Yesterday several analysts did what analysts do: analyse. The object of their scrutiny was the on-going war in Iran, specifically why it broke out and what are its strategic objectives.
One such expert, Haviv Rettig Gur, correctly dismissed the ridiculous notion that it was Israel that was trigger-happy, with America simply tagging along out of solidarity. Though he didn’t quite put it in those words, that version of the events must have come from the same school of thought that teaches that Jews run the world.
Israel may well be a beneficiary of this war, bit she isn’t its initiator. The experts agree that the war has to be viewed in the context of global confrontation between the US and China. The minor matter that’s to be settled is whether the world order will continue to be based around America, or will China usurp that role.
Not to cut too fine a point, Iran is China’s proxy in East Asia, even more so than Venezuela was her outpost in South America. A strike against Iran was thus one against China, and the aim was to limit China’s influence in that part of the world.
It was China (among others, but we’ll come to that later) that built up Iran’s military capability to threaten the Middle East and especially Israel, America’s ally that Iran is constitutionally committed to annihilating. It is also China that helps Iran to bust international sanctions and continue to export her oil, if at knockdown prices.
China buys some 1.4 million barrels of Iranian crude a day, about 80 per cent of the total output. Partly thanks to that, the communists have built up reserves of a staggering one billion barrels. That would enable China to carry on for 100 days in case the US Navy imposes a blockade following China’s attack on Taiwan.
Without that oil revenue, which amounts to about a quarter of Iran’s budget, the regime wouldn’t be able to pay its army and security forces, nor provide essential staples for the people. In other words, it would collapse.
China is supplying Iran with state-of-the-art military technology, including supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles specifically designed to be impervious to the defences deployed by American carriers. Judging by the failure of Iranian air defences to knock down a single American or Israeli warplane nor to sink a single ship, we are talking about China’s, not America’s, state of the art, but still.
Iran’s aggressive posture in the region, aided by her transparent intention to produce nuclear weapons, seems to be an essential prong in China’s hybrid war for global dominance. It also diverts America’s attention from the Far East and, now the war has got out of the hybrid stage, it forces the US to commit much of her military capability, and deplete much of her ordnance stocks.
This simplifies China’s task should the communists act on their perennial threat to do to Taiwan what they’ve done to Tibet and are doing to Hong Kong. The omens are quite sinister at the moment, as the analysts are agreeing in chorus.
But, as Princess Diana would say, there are three in this marriage. I was surprised to see one word missing in the articles I read yesterday: Russia. Yet Russia is also China’s proxy, in Europe, just as Iran is in West Asia. The relationships aren’t identical, but neither are they drastically different.
Russia too has to sell her oil to China at dumping prices, which fills the reservoirs of the latter and keeps the former afloat. In the process Russia begins to resemble China’s vassalage more and more. By some estimates, over two million Chinese are colonising the Russian Far East, getting cheap mining concessions, building townships and in general acting towards the locals the way the conquering Mongols treated the Russians in the 13th century.
I don’t know whether Russia’s assault on the Ukraine was prompted by China, but she certainly has a vested interest in it. This grows the longer the conflict goes on, for the same reason as with the Iran war. The West is diverting its attention and depleting its arsenal, indirectly putting its halfhearted support of the Ukraine at the service of Chinese imperialism, not just Russian.
Iran is to Russia what Russia is to China: a de facto dependency and a strategic ally. In fact, that relationship was formalised in the 2025 Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
The partnership also includes China, and the three evil regimes have held several joint naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz. And Russia is another major supplier of arms and military technologies to Iran. Again, it’s testimony to the superiority of American capabilities that the US and Israeli air forces achieved air dominance in the on-going war so easily.
But there is one rubric of military hardware that Iran, Russia and the Ukraine more or less pioneered jointly: long-range attack drones. And this is one area of technology in which Iran and Russia may be ahead of the West.
Both countries are reshaping the landscape of modern warfare, with Russia doing so on a vastly larger scale, but with Iran’s assistance. Iran and Russia are both able to fire salvos of suicide Shahed-type drones in swarms, which makes defence problematic.
It’s widely known that Tehran is supplying Russia with thousands of Shaheds. But what is less publicised is that Iran actually helped Russia to build a Shahed factory. The Russians have added a few targeting and navigational bells and whistles, but by and large they are using Iranian technology.
Russia will be soon churning out 1,000 drones a day, each to be used as a weapon of mass terrorism against Ukrainians. That way the Russians can keep their expensive missiles for striking against sturdier targets.
The Russians have paid Iran somewhere between one and two billion dollars for that murderous assistance, but I’m sure they regard it as money well-spent. And of course Iran is ratcheting up her own production of drones the better to terrorise her neighbours.
I’ve forgotten to credit Russia’s and Iran’s partners in this criminal activity. For many drone components, those ‘bells and whistles’ I mentioned so flippantly, come from China and, one hopes unwittingly, the West. These mostly off-the shelf components include the engine, fuel pump, GPS, semiconductors and antenna parts.
Both Iran and especially Russia are displaying enviable ingenuity in bypassing international sanctions. The Russians bring to the task their long experience in money laundering, one of the KGB/FSB’s specialities.
Just as the West was gasping with delight at glasnost and perestroika, and issuing inane books about the ultimate victory of liberalism ending history, the KGB, as it then was, was busily creating a network of shadowy brass plates, dummy corporations and untraceable offshore shelters.
Now Russia, in cahoots with Iran, is putting that naughty experience to good use by busting sanctions on the export of military technology. New trading companies are being set up all the time and, as one lot are found out, another batch come in, making a mockery of any sanctions.
The phrase ‘expensive missiles’ I used above must be giving sleepless nights to Pentagon planners. For Americans are downing Iranian drones with Patriot missiles, a wasting asset. A side that uses missiles costing $4 million each to down drones costing $20,000 a pop is on a losing wicket, and I’m sure Pentagon officials have their calculators in working order.
This is where the Ukraine can help America, partly paying back for the begrudging and diminishing support the US has been providing for the Ukraine’s defence. The country is ahead of the US in drone technology, but even more so in the tactics of using – and resisting – drones in battlefield conditions.
The Ukrainians have developed anti-drone drones that cost even less than their targets, and they’ve learned how to use defensive nets that can greatly reduce damage. The jackboot is on the other foot: while Western specialists used to train the Ukrainian army for years, the Ukrainians can now train the West in the use of drones for both attack and defence.
Godspeed to the Ukraine in her heroic fight against one form of evil, and godspeed to the US and Israel in their valiant effort to stop another. But it’s actually the same evil: China, Iran and Russia are thick as thieves. Or rather murderers.