Future Scenarios for Iran

In an Opinion piece for the NY Times How Does This End? Four Scenarios for What Comes Next With Iran, Bret Stephens argues that there are four likely future scenarios for the War in Iran: (1) Regime Change, (2) Regime Modification, (3) Both sides declare 

victory and (4) the Realistic Path, US seizes Kharg Island (see the video above which argues that the "Realistic Path" is a trap). These scenarios are all relatively short-term.

My interests are in more long-term Geopolitical Alignments that might benefit Iran. It seems that most of the World-System has abandoned Iran. Russia, China, and the EU are all sitting on the sidelines while the US and Israel continue an Air War. And, my simulations with the IR_LM model show that leaving Iran to "go it alone" (the Business-as-Usual or BAU model) produces the best future prospects (see the simulations here). The US and Israel seem intent on not letting the BAU Scenario go forward.

I asked ChatGPT about the Geopolitical Consequences of the current US-Israel-Iran War:

I can investigate the effects of a Global Oil Shock by using the WL203 Model.

The third component state variable (see Notes below) is dominated by Oil Prices. A large one standard deviation shock to the W3 component (an Oil Price Shock and associated effects: Wheat Prices, Oil Production and Ecological Footprint) produces the shock decomposition above. Overall growth in the World System (W1)  takes a negative shock that is never fully recovered. The same is true for the W2 state variable (an Environmental Controller); the negative shock is never recovered. Eventually, however, Oil Price Controller (W3) returns to the attractor path.

Notes

Remaking the Middle East: The U.S., Israel & Iran | FRONTLINE 

You can run the WL203 Model and the IR_LM model using R-code and investigate different counterfactual future paths (see the notes in the code).

For more information see:

• Blog Roll: Iran
• Blog Roll: Syria
• What If Iran Dominated the Middle East?
• Blog Roll: US
• Blog Roll: Russia
• Blog Roll: China
• Blog Roll: The World System

WL20 Model State Variables

The World System growth component is the  first principal component state variable for the WL20 model.

The Measurement Matrix for the WL20 model is presented above. The W1 Component (state variable) is an approximately equal and positive weighting of all the indicators except for the Living Planet Index (the planet is becoming less livable) and measures overall growth in the World System (rather than just GDP).

In general, the indicators in standard scores are taken from the World Development Indicators (WDI). KOF = KOF Index of Globalization, EF = Ecological Footprint, HDI = Human Development Index.