By Bryan Clark and Michael Doran
Jan. 27, 2022 6:29 pm ET
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at the Kremlin, Jan. 19.
The Ukraine crisis exposes a flaw in President Biden’s Iran
strategy. Washington engages with Beijing and Moscow as if they share core U.S.
interests with respect to Iran, when instead they are working with Tehran to
undermine the American-led global order.
That’s certainly what officials in Tehran are saying. Last
Wednesday, Mahmoud Abbaszadeh-Meshkini, a spokesman for the Iranian
Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said: “In the
new world order, a triangle consisting of three powers—Iran, Russia, and
China—has formed.” He was clear about the goal: “This new arrangement heralds
the end of the inequitable hegemony of the United States and the West.”
The Biden team isn’t listening. Last Friday Secretary of
State Antony Blinken met in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov,
who proposed an interim deal to break the deadlock in the Iranian nuclear
negotiations. “Russia shares our sense of urgency,” Mr. Blinken said, “and
we hope that Russia will use the influence . . . it has with Iran to
impress upon Iran that sense of urgency.”
As Mr. Blinken spoke, Russia was holding joint naval
drills with China and Iran in the Indian Ocean. The day before, President
Vladimir Putin hosted Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Moscow. In
a speech before the Duma, Mr. Raisi discussed “Resistance”—the movement
Iran leads to destroy the U.S.-led order in the Middle East. Resistance, he
said, drove the Americans from Afghanistan and Iraq, and it also generated “the
successful model of cooperation between Iran and Russia in Syria.” In that
spirit, Mr. Raisi parroted Mr. Putin’s main grievance with respect to Ukraine.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Mr. Raisi said, “seeks to infiltrate
various geographical areas with new alibis that threaten the common interests
of independent states.”
Mr. Putin’s campaign to bring Ukraine under Moscow’s
control has a direct connection to the joint Russian-Iranian
project of propping up the Assad regime in Syria. Russia’s naval bases in
Sevastopol, Crimea (which Mr. Putin annexed from Ukraine in 2014), and in
Tartus, Syria, serve as operational hubs for Russia’s Mediterranean
presence. A strong, independent Ukraine threatens Moscow’s ability to project
power into the Middle East.
Mr. Putin may agree that Iran should never possess nuclear
weapons. Cooperating closely with the U.S. to achieve that goal, however,
interferes with his more urgent priority, which is to undermine the
American-led order.
For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping makes a similar
set of calculations. Thanks to one of history’s most rapid military
buildups, China now has Asia’s largest air force, the world’s largest army by
number of active-duty troops, and largest navy by number of vessels. According
to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leaders, the Chinese military will be poised
to invade Taiwan successfully by 2027. The Pentagon is playing catch-up. It is
acquiring new weapons and technologies capable of deterring China,
but these won’t be fully integrated into the force until late this
decade. China’s optimal window to conquer Taiwan, therefore, will be between
2025 and 2030, when its military modernization peaks while U.S. forces are
still adapting.
Which brings us back to Iran. In the event of war in
Taiwan, China will look to Tehran and its proxies to mount threats to
shipping—to pin down one or more American carrier groups in the Persian Gulf.
But the value of Iran’s “Resistance” doesn’t end there. Beijing is heavily
dependent on Middle East oil imports. It aims to protect its long and
vulnerable supply lines by toppling the U.S. as the region’s pre-eminent power.
It isn’t strong enough to mount a direct challenge, so it uses Iran as its
stalking horse.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently
announced that the 25-year strategic accord between Iran and China, forged
last year, has entered into force. At the heart of the accord is oil for
security assistance. Is China actively encouraging Iran to unleash its proxies
against America’s Gulf allies? Not that we know of. But it is building up Iran
and doing nothing to counter its most malign behavior. Beijing cannot but have
noticed that when U.S. allies turn to Washington for help, they encounter a
weary and distracted America, one ever less eager to deter Iran. Increasingly
exposed, the allies hedge, tentatively tilting toward Beijing.
China’s influence in Middle Eastern military affairs has
therefore increased substantially. It sells military equipment to
most of the Middle Eastern allies of the U.S. and manufactures weapons in
partnership with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is helping the
Saudis master nuclear technology. In the spring of 2021, U.S. intelligence
observed China secretly building a military site at Khalifa Port near Abu
Dhabi. The construction stopped only after arm-twisting by
Washington.
The interim deal on the Iranian nuclear program
that Mr. Lavrov discussed with Mr. Blinken reportedly calls on Iran to reduce
its stockpiles of enriched uranium in return for lifting sanctions. But this
would only fuel Iran’s economy while allowing it to retain the capability of
generating enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon at short notice.
The proxy wars will expand, and the nuclear blackmail will continue.
In sum, China and Russia are building up Iran. Both need a
partner in the Middle East devoted to “Resistance”—to undermining U.S. power.
Why is the Biden team going along for the ride? Washington’s approach should be
more strategic. Among the members of the global alliance dedicated to
destroying the American-led order, Iran is the most vulnerable. The job of the
U.S. is to defang it.
Messrs. Clark and Doran are senior fellows at the Hudson
Institute.
Comments
Post a Comment