Why Iran’s allies are nowhere to be seen
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Stuart Willey with Alex Dibble. Donald Trump has, according to reports, approved plans to join Israel in hitting Iran, but is said to be waiting to see whether Tehran will give up its nuclear program before making a final decision.

As Israel says it's intensifying strikes on Iran, some think a US attack on Fordow, an underground uranium enrichment facility, could be imminent.

But as Israel enjoys the heavy backing of the United States in this conflict, Iran is seemingly friendless as its allies refuse to come to its aid. Why? Our guest today can answer that question. Christopher Chivas is the director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Chris, we often think of China, Russia and North Korea as being Iran's closest allies. Sometimes we even talk about the axis of upheaval.

But if we talk about Russia first, it's been notable for standing aside as Israel attacks. Why is that? Well, I've been a skeptic of how close the relationship between Russia and Iran has actually been. I think it's been portrayed as much tighter than it actually is. And I think we're seeing that play out right now. It's not to say that there's nothing there, of course. There certainly is a relationship.

But from Russia's perspective, if you think about it, the status quo of a week ago was actually working pretty well for Russia. Iran was under sanctions, and this was pushing Iran into Russia's arms and encouraging them to do things like help Russia with its war on Ukraine.

And at the same time, it was also the sanctions that we had on Iran were also driving up the price of oil, which is very important to Russia's war machine. The higher the price of oil, the easier it is for Russia to foot the bill for its war on Ukraine. So the situation was pretty good.

But now they're posed with a situation which is much more difficult and uncertain for them and carries with it a number of different risks. How could those risks play out for Russia? The biggest risk from Russia's perspective right now is obviously that Iran is completely overthrown, that there is a change of regime and it entirely loses its partner. That doesn't seem very likely, though. I doubt that Moscow is especially worried about that outcome, but...

Although certainly a lot of chaos could come of this. The problem from the Kremlin's perspective is that they have been trying to romance President Trump.

And if they step in too strongly on Iran's side in this conflict, they could cut off the chances of any kind of accommodation that they might hope for out of President Trump, either over Ukraine or potentially in a broader scenario where they attempt to normalize their whole relationship with the United States in Europe. And that's just frankly a more important issue for them than Iran itself. Yeah.

Chris, the Kremlin has been offering to mediate, to perhaps broker a deal between Iran and Israel. Is this a way, do you think, for Russia to say to Iran, you know, look how good a friend we are, even in the absence of offering concrete support? I think that's exactly right. I mean, I think that

Yeah.

Iran to maintain some semblance of a nuclear program, which is something that Russia has been involved in discussions of for many years now. Obviously, Russia was a signatory to the Iran nuclear agreement that President Trump ended back in 2018. They have offered again to

keep highly enriched uranium for Iran, something that was potentially of interest to Iran. So a lot of different things that they could do here. The big problem is, of course, that for most countries in the world, Russia, at least most Western countries, Russia is a total pariah. And the idea that they would negotiate while still attacking Ukraine seems very, very far-fetched. Maybe not the same for China, a different story there, but for Russia seems pretty far-fetched.

Let's turn to China then. Beijing has been voicing pretty strong concern over the conflict, criticising Israel's actions. They have warm relations with Iran and rely on energy imports. What are they doing to keep those links open?

Absolutely right. I mean, you know, from China's perspective, you know, access not just to Iran's energy, but also just more broadly to the energy from the whole region is really, really important. More important potentially than for almost any other country in the world, certainly than for any other great power country.

So this is something that's really very much on the minds, I would imagine, of leaders in Beijing. They also have commercial interests in the region. You know, they have tried to present themselves as a reliable commercial partner willing to trade with any country, you know, regardless of their politics. This is something that the United States obviously has, in some cases for good reason, not offered, but it gives China a certain advantage in

in developing its commercial reputation across the region. And then in addition to that, as you point out, they've tried to build on those energy and commercial ties to try to present themselves as a political leader.

a country that can really act as a neutral intermediary, help to resolve conflicts, stand up for world peace. And these are exactly the messages that we hear coming out of, for example, President Xi over the course of the last few days when he talks about the situation between Israel and Iran. Chris, the final member of this group, this axis of upheaval, North Korea,

has been involved in sending troops to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine. But what do you think Kim Jong-un will be thinking right now when it comes to the Israel-Iran conflict?

These are very shadowy relationship between Iran and North Korea. We don't really know a lot about it. But I think it's fair to say that, you know, of the different relationships in this, you know, entente of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, it's the relationship between Iran and North Korea that is the weakest relationship.

and the least significant by far. Historically, there's been some transfers of weapons of a limited amount, at least that I'm aware of, between North Korea and Iran, but it's not very extensive. They're very, very far apart. North Korea is cash-strapped, heavily sanctioned. It doesn't really have a whole lot that it can offer to Iran. So I would be surprised, again, in the near term, if there were much activity there.

You've written in the past that these four countries are less coherent as a bloc. The threats they pose are independent of each other. After the events of this week, are you seeing cracks bigger than you might have imagined?

I think that the countries of this entente are largely behaving as I would have predicted, as we've been discussing, making rhetorical statements in favor of Iran, trying to use the issue to posture and bolster their own legitimacy and distract from their own, the own problems that they're creating, especially Russia's problems in Ukraine. The only situation in which I could imagine this getting, this changing is Ukraine.

if, God forbid, the United States were to get dragged into some kind of a ground war in Iran, the same way that Russia is involved in Ukraine. Under those circumstances, I could see certainly Russia and maybe even China attempting to create problems for the United States and Iran. I think that Russia in particular would love nothing more than to see the United States repeat the mistakes of

of the Iraq war. In this case, it would, of course, be on an even larger scale. But I think that Russia would view that as quite beneficial. To sum up then, is this axis of upheaval less of a threat to the West as a combination than perhaps it has been portrayed? I mean, I think that in the near term, that the threat has been exaggerated.

I don't think it means that there is no threat out there. I think the last thing that we would want to see is to see a more serious kind of cooperation emerge between these four powers. The thing that really concerns me would be something that we call

opportunistic coordination. This would be a situation in which, for example, on account of the war in Iran, say that this conflict deepens, Russia or China decides to take advantage of the fact that large numbers of US forces are occupied in the Middle East.

to try to do things that it's been wanting to do for a long time. In Russia's case, potentially threaten the Baltic states. In China's case, this would most likely mean more military pressure on Taiwan. That's not exactly cooperation, but it is coordination that would be extremely stressful for the American military, probably stretch it beyond its potential.

Okay, Chris, thank you. Christopher Chivas is director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A significant factor in US decision-making at the moment is how Iran could retaliate if the United States does join Israel's attacks.

Listen to yesterday's episode as Professor Lina Khatib explains how it could hit the US at home or abroad. Tomorrow, we'll be analysing what Iran may look like should the regime collapse. Click follow to make sure you don't miss out. For now, though, that's it from us. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. See you tomorrow.

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