Clutching at straws - Iran deal with China for regime survival

Sanctions, imposing maximum pressure on the clerical regime, backed by internal economic crises have laid the ground for regime fears of an explosive society, the people’s dire livelihood leaving them with nothing to lose, as well as having provoked infighting at the top of the regime.

To find a light at the end of this dark tunnel, the regime intends to tie up with China and Russia, to take advantage of their international and political potential, to break its economic deadlock and to block any potential uprising.

On July 12, speaking at the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission’s session in the Majlis (parliament), the Iranian regime’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, said: “When MR. Xi Jinping visited Tehran in 2015 and met with Khamenei, this was the overture for the 25-year cooperation accord.”

Mesbahi Moghadam, a member of the Iranian regime’s Expediency Council, shed light on the role of the Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in this sell-off deal involving the transfer of Kish Island, along with military and intelligence cooperation between the regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Chinese government, saying: “The 25-year cooperation document with China went through after (Khamenei) sent a special message and a special messenger (to China) and met with the Chinese President.”

He said the deal was to remedy the regime’s turmoil and added: “Today, our situation forces us to inject more hope into the society. If hopelessness prevails, there could be social riots. In this regard having relations with China and Russia can provide paths to new opportunities”

Tehran also intends to use this concession to China as a tool to block the extension of the UN arms embargo which will be voted on by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in September this year, by using China and Russia as vetoing countries. On the other hand, China uses this deal to have privilege over the US on its trade agreements with this country.

Simon Watkins, a British economic journalist, highlights the security aspect of this document and writes: “another element that will change the entire balance of geopolitical power in the Middle East has been added to the deal. Last week, the Supreme Leader [Ali Khamenei] agreed to the extension of the existing deal to include new military elements that were

proposed by the same senior figures in the IRGC and the intelligence services that proposed the original deal, and this will involve complete aerial and naval military cooperation between Iran and China, with Russia also taking a key role.” One of the Iran sources told OilPrice.com last week that part of the new military cooperation includes an exchange of personnel between Iran and China and Russia, with up to 110 senior Iranian IRGC men going for training every year in Beijing and Moscow and 110 Chinese and Russians going to Tehran for their training.

In this document, China is introduced as ‘the permanent Iran oil buyer’. The Iranian regime will sell its oil, gas, and petrochemical products to China 12% cheaper than the market price. It also grants China a double discount of 6-8%. Accordingly, China will be buying Iran’s oil products at least 32% cheaper than their true value at global markets.

More than an economic deal, this is a military deal to preserve the Islamic Republic from its downfall. The regime is not able to buy military equipment and no country is allowed to sell such equipment to Iran. This agreement will grant unlimited access to Iran’s bases for Russian and Chinese military forces and they will also have permission to transfer advanced military equipment into Iran.

A local from Isfahan said: “To this regime, national interest is not important. It just thinks of its own survival. It is our nation’s duty to rise and act and stop this deal with our protests.”

A citizen from Shiraz said: “This deal with China is much worse than the Turkman Chai Deal in 1828 and the Golestan Deal in 1813 which they wanted to impose on Iran in two wars with the Russian tsarism.”

But for the people of Iran this does not come as a surprise; they have the experience of 41 years of treachery by this regime against their anti-monarchy revolution, of suffering from torture, execution, and murder as well as seeing the countries resources and assets squandered. For years the people have distanced themselves from this regime and expressed their abhorrence of it by street protests and years of uprisings. They do not see their hopes and future in this regime and its agenda.

Amid the coronavirus spread, the mullahs' regime hoped that the voice of protest would be hushed. But, both in Iran and abroad, this voice is rising again.

Iranian patriots living outside the country staged their annual international conference on July 17 in support of human rights and the protests of the Iranian people. Over a thousand MPs, politicians and distinguished international dignitaries participated in this virtual global summit, thereby expressing their support for the people of Iran and many spoke, clearly and firmly aligning themselves with the desire and will of the people of Iran for a free, secular, democratic country at peace with the world and its neighbors and pledging to do everything they could to help them bring this to reality.

In this context we must trust that reaching out to China will prove to be too little too late for the regime’s survival.

Hassan Mahmoudi, social analyst, a researcher is an independent observer and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iran.tweets @hassan mahmoud

Neo-con globullist Jeffrey Rubin points with alarm:

China’s next military move: A base in the Persian Gulf?
For the past half-century, the United States has essentially dominated international waters in the Persian Gulf uncontested by any Great Power. As in the South China Sea and in the Bab el-Mandeb, however, Xi may have ambitions to challenge the United States and assert its military influence over yet another strategic chokepoint.
The National Interest

FOREIGN AND DEFENSE POLICYASIAMIDDLE EAST
July 6, 2020
For a generation, China has expanded its economic outreach to the Middle East but has largely remained diplomatically neutral and militarily absent. Beijing, for example, maintains cordial diplomatic relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. It often abstained on contentious UN Security Council resolution. And while Chinese Navy ships do make occasional port calls in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, but China’s non-combatant evacuation operation from Libya at the beginning of that country’s civil war was far less coordinated and effective than Chinese authorities claimed.
President Xi Jingping’s assertiveness may not be limited to China’ periphery, in Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and Ladakh. China, for example, not only established a military base in Djibouti within miles of the U.S. presence, but also has begun to interfere with U.S. pilots in the region.
Now, according to the Iranian press, it appears that China may be seeking a more permanent base in the Persian Gulf. Majid Reza Hariri, speaker of Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce, traced increased Chinese involvement both to Ahmadinejad-era agreements and to Xi’s 2015 visit to Iran, in which the Chinese president both met with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, and signed agreements involving both the security and military sectors.
Within the Iranian parliament, rumors now abound that one of these agreements include the lease of facilities on Kish island (Kish is where Bob Levinson disappeared, before being held by Iran until his death years later and where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps onloaded 50 tons of weaponry onto the Karine-A before attempting to smuggle it to the Palestine Liberation Organization). The rumors about the alleged lease started airing in the conservative Iranian news agency Tasnim in February 2020. Alef.ir, a news site affiliated with conservative parliamentarian Ahmad Tavakoli, quoted Hassan Norouzi, a parliamentary hardliner, announcing that he had written to Rouhani to explain why “Negotiations [have been] underway by the government to hand over Kish Island to the Chinese for 25 years.” After complaining about government secrecy in its past dealing with Beijing, Norouzi announced, “If there is any discussion about this, we will definitely stop it, and the Chinese officials should also know that such transfers will not take place.”
While Norouzi’s populist rhetoric may resonate with his working-class constituents in Robat Karim, an impoverished district near Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, parliamentary outrage is a non-factor in Iranian security and defense calculations. In practice, Iran’s elected parliament has no power to counter the military, defense ministry, or supreme leader. That he would air such threats publicly, however, likely suggests that there is some truth behind the rumors and that Chinese work is either progressing or becoming more visible.
For the past half-century, the United States has essentially dominated international waters in the Persian Gulf uncontested by any Great Power. As in the South China Sea and in the Bab el-Mandeb, however, Xi may have ambitions to challenge the United States and assert its military influence over yet another strategic chokepoint.
China’s growing military assertiveness has various ramifications. Too often, the State Department has assumed that where it leads, Gulf Cooperation Council members would follow. Arab Gulf states might be frustrated with Washington, but they understood the threat from Tehran meant they had little choice but to grin and bear American arrogance. Congressional and partisan hostility toward Saudi Arabia, however, increasingly causes its leaders to look for balance farther afield. While the United States is adept at deploying its forces, it has less accustomed to having to compete. It is becoming increasingly urgent, however, that it does so; Washington can no longer take the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, let alone Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, for granted.
Likewise, China’s growing military ambitions in the region make it more crucial that Israel stops its flirtation with Beijing. A generation of Israeli leaders has tried to have it both ways: a partnership with the United States while seeking to sell sensitive military technologies to China. Many Israeli officials rationalize that by cultivating China, they can keep it from fully casting its lot with reactionary regional regimes. That was always naïve, but should China be building a base in the Persian Gulf, it should end that illusion once and for all. If Israelis do not conclude similarly, then it is time for both Republicans and Democrats to consider continued guarantees to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge. After all, U.S. investment in Israel’s security was always part of a broader U.S. strategic calculation. If Israel becomes a strategic liability in a new Cold War, it behooves the United States to mitigate the threat Israeli technology leakage could have on U.S. forces regionally.

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