US grand strategy is predicated on the zero-sum pursuit of maximizing its power at others’ expense, which everyone in the international community finally realized after the blatant hypocrisy of its foreign policy since the start of Russia’s ongoing special operation. Morals, ethics, international law, and principles always take second place to the preceding goal, which…
The March 10 announcement that Saudi Arabia and Iran will restore diplomatic relations under China’s mediation drew astonishment from Western commentators. By American standards, China’s presence in the Middle East is minimal. But China’s footprint in trade and especially technology has grown enormously in Western Asia, allowing Beijing to turn its gradual accumulation of soft…
This remarkable development removes one of the most destabilizing factors in regional security for decades, the Iranian-Saudi rivalry, which was exploited by the US to divide-and-rule West Asia. Washington might still try to sabotage their rapprochement, but it’s unlikely that it’ll achieve anything in this respect, especially since both Tehran and Riyadh are likely aware…
Ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-allied Shah of Iran, the rivalry between the two major Middle East powers — Iran and Saudi Arabia — has been at the heart of every conflict across the region. The announcement on Friday that Iran and Saudi Arabia have normalized relations could have a seismic…
The visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing and his face-to- face meeting with counterpart Xi Jinping is a groundbreaking affair in more ways than one. Raisi, the first Iranian president to officially visit China in 20 years, led an ultra high-level political and economic delegation, which included the new Central Bank governor and…
This is a crucial inflexion point in an absorbing, complex, decades-long, ongoing historical process: Eurasia integration. Little wonder that President Raeisi, welcomed by a standing ovation at Peking University before receiving an honorary academic title, stressed “a new world order is forming and taking the place of the older one”, characterized by “real multilateralism, maximum…
