{"id":1529962,"date":"2025-04-12T03:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T07:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1529962"},"modified":"2025-04-12T03:25:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T07:25:00","slug":"escobar-russia-iran-china-all-for-one-and-one-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/escobar-russia-iran-china-all-for-one-and-one-for-all\/1529962\/","title":{"rendered":"Escobar: Russia\u2013Iran\u2013China – All For One, And One For All?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Escobar: Russia\u2013Iran\u2013China – All For One, And One For All?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Russia and Iran are at the forefront of the multi-layered Eurasia integration process \u2013 the most crucial geopolitical development of the young 21st\u00a0century.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Both are top members of BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Both are seriously implicated as Global Majority leaders to build a\u00a0multi-nodal<\/em>, multipolar world. And both have signed, in late January in Moscow, a detailed, comprehensive strategic partnership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second administration of US President Donald Trump, starting with the \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d antics employed by the bombastic Circus Ringmaster himself, seems to ignore these imperatives.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

It was up to the Russian Foreign Ministry to re-introduce rationality in what was fast becoming an out of control shouting match:<\/strong> essentially\u00a0Moscow, alongside its partner Tehran, simply\u00a0will not accept outside threats\u00a0of bombing Iran\u2019s nuclear and energy infrastructure, while insisting on the search for viable\u00a0negotiated solutions\u00a0for the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then, just like lightning, the Washington narrative changed.\u00a0US Special Envoy for Middle East Affairs, Steven\u00a0Witkoff \u2013 not exactly a Metternich, and\u00a0previously a \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d\u00a0hardliner \u2013 started talking about\u00a0the need for \u201cconfidence-building\u201d\u00a0and even \u201cresolving disagreements,\u201d implying Washington began \u201cseriously considering,\u201d according to the proverbial \u201cofficials,\u201d indirect nuclear talks.<\/p>\n

These implications turned to reality on Monday afternoon when Trump allegedly blindsided the visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the announcement of a \u201cvery big meeting\u201d with Iranian officials in the next few days. Tehran later confirmed the news, with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi saying he would engage in indirect nuclear negotiations with Witkoff in Oman on Saturday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if Trump had at least listened to the arguments exposed by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But then again, he can change his mind in a Trump New York minute.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The finer points of the Russia\u2013Iran\u2013China axis<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Essential background to decipher the \u201cWill Russia help Iran\u201d conundrum <\/strong>can be found in these\u00a0all-too-diplomatic exchanges<\/a>\u00a0at the Valdai Club in Moscow.<\/p>\n

The key points were made by\u00a0Alexander Maryasov<\/a>,\u00a0Russia\u2019s\u00a0ambassador\u00a0to Iran\u00a0from\u00a02001 to\u00a02005. Maryasov argues that the Russia\u2013Iran treaty is not only a symbolic milestone, but \u201cserves as a roadmap for advancing our cooperation across virtually all domains.\u201d It is more of \u201ca bilateral relations document\u201d \u2013 not\u00a0<\/em>a defense treaty.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The treaty was extensively discussed \u2013 then approved \u2013 as a counter-point\u00a0to\u00a0\u201cthe intensified military-political and economic pressure exerted by western nations on both Russia and Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main rationale was how to fight against the sanctions tsunami.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet even if it does not constitute a military alliance, the treaty details mutually agreed moves\u00a0if there is\u00a0an attack or threats to either nation\u2019s national security \u2013 as in Trump\u2019s careless bombing threats against Iran. The treaty also\u00a0defines the\u00a0vast\u00a0scope of military-technical and defense cooperation,\u00a0including, crucially,\u00a0regular\u00a0intel talk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maryasov identified the key security points as the Caspian, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and last but not least, West Asia, including the breadth and reach of the Axis of Resistance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The official Moscow position on the Axis of Resistance is an extremely delicate affair. For instance, let\u2019s look at Yemen.\u00a0Moscow\u00a0does not\u00a0officially\u00a0recognize the Yemeni resistance government embodied by Ansarallah\u00a0and with its HQ in the capital Sanaa; rather, it recognizes, just like Washington, a puppet government in Aden, which is in fact housed in a five-star hotel in Riyadh, sponsored by\u00a0Saudi Arabia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last summer two different Yemeni delegations were visiting Moscow. As I witnessed it, the Sanaa delegation faced tremendous bureaucratic problems to clinch official meetings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is, of course, sympathy for Ansarallah across Moscow intel and military circles. But as\u00a0confirmed in Sanaa with a member of the High Political Council<\/a>, these contacts occur via \u201cprivileged channels,\u201d and not institutionally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The same applies to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which was a key Russian ally in routing ISIS and other Islamist extremist groups during the Syrian war. When it comes to Syria, the only thing that really matters for official Moscow, after the Al-Qaeda-linked extremists took power in Damascus last December, is to preserve the Russian bases in Tartous and Hmeimim.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that the\u00a0Syrian\u00a0debacle was an extremely serious setback for both Moscow and Tehran, further aggravated by Trump’s non-stop escalation\u00a0over Iran\u2019s nuclear program and his \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d obsession.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The nature of the Russia\u2013Iran treaty differs substantially from that of Russia\u2013China. For Beijing, the partnership with Moscow is so solid, it develops so dynamically, that they don\u2019t even need a treaty: they have a \u201ccomprehensive strategic partnership.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in his recent visit to Russia, after coining a pearl \u2013 \u201cthose who live in the 21st\u00a0century but think in Cold War blocs and zero-sum games cannot keep up with the times\u201d \u2013 neatly summarized Sino\u2013Russian relations in three vectors:\u00a0The two Asian giants are \u201cforever friends and never enemies;\u201d Equality and mutually beneficial cooperation; Non-alignment with blocs; Non-confrontation, and non-targeting of third parties. So even as we have a Russia\u2013Iran treaty, between China and Russia, and China and Iran, we have essentially close partnerships.<\/p>\n

Witness, for instance, the fifth annual\u00a0joint Russia\u2013Iran\u2013China naval exercises<\/a>\u00a0that took place in the Gulf of Oman in March. This trilateral synergy is not new; it has been under development for years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But it’s lazy to characterize this improved RIC Primakov triangle (Russia\u2013Iran\u2013China instead of Russia\u2013India\u2013China) as an alliance. The only \u201calliance\u201d that exists today on the geopolitical chessboard is NATO \u2013 a warmongering outfit composed of intimidated vassals corralled together by the Empire of Chaos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cue to yet another hard-to-resist Wang Yi jade pearl: \u201cThe US is sick but forces others to take the medicine.\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Takeaways: Russia is not switching sides; China won\u2019t be encircled; and Iran will be defended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the new Primakov triangle meets in Beijing\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At the Valdai discussion,\u00a0Daniyal Meshkin Ranjbar<\/a>, assistant professor in the Department of Theory and History of International Relations at the Moscow-based RUDN University,\u00a0made a crucial point: \u201cFor the first time in history, the diplomatic outlooks of Russia and Iran converge.” He’s referring to the\u00a0obvious parallels between official policies:\u00a0Russia\u2019s \u201cpivot to the east\u201d and Iran\u2019s \u201clook east\u201d policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All those interconnections plainly escape the new administration in Washington, as well as bombastic Trump\u2013Netanyahu rhetoric that has zero basis in reality \u2013 even the US National Security Council admitted that Iran is not working on a nuclear bomb.<\/p>\n

And that brings us to the Big Picture. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Circus Ringmaster \u2013 at least until he changes his mind again \u2013 is essentially working on a triangulation deal, allegedly offering Russia a transportation framework, access to grain exports in the Black Sea, and Russian banks off the sanction list of SWIFT so he may execute his \u201cpivot\u201d to then attack Iran (deadline to Tehran included).\u00a0<\/p>\n

And if Russia defends Iran, no deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s as mendacious as Mafia-style \u201coffer you can\u2019t refuse\u201d maximum pressure can get. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov \u2013 an exceptionally able diplomat \u2013 destroyed the whole rationale: \u201cRussia cannot accept US proposals to end the war in Ukraine in their current form\u00a0because they do not solve the problems Moscow considers the cause of the conflict.\u201d Even as Moscow \u201ctakes the models and solutions proposed by the Americans very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Russian angle of Trump\u2019s triangulation falters, Tehran is not merely watching the river flow. How Iran adapted for decades to a sanctions tsunami is now firm knowledge deeply shared with Moscow, part of their deepening cooperation enshrined in the treaty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For all of Trump\u2019s volatility, non-Zionist-contaminated voices across the Beltway are slowly but surely imprinting the rational view that a war on Iran is absolutely suicidal for the Empire itself. So the odds resurface that Trump 2.0 verbal barrages may be paving the way for a temporary deal that will be spun to death \u2013 after all, this is always a battle of narratives \u2013 as a diplomatic victory.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bets can be made that the only leader on the planet capable of making Trump understand reality is Russian President Vladimir Putin, in their next phone call. \u00a0After all, it is the Circus Ringmaster himself who created the revamped \u201cnuclear Iran\u201d drama. RIC \u2013 or the revamped Primakov triangle \u2013 duly addressed it, together, in a crucial, discreet, not-publicized recent meeting in Beijing, as confirmed by diplomatic sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Essentially, the RIC has developed a \u201cnuclear Iran\u201d road map. These are the highlights:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dialogue. No escalation. No \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d. Step-by-step moves. Build mutual confidence.
\n\tAs Iran re-emphasizes its veto on developing nuclear weapons, the much-debated \u201cinternational community\u201d, actually the UN Security Council, recognizes, again, Iran\u2019s right to peaceful nuclear energy under the NPT.
\n\tBack to the JCPOA \u2013 and reboot it. To get Trump back on board, the reboot will be an extremely hard sell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This roadmap was ratified during a second round of RIC trilateral talks in Moscow on Tuesday, where senior officials from the allied nations discussed collaborative efforts to address the challenges faced by Iran.<\/p>\n

That summit in Moscow<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As it stands, the road map is just that: a map. The breathless Zionist axis from Washington to Tel Aviv will continue to insist that Iran, if attacked, will not be\u00a0supported by Russia, and extra, non-stop \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d will force Tehran to eventually fold and abandon its support to the Axis of Resistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All that, once again, eschews reality. For Moscow, Iran is an absolutely key geopolitical priority; beyond Iran, to the east, is Central Asia. The Zionist obsessive fantasy of regime change in Tehran masks NATO’s then penetrating into Central Asia, building military bases, and at the same time blocking several strategically crucial Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. Iran is as essential to China\u2019s long-term foreign policy as it is to Russia\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s not by accident that Russia and China will meet at the presidential level \u2013 Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping \u2013 at a summit in Moscow around 9 May, Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War. They will be analyzing in detail the next stage of \u201cchanges that we have not seen in 100 years,\u201d as formulated by\u00a0Xi to Putin<\/a>\u00a0in their groundbreaking 2023 summer in Moscow.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

They, of course, will be discussing how the Circus Ringmaster dreams of closing down one Forever War just to start another: the specter of a US\u2013Israel attack on their strategic partner Iran \u2013 complete with the counterpunch of blocking the Strait of Hormuz (transit for 24 million barrels of oil a day); a barrel of oil skyrocketing to $200 and even more; and the collapse of the humongous $730 trillion pile of derivatives in the global economy.<\/p>\n

No, President Circus Ringmaster:\u00a0You<\/em>\u00a0don’t have the cards. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 04\/11\/2025 – 23:25<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/escobar-russia-iran-china-all-one-and-one-all<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Escobar: Russia\u2013Iran\u2013China – All For One, And One For All? Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle, Russia and Iran are at the forefront of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1529963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1529962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-6q0O","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/04\/8176253a-1489-11f0-a94c-00163e02-8kRGKk.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1529963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}