The Myth of the “China-Iran Axis”
It may not be surprising, but certainly ironic, that some of the same foreign policy thinkers who had urged Americans to prepare for World War III, the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) in post-9/11, are now pressing us to get ready for new Cold War with China.
Hence the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal that together with other neoconservative outlets was a leading GWOT advocate and, in that context, an influential cheerleader for the War in Iraq and other regime change and nation building projects in the Middle East, is now warning of Chinese plans to take over the Middle East and raising the specter of The China-Iran Axis.“
The WSJ argued that recent signing of a 25-year “strategic partnership” between Beijing and Tehran, including plans for Chinese investment of several hundred of million dollars in Iranian projects in return for a supply of Iranian oil, marks a momentous geo-strategic development that would change the balance of power in the Middle East and strengthen the hands of those players who seem to challenge U.S. global position.
And apropos U.S. global position, recall that before they turned into full-blown China bashers, neoconservative intellectuals were contending that by gaining hegemony in the Middle East post Iraq-War, Washington could use its control of the oil resources there as leverage in its dealings with China, whose booming economy was becoming more reliant on energy imports. That would have supposedly ensured that Beijing would not become America’s long-term global rival.
But in fact, the costly American military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the failed nation-building and democracy promotion crusades in the Middle East, had damaged U.S. global security interests and played directly into China’s hands.
The U.S. was drawn into a long and costly military quagmire in the Middle East just as the U.S. financial system was being challenged and the American economy was plummeting into a major recession.
At the same time, after joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) exactly three months after 9/11, the Chinese were able to continue strengthening their booming economy. This provided them with the opportunity to advance their economic and military agenda in East Asia.
In a way, America’s military presence in the Middle East was helping to secure Chinese access to the energy resources in the Persian Gulf, amounting to free American security services for China in the region.
At the same time, the American military adventures in the Middle East wrecked Iraq, the central Persian Gulf power counterbalancing Iran, and helped strengthen the hands of the Islamic Republic and its Shiite proxies in the region.
So here some more irony: The GWOT came to a close – and the winners ended up being China and Iran! And now the architects of the Iraq War who were responsible for the devastating U.S. strategic trouncing in the Middle East, are accusing the Biden Administration of helping strengthen Tehran’s power by trying to renew the nuclear deal with it, and for all practical purposes inviting China to fill the strategic vacuum in the region left by an alleged America’s retreat.
Not unlike the way the neocons had painted post-9/11 a picture of horrific American defeat in the Middle East perpetrated by the Axis of Evil of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea providing the strategic rationale for invading Iraq, their China-bashing successors are drawing a nightmare scenario under which the China-Iran agreement is part of a long-term scheme promoted by Beijing, Tehran, and Russia to break the U.S. dollar’s on global trade and finance, not to mention the plan of kicking the U.S. from the Persian Gulf and establishing a Pax Sinica in the Middle East.
If you buy into these nightmare scenarios, that assume that Beijing and Washington are engaged in zero-sum competition in the Middle East, any attempt to reassess U.S. military presence in the Middle East and avert future interventions, for example, by withdrawing U.S. military troops from Afghanistan or renewing the nuclear deal with Iran, would amount to wins for China. The other side of this strategic coin being that the U.S. needs to ensure that it continues to maintain its hegemony in the Greater Middle East.
In reality, as opposed to the fantasies concocted by neoconservatives, “national conservatives,” and all those who yearn for the good old days of the Cold War, China has been expanding its economic ties with almost any country that has expressed an interest, and that included Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf States and Iraq as well as with Israel, which is major provider of military technology to the Chinese, and in many cases it has been labeling these ties as “strategic” partnerships.
In fact, China had signed a similar partnership with Iran five years ago, and with other governments, not as part of a global military strategy but in order to support its economic development that includes the need to maintain access to oil and other resources.
And unlike the U.S., the Chinese have not been deploying military troops to areas far away from their borders in order to advance its interests and promote questionable ideological crusades.
If anything, the Chinese have probably legitimate concerns about America current geo-strategic goals as they watch the Biden Administration trying to form military ties with India, Australia, and Japan as part of a long-term effort to “contain” China and follow the evolution of an expanding consensus in Washington that perceives China’s as America’s main global threat and supports preparing for a new cold war with it.
Not surprisingly, these new U.S. cold warriors are mirror imaging these fears and plans as they consider China’s current strategy, ensuring that the global power they imagine to be their enemy turns to be their real enemy.