The Iranian regime is under greater domestic pressure than at any point since the Green Revolution. Although their proximate cause was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, almost certainly at the hands of the Iranian Morality Police, the issues run far deeper. Tehran’s hybrid theocracy is not popular, and an aging Ali Khamenei is a particular figure of popular distaste.
Iran will not collapse due to these protests. Its Revolutionary Guards are robust enough to control public dissent, and the regime is ruthless enough to crack down by any means. Nevertheless, the protests are likely to trigger a variety of regime actions that align Iran fully within the Sino-Russian entente. Moscow and Beijing intersect most openly in Tehran: the US should take note and treat Iran with the seriousness it deserves as a strategic adversary.
Recall that just a month ago, the Biden administration seemed to believe a deal was imminent, much as it was at various points in late 2021 and 2022. The Biden White House doggedly searches for the chimerical Iran Deal, the deal that the Obama administration proclaimed would prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. This stems from Washington’s characteristic determinism. Personnel is policy, and the Biden team is packed full of the Iran deal’s greatest proponents. The Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, was the US’ lead negotiator. The Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Colin Kahl, participated in the negotiations and a major public advocate for the deal. John Kerry remains affiliated with the administration as Biden’s climate envoy: he was the Secretary of State responsible for the JCPOA.
Events are likely to outpace Mr. Biden’s hopes. The recent round of protests makes nuclear breakout far more likely, as Iran seeks a shield from external meddling despite the regime’s apparent weakness. Nuclear weapons are dictatorial insurance par excellence, as the radically diverging experiences of Gaddafi and Saddam on the one side, and the Kim family regime on the other, have convincingly demonstrated. Perhaps Israel and its Gulf Arab partners preempt a breakout attempt, perhaps not, but regardless the JCPOA is increasingly nonsensical.
More broadly, however, Iran has become the primary link within the Sino-Russian entente. A better understanding of Tehran’s relationship with both Beijing and Moscow is needed to identify the full scale of the entente.
China has charted a careful path over the Ukraine War. This is not because it fears the legal consequences of supporting Russian sovereignty violations: the CCP’s elite are not sufficiently juridical to regard international law as a legitimate spoiler to their designs on Taiwan, which they claim to be a sovereign part of China. Rather, simple prudence dictates rhetorical balancing act. The CCP does seek to avoid secondary sanctions, at least up until the 20th Party Congress allows Xi Jinping to consolidate power completely. It also recognizes that its valued Central Asian economic partners, Kazakhstan foremost among them, have serious and well-founded reservations about Russia’s aggression.
Yet Russia’s move, if successful, would have been a boon to Chinese power. It would have stressed NATO, forced the US to divide its attention between Europe and Asia, and created a Russia powerful enough to challenge the West directly. In the event, Russia’s invasion has stalled, and Moscow is on the back foot. China may shy away from military support for the Kremlin and may avoid transferring critical technologies without at least a semblance of deniability to avoid repercussions. However, Russian failure is unacceptable for China, not in the least because it would strengthen the West, allow the US to refocus on the Indo-Pacific, and deprive China of crucial petrochemical access. Hence China continues to purchase Russian oil and expand trade volumes with Russia to record levels while refraining from active military support, although there is some evidence that Conventional-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technology, like DJI’s quadcopter UAVs, are in Russian military service.
Iran figures in this balance in a clear manner due to the structure of overlapping Chinese, Russian, and Iranian interests. Russia and Iran were at one point only tense partners. Iran has far greater regional ambitions than Russia would prefer. The Islamic Republic seeks to stir trouble with the Gulf Arabs, attack Israel, and otherwise project power regionally, while Russia sought to maintain a relatively stable rear and thereby project power into the Eastern Mediterranean against NATO. The Ukraine War has reconfigured this situation. Russia has stripped down its expeditionary deployments, including in the Middle East: if open-source imagery is to be believed, it has pared its military presence along the Russia-NATO border as well, throwing virtually every piece of relevant combat equipment into the fight in Ukraine. Iran has more freedom of action. Russia needs greater support. This explains Iranian-Russian military cooperation as far more than just a technology transfer: it is the evolution of a loose cooperative arrangement into a more formal partnership now that the central source of tension between Iran and Russia has been removed.
China, meanwhile, has growing links with Iran. Iranian petrochemicals provide China with valuable energy support. Iran, in turn, is already known as nefarious – China can route technological support through Iran to anywhere it chooses.
Iran and China already have a military-technical relationship. The INS Hanit attack in 2006 was conducted by a Chinese-build C-802 anti-ship cruise missile. China again shied away from Iran during the kerfuffle over its nuclear program, but in 2021 signed a major strategic partnership agreement with Iran that covered, among other areas, critical technologies. The 2021 Partnership tellingly included negotiations between Chinese Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe and Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad-Reza Gharaei Ashtiani. The Shahed-136, Iran’s loitering munition that Russia now employs in Ukraine, was unveiled only on late 2021. Iranian state-owned HESA has received alleged Chinese support in the past – it is not a stretch to assume that the Shahed-136 has Chinese subcomponents.
Iran can easily become a valuable pipeline for Chinese support to Russia, especially if Iran repackages the requisite parts, or if weapons and high technology is assembled within Iran. In turn, Iran can tacitly export Russian oil, providing another outlet for Russian energy exports.
The US can no longer treat the Iran issue as compartmentalized from that of Russia and China. Iranian actions are now an integral aspect of a broader Eurasian competition that includes Russia and China, and that threatens the foundations of the American-backed Eurasian security system. Future American Iran policy must take this into account.
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