Events on the Russian-Chinese-Iranian front after the visit of Iranian parliamentarians to Moscow began to develop rapidly. Joint naval exercises of Russia and Iran in the northern part of the Indian Ocean are starting today as a demonstration of the power and unity of the new strategic alliance
I wrote that Iranian “hawks” brought a message from Supreme Leader Khamenei to President Putin, and suggested that it was an invitation to enter into a military-political alliance with China and Iran in order to resist US sanctions and other pressure.
It seems that I was close to the truth: when the Iranians returned home, certain details of this letter became known. They were voiced by the special assistant to the speaker of the Iranian parliament for international affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahyan:
“There is no doubt that the 21st century is the century of Asia. The timing of this trip at a time when new tenants entered the White House makes it clear to Iran’s allies that we will no longer waste time with the White House playing in the JCPOA”.
Abdollahyan is a young, born in 1964, “hawk” who entered the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2011, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. When the parliament returned under the control of the Ksirov generals and supporters of a hard anti-Western line, he was appointed secretary general of the International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada.
Despite the fact that the speaker of parliament, Galibaf, did not meet in Moscow with President Putin, as he really wanted, he did meet with his Russian counterpart Volodin and the main Russian strategist Nikolai Patrushev.
“The speaker of the Russian State Duma received a message from the leader of the Islamic Revolution as a special representative of Mr. Putin. And an hour later, we learned that the Russian president had read the message and seriously considered it”, – Abdollahian told the Iranian media.
Further events in Iran and Russia began to develop in an interesting synchronization. Returning from Russia, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, began to threaten Russia with new tough sanctions. Moscow is tired of threats: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suddenly makes a statement, unexpected for everyone (and for the EU), that Moscow is ready to break off relations with the EU.
At this time, the head of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad-Bager Galibaf, who returned to Tehran from Moscow, enthusiastically congratulates China on the Chinese New Lunar Year and emphasizes that China is the first economic partner and the main strategic direction of Iranian foreign policy.
“XXI is the century of Asia”, remember? At the very top – the supreme leader of Iran – is given the command to stop any attempts to negotiate with Washington. In an ultimatum, Khamenei turns to the United States and Biden: no negotiations on a nuclear deal, Iran will not sit down at the negotiating table until the United States completely lifts the sanctions imposed by Trump.
Iran suddenly begins to behave as if the United States does not exist at all.
“Just think, Americans! We now have strong friends: China and Russia. Iran is no longer alone, Iran is part of the world’s strongest military-political union”, – this is the answer of the Islamic Republic, translated from official to human.
In mid-February, military exercises are announced in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, which will be held by China, Russia and Iran. According to the Iranian media, for the first time the news of these naval exercises was reported by the Russian Ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan.
Iranian media, referring to Admiral Habibulu Sayyari, deputy coordinator of the Islamic Republic’s army, reported:
“Iran, a regional power, is going to conduct joint naval exercises with Russia and China, two superpowers, in the Gulf of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean”. Notice how beautifully and in an oriental flattering accents are placed in the admiral’s speech.
Iran needs strong allies in its confrontation with the United States!
Congratulating China on the New Year, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Ghalibaf personally addresses the heavyweights of Chinese politics – Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Li Zhanshu and Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Wang Yang, again repeating like a mantra how Iranian-Chinese cooperation flourishes.
But now the most interesting thing: who in China congratulates and whom Galibaf addresses in his speeches in parliament.
“Li Zhanshu is the only politician next to Xi Jinping who, perhaps, is equal to him in power and influence. When he comes to Russia, he almost always meets with President Putin personally. Well, he certainly always meets with the speaker of the State Duma Volodin. Li Zhanshu is the ideologist of Russian-Chinese cooperation. It was he who invented and organized the obligatory oath of loyalty to Xi Jinping in the speeches of the regional committee secretaries, thus checking the loyalty of officials: who took the oath and who tried to evade. At his meetings with Putin, Li Zhanshu is the only one who dares to say that the Russian-Chinese alliance was created against America. Usually no one says it out loud”, – explains the Sinologist Nikolai Vavilov, author of the book “Chinese Power” and the Telegram channel “South China”, a man who knows everything about the modern political elite in China.
So we said it out loud at last.
Alliance Against America. Its ideologist, Li Zhanshu, who oversees Russian-Chinese relations, also oversees Iranian-Chinese relations in Beijing. He paints the architecture of a sharp triangle created by “one strong regional power and two superpowers”, as Admiral Sayyari said.
And this strategic triangle announces new naval exercises in the Indian Ocean in mid-February.
What’s going on in Russia? The return of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who knows that if returned, he will be arrested and imprisoned, unauthorized street protests, Borrell’s visit to Moscow and the promise of harsh Western sanctions “for Navalny”.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and the “Conservative” Party refuse to sit down at the negotiating table on a “nuclear deal” with the Americans, putting forward an ultimatum (to lift sanctions and almost apologize for the suffering caused).
The hegemon does not like to be talked to like that. More precisely, everyone does not like it, but the scale and scope of responses to audacity, of course, are very different from the capabilities of the opponent. Yes, in general, and it is understandable: the rebels against the hegemon will meet the fiercest resistance.
If the alliance of China, Russia and Iran is, the US and the Fed for the dollar and the status of the hegemon will fight hard, with blood.
On January 24 at dawn (at 21:30 on January 23 GMT) two tankers were arrested in Indonesian waters (an Iranian tanker full of oil and an empty Chinese tanker sailing under Panamanian flags). The ships were charged with an oil spill and pollution of the territorial waters of Indonesia (a mirror response to Iran, which took a South Korean tanker hostage on the same charge), illegal oil sales, violation of US sanctions and a full set of serious troubles in international jurisdiction.
Immediately after the arrest of the tankers, an urgent telephone conversation took place between the already familiar speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ghalibaf, and the chairman of the Standing Committee of People’s Representatives, Li Zhanshu.
Following this, in Pakistani Karachi – literally with a difference of a day – another Iranian ship with 28 thousand liters of diesel fuel was arrested, “seven smugglers were detained”.
After these incidents, sea routes and oil tankers become dangerous for gray oil sales schemes. Iran is forced to switch to land transit: the dependence of oil economies on the sale of raw materials is the same for all oil or gas empires. But here’s the bad luck: Iran guarantees the safety of any transit within its country. But outside Iran there is chaos and fire.
In the truest sense of the word. On February 13, 2021, at the Islam-Qala checkpoint in the western Afghan province of Herat, passing the Iranian border and entering the territory of Afghanistan, for some unknown reason, a gasoline tanker filled with fuel suddenly takes off.
Then, one after another, the trucks that follow him flare up and take off. The strength and speed of the fire spread was such that the area of fire only increased after six hours – despite the fact that 15 fire brigades from Iranian Mashhad arrived in Afghanistan and in Iran (this is an interesting nuance) a crisis headquarters was created to eliminate the consequences of the fire.
The fire was extinguished only the next day: several dozen dead, from 400 to 500 trucks burned to the ground, the most preliminary damage from the fire was $50 million.
Simple analysis suggests that what happened is similar to a special operation against a convoy of fuel coming from Iran and the suppression of Iranian gray oil trading schemes, which Iran needs to survive under sanctions.
Just imagine how petrol flares up and burns. And if this gasoline (oil, gasoline) is in the tanks of hundreds of cargo trailers in one place?
Few in the world can arrange such an expensive fireworks display at the moment Iran proclaims an alliance with China and Russia and begins their joint military exercises in the Indian Ocean.
Julia Yuzik, RT