Not only is the Biden administration turning a blind eye on the growing alliance between Iran, Russia, China and North Korea, and looking the other way on their evasions of sanctions, it is also financing the ruling mullahs of Iran with billions of dollars to put the finishing touches on the country’s nuclear program and for delivering more weapons to Russia with which to attack Ukraine.
“We’re sitting still, and the Chinese, the Russians, Iran, North Korea, and several others, are moving to shore up their relations and threaten us in a lot of different places,” former US National Security Advisor John Bolton recently warned.
“It’s an indication that the Saudis and others are trying to hedge their bets with China and Russia, because they don’t think the United States has the resolve and the fortitude necessary to do what they need to do to protect the world against Iran and its intentions. The Chinese have a strategy they’ve been following. We kind of wander around from day to day.”
Iran is currently producing more oil and selling it at levels close to the pre-sanctions era to countries such as China, which desperately needs more oil. China, North Korea and Russia have also been upgrading and expanding their nuclear arsenals. The Iranian regime, now that it is aligned with Putin’s Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, would probably be delighted to conquer the US and Israel.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration seems to be allowing Iran’s ruling mullahs to prosper from the war and emerge as the winners. Iran has become a major weapons exporter to Russia – and not limited to exporting just drones. Iran’s arms exports to Russia are providing the mullahs with a great opportunity to perfect their military systems as well as to profit financially.
The Iranian regime, of course, needs something more in return from Russia than just putting the finishing touches on its nuclear weapons program. Militarily speaking, Russia is moving to provide advanced military equipment to Iran’s regime, such as air defense systems, helicopters and fighter jets. This can only make the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — which chants “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and freely murders its own citizens – an even stronger expansionist state.
David Barnea, director of Israel’s Mossad, warned on September 11, 2023:
“I have a feeling that more deals will be interdicted soon. We are concerned that the Russians will meet Iran’s demands to supply it with weapons and raw materials that will put Israel at risk.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also previously warned:
“I have a question for you – how does Russia pay Iran for this, in your opinion? Is Iran just interested in money? Probably not money at all, but Russian assistance to the Iranian nuclear program. Probably, this is exactly the meaning of their alliance.”
If Russia succeeds in helping Iran acquire nuclear bombs, this is an existential threat not only to Israel, but also to the US and its allies.
After all, one of the core pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been to destroy both the United States (“the Great Satan“) the Jewish state (“the Little Satan“).
“YOU WILL NOT SEE NEXT 25 YEARS,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote in 2015 to the “Zionist regime.” “GOD WILLING, THERE WILL BE NOTHING AS ZIONIST REGIME BY NEXT 25 YEARS.” It is also one of the religious prophecies of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as well as his successor, Khamenei, that Israel will be “eradicated.”
When it comes to the United States, the Iranian regime has made its intentions clear as well. In November 2022, Khamenei vowed: “Death to America will happen. In the new order I am talking about America will no longer have any important role.”
The headline of a report from 2019 by Iran’s state-controlled Afkar News read: “American Soil Is Now Within the Range of Iranian Bombs”. The report boasted:
“The same type of ballistic missile technology used to launch the satellite could carry nuclear, chemical or even biological weapons to wipe Israel off the map, hit US bases and allies in the region and US facilities, and target NATO even in the far west of Europe….”
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, warned on May 4, 2023:
“Today, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran continue to invest in technologies to expand their capabilities to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. All four countries have also escalated their threatening rhetoric, indicating their willingness to use nuclear weapons in a military conflict. By expanding their nuclear programs, each has made clear that our nuclear arsenal is no longer a deterrent to their potential use of nuclear weapons. If deterrence is dead, then the concept of mutually assured destruction is obsolete and comprehensive missile defense must be revisited as an essential capability to protect our citizens.”
Thanks to the Obama and Biden administrations’ monumental capitulations to Iran’s regime — and the refusal of both administrations not only to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program but also to prevent anyone else from stopping it — the Russian-Iranian-Chinese-North Korean alliance now poses a global existential threat.
(Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East)
{Reposted from Gatestone Institute}
