By Сергей Дудиков @Adobe Stock
Sune Engel Rasmussen and Laurence Norman of The Wall Street Journal tell their readers that despite decades of Western pressure, Tehran poses a greater threat to U.S. interests thanks to its ties to Russia and China. They write:
The winner of Iran’s presidential election will inherit domestic discord and an economy battered by sanctions, but also a strength: Tehran has more sway on the international stage than in decades.
Iran, under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s leadership, thwarted decades of U.S. pressure and emerged from years of isolation largely by aligning itself with Russia and China, giving up on integration with the West and throwing in its lot with two major powers just as they amped up confrontation with Washington. Iran’s economy remains battered by U.S. sanctions, but oil sales to China and weapons deals with Russia have offered financial and diplomatic lifelines.
It also effectively exploited decades of U.S. mistakes in the Middle East and big swings in White House policy toward the region between one administration and the next. […]
Iran has built regional strength while staying clear of red lines that could trigger direct American military action. The consistency was possible because matters of national security—including the nuclear program and military strategy—are determined not by Iran’s president but by unelected bodies, primarily the supreme leader’s office and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has grown increasingly powerful.
Tehran’s long-term planning is also evident in its domestic efforts to defend the clerical rule against its own people. For the past five years, a secretive unit under the Revolutionary Guard, known as the Baqiatallah Headquarters, has spearheaded the regime’s efforts to push back against secularism and what it sees as corrosive Western influence, according to a new report by researchers at United Against Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based advocacy group.[…]
Despite renewed economic hardship, Iran refused to be coerced into new talks. President Biden made a revival of the nuclear deal a top foreign-policy goal, but renewed talks collapsed in August 2022 when Tehran walked away from a deal.
Iran has since rebuilt its nuclear program, going much further than it had at the time of the 2015 nuclear deal and effectively reaching the threshold of developing a weapon—something it says it isn’t trying to do.
Read more here.
