{"id":147630,"date":"2025-07-03T14:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldtribune.com\/?p=147630"},"modified":"2025-07-03T14:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:30:11","slug":"iran-was-central-to-chinas-middle-east-strategy-no-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/iran-was-central-to-chinas-middle-east-strategy-no-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran was central to China\u2019s Middle East strategy; No more"},"content":{"rendered":"

FPI<\/span><\/strong> \/ July 3, 2025<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Geostrategy-Direct<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Iran had been a key cog in the emerging anti-American axis in the Middle East led by China and including Russia.<\/p>\n

Then Israel quickly dismantled Iran\u2019s warfighting structure via a series of targeted strikes known as Operation Rising Lion.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping meets with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Teheran in 2016. \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The United States followed by bombing Iran\u2019s nuclear strongholds at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe war is about more than battlefield gains. Washington and Jerusalem have undermined Iran\u2019s place in the Middle East, and by doing so have destabilized the anti-American axis \u2014 led by China and Russia \u2014 of which it is a part,\u201d Zineb Riboua, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute\u2019s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, noted in a June 23 analysis for Mosaic Magazine.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Operation Rising Lion also eliminated senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), destroyed missile- and drone-production hubs, and severed Teheran\u2019s command networks.<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump chose that moment to launch Operation Midnight Hammer, ordering U.S. strikes on the sites that formed the backbone of Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n

The precision strikes carried out by Israeli and American forces in days devastated what Iran had been building for nearly five decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has cast itself as the vanguard of global resistance to Western dominance,\u201d Riboua wrote. \u201cIts revolutionary ideology fuses Shiite political theology with a militant, anti-Western breed of anti-imperialism, portraying the United States and Israel not simply as geopolitical adversaries, but as existential enemies of a divinely ordained order. The Islamic Republic\u2019s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, encapsulated this worldview by framing of America as the \u2018Great Satan\u2019 and Israel as the \u2018Little Satan,\u2019 and making \u2018Death to America\u2019 his regime\u2019s enduring slogan.\u201d<\/p>\n

For China and Russia, Riboua continued, \u201cthis narrative of a sacred struggle against the West offers a moral framework for challenging the U.S.-led order \u2014 making Iran not just a strategic ally, but an ideological force within the axis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran is central to China\u2019s Middle East strategy, \u201cnot simply as a regional partner but as a strategic asset through which Beijing can challenge U.S. dominance,\u201d Riboua wrote. \u201cBy deepening ties with Teheran, China establishes a presence in one of the most conflict-ridden areas of the world while avoiding the risks and costs of military entanglement. This approach gives China access to energy resources, port infrastructure, and intelligence-sharing opportunities that would otherwise be extremely difficult to obtain. Iran\u2019s entrenched hostility to the United States and its isolation from the Western financial system make it uniquely suited to host Chinese economic and security initiatives under conditions that shield both parties from external scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from its ideological utility, Riboua noted that Iran plays three major converging geostrategic roles in the Russia-China axis:<\/p>\n

\u2022 First<\/strong>, it destabilized the Middle East through a sprawling proxy network in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen \u2014 consisting of armed movements designed to encircle Israel, weaken American allies, and shift the regional balance through relentless asymmetric warfare.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Second<\/strong>, it served as a critical strategic asset to Moscow and Beijing by facilitating sanctions evasion and anchoring diplomatic coalitions aimed at eroding the U.S.-led order.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Third<\/strong>, it offered geographic and logistical depth to the axis, acting as a bridge between Eurasia and the Middle East, and enabling Russia and China to expand their influence across energy corridors and strategic chokepoints.<\/p>\n

For communist China, Iran\u2019s role was vital to its infrastructure push across southern Asia, known as the Belt and Road initiative. For Russia, Iran offered a rear base of operations for military and paramilitary coordination.<\/p>\n

Full Text<\/strong><\/span><\/a> . . . . Current Edition<\/span><\/a> . . . . Subscription Information<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Free Press International<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FPI \/ July 3, 2025 Geostrategy-Direct Iran had been a key cog in the emerging anti-American axis in the Middle East led by China and including Russia. Then Israel quickly dismantled Iran\u2019s warfighting structure via a series of targeted strikes known as Operation Rising Lion. The United States followed by bombing Iran\u2019s nuclear strongholds at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":147631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,3,40,41,43,9,10,12,44,5],"tags":[42,6],"class_list":["post-147630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-exclusives","category-geostrategy-direct","category-iran","category-mideast","category-rest-of-the-best","category-top-stories","category-world-links","category-world-news","category-world-tribune","tag-iran-was-central-to-chinas-middle-east-strategy-no-more","tag-worldtribune-com","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}