consequences of what is about to happen in the coming weeks?

Because if these coordinated operations fail spectacularly—and all indications are that they will fail humiliatingly—the American empire will be exposed globally for what it truly is: a nuclear paper tiger with nuclear teeth, but without effective conventional claws to use them coherently.

The complete failure in Iran, combined with the disaster unfolding in real time in Venezuela, plus the absolute military humiliation in Ukraine, plus the irreversible loss of control over all Asian trade routes, means one very simple but momentous thing: the definitive end of 500 years of Western domination over the world system.

But the empire’s psychopathic elites will not accept this new historical reality without a desperate fight to the death. And this is precisely where things become truly dangerous for all of humanity, because a mortally wounded imperial beast is infinitely more dangerous than one that still has control of the situation.

Let me tell you something that absolutely no one else dares to say publicly in any Western media outlet. And I have this information from sources I obviously prefer not to name, but who have direct and documented access to the most classified meetings of the National Security Council in Washington.

There’s a very serious discussion about what they’re internally calling the nuclear Samson option. The completely psychopathic idea that if the American empire is going to collapse historically, then the entire world civilization system must collapse along with it in a final conflagration. It’s an absolutely insane mindset, but it’s terrifyingly real and absolutely terrifying to any rational person on the planet.

The underlying logic is simple, yet insane. If we can no longer control and dominate the world as we have for centuries, then no one else can. If China and Russia are going to successfully create a new, prosperous multipolar system, then we preemptively destroy everything before that can happen. That’s why the protests in Iran are infinitely more than mere internal protests; they are the calculated trigger of a crisis that could lead us directly to the brink of global nuclear war.

That’s why Trump is literally playing with atomic fire in a way that should terrify any remotely rational person on the planet. But here comes the hopeful and luminous part of this whole apocalyptic story, because there’s something fundamental that the Western empire failed to account for in its predictive models. There’s something that their age-old arrogance prevents them from seeing or accepting. The world has already changed irreversibly.

The multipolar system already exists and functions. The new trade routes are already fully operational. The new strategic alliances are already consolidated and irreversible. What we are witnessing day by day is not the painful birth of a new world order, but the terminal agony of the old unipolar order. It is the systemic collapse of an international system based on military and financial domination, which no longer has the material foundation or legitimacy to sustain itself.

China is now officially the world’s largest economy in real terms of purchasing power parity. Russia has militarily demonstrated its complete invincibility within its historical sphere of influence. Countries in the Global South have found fully functional alternatives to the Western financial system controlled by Wall Street.

The dollar as the world’s reserve currency is literally living its last days. Iran is simply the symbolic battleground where the final, decisive battle is being fought between the dying old unipolar world and the rising new multipolar world, between decadent imperial unipolarity and emerging sovereign multipolarity, between a past of domination and a future of cooperation.

And let me tell you with absolute certainty what the final historical outcome of this titanic confrontation will be. The result is already fully written in the objective historical trends that we have been observing and documenting for decades. The future of humanity inexorably belongs to an integrated Eurasia.

The future belongs to mutually beneficial cooperation rather than parasitic domination. The future belongs to a multipolar world where no single power can ever unilaterally impose its will on all others. The protests in Iran are going to fail spectacularly, not because the theocratic gov’t is particularly popular with its population, but because they represent a Western imperial project that simply no longer has a viable historical future.

The Iranian people will consciously choose imperfect national independence over freedom manufactured in the Langley laboratories. They will choose problematic national sovereignty over democracy exported through bombing and foreign military occupation. And when that happens, inevitably, when the Iran operation fails, as the Venezuela operation already failed, as the Ukraine operation is failing spectacularly, the empire will have to face a reality it has been desperately avoiding for decades: that its historical moment is over forever.

But we must pay close attention over the next six months, because they will be absolutely crucial for the fate of all human civilization, because an empire in terminal collapse is exactly like a supernova exploding star. It can completely destroy everything around it before finally becoming an insignificant white dwarf.

And that is the real existential danger that all the inhabitants of this planet face in the coming months. The danger is not that Iran will magically transform into a Western-style democracy in the Hollywood mold. The real danger is that the Western imperial elites, in their terminal desperation and psychotic denial of reality, will do something completely irreversible for all of humanity.

The danger is that in their desperate attempt to maintain a global control they have objectively lost, they will unleash nuclear forces that literally no one on the planet can control once released. That is why it is absolutely vital that everyone be vigilant and aware. That is why it is so important that we all fully understand what is truly at stake here. This is not at all about Iranian democracy versus Persian theocracy. It is about the very future of human civilization and whether it will survive this historic transition intact.

The coming days, the next decisive weeks, will determine whether the inevitable transition to a sovereign, multipolar world unfolds in a relatively civilized and peaceful manner, or whether we will all have to endure a global conflagration before arriving at the exact same end result. Ultimately, the historic choice is not truly in the hands of Trump, Netanyahu, the Iranian Ayatollahs, Putin, or Xi Jinping.

The ultimate choice is in the hands of each and every one of us, in our collective ability to see clearly beyond the narratives fabricated by the corporate media, in our ability to understand the true geostrategic interests at stake, in our ability to categorically demand that our leaders choose constructive diplomacy over destructive war, mutually beneficial cooperation over parasitic domination, a promising future over a decadent past.

Because the old unipolar world is inexorably dying. And we are all direct witnesses, and perhaps even the historical midwives, of the complex birth of an entirely new one. The only question that truly matters now is: will this new multipolar world be born in relative peace and cooperation, or in total war and mutual destruction?

The final answer depends on all of us. Thank you for joining me on this fascinating journey through the deepest undercurrents of world history in motion. See you at the next Pepe Café, where we’ll continue to unravel together all the threads of this incredible transformation that is shaking the foundations of the world as we knew it. Until next time, and always stay alert. History is being written in real time before our very eyes.