OPINION:
International alliances intended to foster accord sometimes have a dark side. Strengthening ties among China, Russia and Iran portend new danger as the burgeoning triumvirate brings fresh pressure to bear on the already-beleaguered Middle East.
Recently, China and Russia agreed to join Iran in joint naval exercises scheduled to occur before the end of March, according to the South China Morning Post. The trio conducted similar drills last year in the Gulf of Oman, but the repeat performance will put their combined military muscle in proximity to the Red Sea. Not coincidentally, that’s where Iran’s Houthi partners are attacking commercial shipping vessels to intensify the regional chaos that another Iran proxy, Hamas, unleashed with its war against Israel.
Houthi rockets launched indiscriminately from nearby Yemen have found their mark on vessels flagged by nations not aligned with the Jewish state, prompting the U.S. and British navies to take up escort duty in defense of vulnerable ships. Chinese and Russian ships plying their trade upon the Red Sea are left unscathed — an obvious Houthi concession to the nations that have sided with their Iranian masters.
Moreover, the timing of the top-tier powers’ decision to join Iran in naval exercises serves as a less-than-subtle challenge to American forces and their allies in the region. The message: The so-called sole superpower is soon to have company.
The China-Russia-Iran alliance comprises an informal subset of the BRICS bloc, a rising intergovernmental organization made up of those nations, along with Brazil, India, Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. While BRICS’ goal is primarily economic cooperation modeling the Group of 7 union, the trio’s Middle East alliance has the look of a budding military partnership aiming to expand into a counterbalance to NATO.
President Biden’s response to the regional disrupters appears to be a clumsy attempt at peace through parity, an economic theory that holds that two competing subjects will naturally seek to resolve conflict amicably when they exhibit symmetric capabilities. When one side holds an unmatched advantage, however, the stronger party will normally choose to pounce on the weaker.
By entreating Israel to abandon its pursuit of the Hamas instigators of terror, and by limiting U.S. retaliatory strikes on the Houthis and their fellow proxy forces in Syria and Iraq, the president evidently hopes Iran will view his restraint in the face of aggression as a peace-seeking gesture.
In the real world, though, superpower capability deployed in full view of lesser forces prevents rather than provokes the outbreak of conflict. Sadly, Mr. Biden’s tepid responses to challenges to U.S. power — in the Red Sea conflict and in his earlier, helter-skelter retreat from Afghanistan — have demonstrated the converse: Strength withheld resembles weakness, which encourages lesser powers to seize the opportunity for mischief.
China and Russia have taken note. Hence, their naval forces are soon to join Iranian warships in a show of force.
President Biden’s foolish suppression of U.S. power and pursuit of peace through parity portends peril in the region. There is no realistic alternative to peace through strength.
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