Washington Is Intent on Destroying Iran

On February 18 the leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared that Iran “is trying to establish this continuous empire surrounding the Middle East from the south in Yemen but also trying to create a land bridge from Iran to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. This is a very dangerous development for our region.” Netanyahu’s presentation was dismissed by the Iranian foreign minister as “a cartoonish circus,” but it was nonetheless a reflection of the policy of the United States, which is Israel’s mentor and unconditional ally.

Last November Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested to President Vladimir Putin that Tehran and Moscow should cooperate more fully to try to dissuade the US from further disruptive dabbling throughout the Middle East. His opinion was that “Our cooperation can isolate America. The failure of US-backed terrorists in Syria cannot be denied but Americans continue their plots,” which is certainly the case, because although the so-called “moderate rebels” who were recruited to overthrow President Assad, with massive amounts of assistance from the Pentagon and the CIA, collapsed in ignominious failure, the US fandangos continue. Washington is not going to give up, and the Trump administration seems to relish being isolated by almost everyone.

During his time in the White House, President Obama tried to get US-Iran relations on an even keel, and managed to temporarily overcome the Washington warmongers to some extent and push forward the tension-reducing, trade-improving, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) concerning Iran’s nuclear programme, which the BBC described as “the signature foreign policy achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency.” It was settled two years ago by China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US in a most welcome example of international solidarity and downright common sense, and removed sanctions on Iran in exchange for Teheran’s agreement to limit its nuclear research and development.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign affairs representative wrote last year that the arrangement was achieving its main purpose of “ensuring the purely peaceful, civilian nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. The International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog – has issued four reports on the matter and has regularly verified that Iran is complying with its nuclear-related obligations. This means that the Iranian nuclear programme has been significantly reformatted and downsized and is now subject to intense monitoring by the IAEA. The joint commission – which I coordinate – oversees constantly the implementation of the agreement, meeting regularly, which allows us to detect even minor possible deviations and to take necessary corrective measures if the need arises.

The deal is also working for Iran. Major companies are investing in the country: the oil sector, the automotive industry, commercial aircraft, just to give a few examples, are areas where significant contracts have been concluded.”

The JCPOA was indeed a marked diplomatic success on the part of Obama as well as being a victory for pragmatic common sense. So naturally the egregious Donald Trump has been trying to destroy it. On February 3 Trump enforced and it’s been downhill all the way since then. The sanctions that had been imposed and then withdrawn had been aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear programme and the EU quite rightly wanted to confine them to nuclear-related agencies — the individuals and organisations directly associated with nuclear matters — but the United States, even in the Obama-guided era, wouldn’t confine itself to the main aspect of the agreement. It introduced sanctions of its own, intended to make it difficult for other nations to trade with Iran, which is consistent with its longtime spiteful attitude to Tehran’s government.

The United States is determined to destroy Iran. For almost forty years, since the overthrow of the corrupt CIA-backed monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Washington has been on the warpath against the mullahs in Tehran. There wasn’t much to choose, comfort-wise between the Shah and his successor, the intensely religious Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but morally there was a chasm.

The Shah was deeply unpopular and in the late 1970s there were mass demonstrations against him and the country dissolved into chaos. He had to go, and the only possible replacement was the Ayatollah who was living in exile in France, having escaped from the persecution of the Shah’s dreaded secret police, the Savak, in the 1960s. Two weeks after the Shah fled from Iran, the Ayatollah returned to Iran on 1 February 1979 in triumph and to a level of acclaim not shared by all its citizens.

During the Shah’s dictatorship Iran was a good place to live for many people. There was no freedom of speech, but there was a lot of freedom to make money, especially in the US. There was sixty per cent illiteracy, but women were allowed to wear what clothes they wished and to move freely in society — except in the countryside, of course, where they were kept in their place as second-class citizens exactly as they are in present-day Muslim states such as US allies Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

What really vexes the extremists in Washington is the memory of humiliation when the US embassy in Tehran was attacked by mobs of students in November 1979, only ten months after Khomeini took over. There is little doubt that the attackers were students, but there is equally little doubt that they had the Ayatollah’s blessing (as it were) to storm the embassy and take the staff hostage. They demanded the return of the Shah to stand trial in Tehran — a ridiculous condition for cessation of their demented antics — but 52 US citizens were held hostage in Iran from November 1979 to January 1981, which was not just an awkwardness for Washington: it was an ineradicable embarrassment, an international degradation of colossal proportions that could never be forgiven.

It was convenient to forget the hideous savagery of the Shah’s regime when, for example,

“American-trained counterinsurgency troops of the Iranian Army and Savak [the Iranian CIA] killed more than 6,000 people on June 5, 1963.”

The Ayatollah had taken over and was forever to be condemned for his audacity. His successors in the political sphere could never right the wrongs that had been done to the global image of the United States. As put by Martin Ennals, secretary general of Amnesty International,

“The Shah of Iran retains his benevolent image despite the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief.”

In 2002 the appalling President George W Bush, the man who took his country into its disastrous wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, conjured up the phrase the axis of evil, and put the world on notice that America would overcome any country that opposed it. His speech was dramatic and he declared that “North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens” which was true. And still is true, after 15 years in which the US has managed to do exactly nothing to discourage North Korea from arming itself against invasion. Then he said that “Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade” and a few months later he invaded Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, which of course didn’t exist.

Then Bush announced that “Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom” which was formal warning to Iran that it was definitely on the target list, because “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”

Since the era of the Bush wars, the world has certainly known no peace. Washington’s Military Industrial Complex has flourished while its soldiers died for nothing but profit.

The present US campaign against Iran is aimed at destroying the country economically and thus encouraging a violent revolution. And many western observers consider there’s a lot to be said for rising up against the ayatollahs, because they’re a bumptious arrogant unforgiving bunch of bigots who repress women and democracy. So why doesn’t the US have the same thoughts about Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, whose unelected princely rulers repress women and do not tolerate democracy? What a horde of humbugs.

Iran is fighting for its life and the Trump administration is following George W Bush in his determination to destroy it. In January Trump tweeted that “The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their “pockets.” The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!”

Washington is intent on destroying Iran, and the contents of that tweet could hardly be better reason for supporting Tehran in its struggle against the growing menace from the Trump-supported military-industrial complex. The world is watching.

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Brian Cloughley is a British and Australian armies’ veteran, former deputy head of the UN military mission in Kashmir and Australian defense attaché in Pakistan.

Washington Delivers New Ultimatum on Iran

The US State Department has issued a fresh ultimatum on the Iran nuclear deal to Washington’s ostensible major allies in Europe, demanding that Germany, Britain and France commit themselves to altering the agreement along the lines demanded by President Donald Trump or face its unilateral abrogation by the US.

A secret State Department cable obtained by Reuters presents what are essentially the same demands made by Trump last January. At that time, he announced that he was prepared to relaunch all-out US economic warfare against Iran unless the European powers joined Washington in imposing a rewritten nuclear accord on Tehran, including provisions that the Iranian government cannot and will not accept.

The occasion for Trump’s threat was his reluctant announcement on January 12 that he had decided to waive the re-imposition of US sanctions that were lifted as part of the nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He vowed that this would be the last time he issued such a waiver, unless his conditions were met. The next deadline for waiving the sanctions is May 12.

The message from the State Department to the European powers asks for their “commitment that we should work together to seek a supplemental or follow-on agreement that addresses Iran’s development or testing long-range missiles, ensures strong IAEA inspections, and fixes the flaws of the ‘sunset clause.’”

Washington has demanded that Iran grant International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors immediate and unlimited access to any site in the country, including military bases; the elimination of “sunset clauses” in the JCPOA, making time-limited restrictions on aspects of Iran’s civil nuclear program permanent; and drastically limiting, if not outlawing, Iran’s ballistic missile program.

While presented by Reuters and other media as a softening of the position outlined by Trump in January, the cable makes it clear that the US is continuing to present its nominal allies in Europe with an ultimatum.

“In the absence of a clear commitment from your side to address these issues, the United States will not again waive sanctions in order to stay in the Iran nuclear deal. If at any time the President judges that such commitment is not within reach, the President indicated he would end US participation in the deal.”

The cable’s “talking points” for US diplomats to advance Washington’s agenda in Europe stress “the Trump administration’s strategy to counter the Iranian regime’s reckless aggression,” which “addresses the full range of Iranian threats, of which Iran’s nuclear program is only one element.”

The clear implication is that Washington is embarked on a trajectory of war with Iran, either with or without the collaboration of its NATO allies in Berlin, London and Paris. Should they join with the US in ripping up the nuclear accord, it will set them on a collision course not only with Iran, but also with Russia and China, the two other signatories to the JCPOA.

The US has spelled out its own intentions in the Trump administration’s recent National Security Strategy, lumping Iran together with North Korea under the category of “rogue states” that represent a threat to US “national interests” and are to be confronted and defeated.

None of the European powers responded directly to the US cable, which the State Department itself refused to discuss. Asked about the US demands in an online media briefing, the French Foreign Ministry declared:

“The French position on the Iran nuclear deal is known. As the President of the Republic [Emmanuel Macron] has said, we reaffirm our full attachment to the global action plan and its strict implementation.” It added that Paris would “continue to talk about the Iran nuclear program with our European and American partners.”

The European powers are pursuing their own imperialist interests in the Middle East and are increasingly at odds with US interests and strategies. The lifting of sanctions against Iran was greeted by European corporations as an opportunity to generate a fresh stream of profits through billions of dollars in new investments and trade deals. Many of these plans remain unfulfilled because of concerns that the US will target companies with unilateral sanctions, and that their investments could go up in smoke in the event of a new and catastrophic US war in the Middle East.

While hostile to Iran’s growing influence in the region, the European powers are increasingly alarmed at the prospect that Washington’s strategy of forging a regional anti-Iranian alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia, together with the other Sunni Gulf oil sheikdoms, will produce a military confrontation that could cut off oil supplies upon which Europe depends and unleash a political and refugee crisis that will spill onto the continent.

Washington has issued its latest ultimatum in the midst of an explosive escalation of regional tensions, driven in the main by US and Israeli aggression. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spelled out Tel Aviv’s aggressive stance against Iran in a bellicose speech to the Munich Security Conference on Sunday. Holding up what he claimed was a piece of an Iranian drone shot down over Israeli-occupied Syrian territory in the Golan Heights, he denounced Iran as “the greatest threat to the world,” equating it with Nazi Germany.

“We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves, and we will act if necessary not just against Iran’s proxies that are attacking us, but against Iran itself,” said Netanyahu, in a clear threat to attack Iran, an action that his government would undertake only with US backing.

Israel responded to the alleged overflight of the drone, which Tehran insists was launched by independent Syrian militia elements in Syria, by targeting Iranian personnel in Syria with air strikes. Syrian air defense units succeeded in shooting down an Israeli F-16 fighter jet, the first such loss for the Israeli Air Force since the early 1980s.

Speaking in response to Netanyahu at the Munich conference, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, attributed the frenzied tone of Netanyahu’s speech to the downing of the warplane.

“The so-called invincibility of [Israel] has crumbled,” he said.

The US military and intelligence apparatus and its loyal stenographers in the US corporate media are churning out continuous war propaganda against Iran.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, US national security advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster declared it was necessary to “act against Iran,” which he accused of arming a “network of proxies” that is “becoming more and more capable as Iran seeds more and more…destructive weapons into these networks.”

The New York Times published a lengthy piece Monday based on interviews with Israeli military officers and government officials along with representatives of US, Israeli and Saudi-funded think tanks alleging that Iran is “creating an infrastructure [in Syria] to threaten Israel.” Needless to say, the article made no mention of Israel’s own funding and aid for Sunni Islamist militias attacking the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The same issue of the Times carried an opinion piece by US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley claiming, falsely, that a report issued by the United Nations proved that Iran has shipped missiles to the Houthi rebels in Yemen to fire at Saudi Arabia. The actual report found that “remnants” of the missiles were of Iranian origin, while providing no evidence as to how they got there.

Haley insists that the world must “act before a missile hits a school or a hospital and leads to a dangerous military escalation that provokes a Saudi military response.”

The column echoes the “big lie” methods pioneered by Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. That Saudi Arabia has been bombing Yemeni schools, hospitals, neighborhoods and infrastructure for nearly three years, killing some 13,000 Yemeni civilians and plunging the country’s population into the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, goes unmentioned.

Haley is also silent on the fact that the US has provided the vast majority of the bombs and missiles dropped on the Yemeni people, while mounting logistical and refueling operations that make the mass slaughter possible.

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Article from Bill Van Auken.

Global Research, February 21st, 2018.

World Socialist Web Site 20th February, 2018.

The Shocking Neocon Plan to Invade Iran, Paid for by Jewish Oligarchs

With the streets of Iran heating up in recent days and the Trump Administration’s threats hanging over the nation, a look back at an analysis paper by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute gives us a strong sense of what is driving Washington and the Deep State’s agenda in the former Persian Empire.

The paper, entitled “Which Path to Persia,” looks at the options available to the United States as it deals with Iran and its supposed threat to Middle East stability, peace and tranquility.  The paper looks at two broad types of options; the persuasion approach, the engagement approach and the military approach.

In this posting, I will take a look at what the authors of the study recommend for the military options given that they believe that Iran will be less than willing to co-operate with either the persuasion or engagement options. Obviously, as was the case in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a military invasion is the recommended course of action.  Let’s look at the authors’ recommendations for an invasion.

The authors suggest that the only way to eliminate all of the problems that Washington has with the current Iranian regime (i.e. support for terrorism, nuclearization, creating instability across the region) is to use the military invasion option.  The goal of invasion would be to remove the current government, curse the military and put an end to its nuclear program.

While all of those goals are interesting, as the lessons of both Afghanistan and Iraq have taught Washington, the invasion option has to ensure that a stable and pro-American government assumes power once the U.S. military forces leave the nation.  That said, there are some significant differences:

1.) Iran is nearly 4 times the size of Iraq – 1.648 million square kilometers compared to 437.1 thousand square miles

2.) Iran has population that is more than twice the size of Iraq – 80.28 million people compared to 37.2 million people

3.) Iran’s military is far more advanced and well equipped than Iraq’s was at the time of the invasion in 2003.  There were roughly 400,000 to 500,000 members of Iraq’s armed forces in 2003 compared to 934,000 in Iran’s armed forces.

The authors note that the most compelling reason to invade Iran sooner rather than later is that Iran’s agenda could become much more difficult to deter once it has the capability to develop a nuclear weapon.  As well, the nation’s wealth of both oil and natural gas mean that the United States and any partner invasion forces would have to ensure that the country does not slide into post-invasion chaos.

If the invasion option was the option of choice, it would take at least several months to move sufficient forces into the theatre and from one to six months to conduct the invasion.  Given Iran’s larger geographic area, larger population and better military preparedness, the United States can pretty much assure itself that the invasion of Iran would be a far larger project than the Iraq invasion of 2003.  As well, the American bases throughout the Persian Gulf region in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar that were key during the Iraq operations may well not be available unless Iran were to provoke hostilities.

To mount an invasion, the authors suggest that an initial invasion force of roughly the same size as the force used to invade Iraq in 2003; four U.S. divisions plus a British division.  The Americans added a fifth division later in the invasion for a total of around 200,000 military personnel.  An invading force would face two issues:

1.) Insurgent fighters

2.) Mountainous terrain

The initial invasion would require a significant contingent of Marines, requiring the use of two to four regimental combat teams or between 15,000 and 30,000 Marines to seize a beachhead and major port along the Iranian coastline to defeat Iran’s defensive positions.  The challenges of terrain would require large numbers of air mobile forces including the brigades of the 101st Air Assault Division, the 82nd Airborne Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

For an attack on Tehran (population 8.8 million and 15 million in the metropolitan area compared to 8.765 million in Baghdad), one to three heavy armored divisions would be required.  The biggest difference from the invasion of Iraq in 2003 would be the need for a large naval commitment, particularly to prevent the Iranians from closing the Strait of Hormuz, a key bottleneck to the flow of oil from the Middle East.  By way of comparison, Iraq has a coastline of 36 miles on the Persian Gulf compared to Iran’s 1520 miles as shown on this map:

As the United States discovered during the War on Terror, once the invasion phase was over, the hard work begins.  The authors note the following:

“As in both Iraq and Afghanistan, post-invasion reconstruction would be the longest (and possibly the bloodiest) part of the whole endeavor. if it were handled very well, applying all of the lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, it might require only a few years of major military and financial commitments, followed by a significant diminution of U.S. presence and aid thereafter.

If the reconstruction were to go badly, either because of American mistakes or forces beyond U.S. control, it could take many more years to produce an acceptable end state.”

What would it take to provoke an invasion and would the United States require provocation to justify an invasion of Iran?  If the Iranians provoke an attack, it will make it far easier for the Americans to justify invading to the international and domestic communities.

Given the history between the United States and Iran, it is seen to be unlikely that Iran would be responsible for or take credit for an Iranian version of the 9/11 attack.  Most European, Asian and Middle Eastern nations and their people are against any American-led military invasion of Iran, save two important American allies in the region; Saudi Arabia and Israel.

While this invasion scenario is mere conjecture, it is interesting to see that one of Washington’s largest and most influential think tanks, the Brookings Institution, has provided the Trump Administration with a roadmap to a military solution to the “Iranian problem” — a solution that must have the military-industrial-intelligence community rubbing their collective hands with glee.

It is also interesting to note that the report that was used as the source material for this posting was generated in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.  In case you’ve forgotten, Haim Saban, the founding funder of the Saban Center back in 2002, was also a massive donor to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election as shown here:

With his total donations of $13.78 million during the 2016 cycle (all to the liberal side of the political spectrum), he and his wife came in 14th place overall as shown here:

Keeping in mind that the United States is largely responsible for the current situation in Iran given its involvement in removing the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh back in 1953 and the installation of his replacement, the west-leaning Mohammad Reza Shah who ended up being turfed out of Iran by his own countrymen, one might almost be able to draw a straight line between Washington and the current unrest in Iran and the nation’s strong anti-American stance.

In another posting, I will further examine this interesting report from the Brookings Institution which provides us with a glimpse into what may lie ahead for Iran.

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Source: Viable Opposition 

Iran’s growing power behind new American hostility

Original Article – The Duran

Following the 2003 Iraq invasion, Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld reflected,

“The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy”.

US President Donald Trump has recently decertified the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) – the nuclear deal – with Iran. Furthermore, he has imposed fresh sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian military.

Two months ago, Iran President Hassan Rouhani said his country may restart their nuclear programme “within hours”, if any more American sanctions were implemented. Considering Iran are again coming under the spectre of attack from their old nemesis, such developments may prove inevitable.

It stands as the signal America, with its aggressive militarism, has sent to the world: Develop nuclear weapons if you want protection from us. It is a message North Korea have long since heeded. The DPRK would surely have been attacked by now, had they not armed themselves with nuclear warheads and masses of artillery.

American threats to North Korea and Iran constitute a violation of the United Nations Charter. The US was one of the key signatories behind the UN’s creation in 1945. During the time since, they appear to have regarded it as a mere ceremonial duty.

The opening lines of the Charter state it is designed to, “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war… to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights… and of nations large and small”.

Among the common charges laid at Iran’s door by the West is “fuelling instability”. In simple terms, this means disregarding American wishes. As ISIS rampaged through northern Iraq in 2014, it was Iran who first came to the aid of the besieged Kurds. Actions like this have been called “destabilisation” and “supporting terrorism”.

Iraq was attacked by the US in 2003, leaving a scale of ruin that Iraqis compare to the Mongol invasions of the 13^th century. In the West this was titled “democracy promotion” or “stabilisation”. Not neglecting to mention up to a million Iraqis who died, in an attack which also set the groundwork for ISIS’s emergence.

Meanwhile, of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, UN atomic watchdog chief Yukiya Amano said last month, “The nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran under the JCPOA are being implemented. The verification regime in Iran is the most robust regime… currently existing. We have increased inspection days in Iran, we have increased inspection numbers… and the number of images has increased”.

This is resounding proof that Iran are meeting every requirement asked of them, unlike others. Once more, it is the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia who are taking the lead in discounting international law.

In doing so, they are furthering their isolation in the global arena. The five other powers that primarily hammered out the nuclear deal – China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain – have said they will stand by it regardless of the American position.

The true reasons behind this renewed hostility to Iran are unspecified of course. Iran are becoming an increasing influence in the Middle East, a growing rival and deterrent to Israel, for instance. Iran also performed an important role, allied to Russia and the Syrian Army, in defeating Western-backed opposition terrorists in Aleppo.

Other causes of concern are Iran’s “support for terrorism”, as President Trump has reiterated, echoing his predecessors’ words. This mainly refers to Iran’s backing of Hezbollah and Hamas. Both these organisations came into existence because of US-led aggression in the Middle East, abetted and supported by Israel or Saudi Arabia.

This Western-directed terror greatly outweighs anything attributed to either Hezbollah or Hamas. Hezbollah, for example, have played a role in the retreat of ISIS – having fought the extremists over three years in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. The duo are also staunch enemies of Israel, therefore of the US.

Nor can Iran, along with Hezbollah and Hamas, even compete with Saudi Arabia when it comes to sponsoring Islamic terror. ISIS themselves are an offshoot of Saudi religious fanaticism and its broadening of the jihadi message.

What’s more, Iran – the earth’s fourth largest oil producer – have never been forgiven for removing themselves from American control 38 years ago. Much as a gang underling must be taught lessons for betraying the Mafia don, Iran have been mercilessly punished. Those living in Cuba can back up Iran’s claims with their own half century of evidence.

Even American intelligence recognises Iran’s strategic doctrines are defensive, and that they pose no major military threat. Last year the US arms budget was 50 times greater than Iran’s. Yet in Western circles, Iran are often viewed as the “gravest threat to peace”, despite no record of having outright invaded another country.

One of the major ironies is how American actions this century have aided Iran’s cause. Fourteen years after the Iraq war ended, the New York Times laments that, “Walk into almost any market in Iraq and the shelves are filled with goods to Iran… Turn on the television and channel after channel broadcasts programs sympathetic to Iran. A new building goes up? It’s likely that the bricks and cement came from Iran. And that’s not even the half of it”.

The root cause behind such outcomes – the devastation left behind by the US-led invasion – are unmentioned in the Times article. Iraq had long been a Shiite majority country, but before the 2003 attack it was governed by a Sunni minority. The Americans wiped out the elite Sunni rulers, inadvertently pushing Iraq close to Iran, also a Shiite majority nation.

With American hostility towards Iran again increasing, it is striking that China, in particular, have become a key ally of the Middle East country. Today, China represent both Iran’s largest export and import market. From 2000 to 2014, China’s share of Iranian exports grew from 4% to a significant 49%, mostly in crude oil. During that 14-year stretch, China’s share of imports to Iran rose from 5% to 45%.

Closer Sino-Iranian military ties have also developed. In 2012, for the first time, Chinese warships appeared in the Persian Gulf for a joint exercise with the Iranian navy.

Under President Rouhani (in power, 2013-present), relations have stepped up another level – with an overall 70% increase in trade with China, who view Rouhani favourably. Last year, China and Iran agreed to increase trade to $600 billion over the next decade.

China have also become a major supplier of advanced weapons to Iran. This includes anti-ship cruise missiles, Land Attack cruise missiles, providing scores of sophisticated J-10 fighter jets to Iran, etc. The J-10 fighter is “roughly comparable to American’s lethal F-15 in battle”.

In November 2016, a military cooperation agreement was signed by China and Iran, with joint military drills having occurred in June this year. Iran’s then Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan said, “The upgrading of relations and long-term defence-military cooperation with China, is one of the main priorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s defence diplomacy”. It also poses another major deterrent to Iran’s enemies.

One can assume the above developments are viewed with horror by those in Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh.