Casting Iran and China as villains all part of Trump plan

US president picks his global troublemakers for a reason and there is logic behind his speech to the UN, writes Joe Corcoran

IT is no coincidence that the harshest words in President Donald Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly last Tuesday were aimed at Iran and China respectively.

While the president’s focus that morning was short-term, casting the Iranian regime as regional troublemakers who’ve disenfranchised their own population and the Chinese as economic rent seekers who’ve been coasting for years on unfair trade deals, in the long-term, it is quite possible that the relationship between these two nations will prove to be among the most crucial in all of world politics, and that the Trump administration’s treatment of both today will determine the character of our international order for many decades to come.

This all has to do with China’s Belt And Road Initiative, a staggeringly grand foreign policy vision for two massive, interconnected trade routes permanently linking the country to European and East African markets through the Middle East and Indian Ocean. In terms of potential scope, the project has been compared with the US Marshal Plan which drove reconstruction in Europe from the late 1940s onwards and established US political hegemony in the western world during the most important years of the Cold War.

More than $300bn has already been spent on the project since its announcement in September 2013, with at least another trillion dollars anticipated within the next decade. Through these funds China is aiming to develop an infrastructural network across the developing world vast enough to begin challenging the US’s status as the pre-eminent global superpower.

Reaching Europe represents the logical conclusion of this project. Not only would it give China greater access to the largest single market economy in the world, but it would allow it to cultivate a relationship with the United States’s most important political partner. The Chinese understand this, promoting the initiative as the culmination of an historical destiny which stretches back many thousands of years: the long-awaited connection of humanity’s two greatest civilisations, which emerged independently of each other on opposite sides of the great landmass Eurasia, which they can now finally master as coequal empires. This is an extremely powerful piece of myth making, from which the United States is, of course, conveniently excluded.

It is additionally worth noting that those of us in the developed West who might be apprehensive about drifting into such close ties with an increasingly authoritarian China may not have much choice in the matter either way if we plan on maintaining the European Union. This is because in necessarily accessing our markets via theirs, the initiative stands to benefit the economically lagging Eastern Europe more than anyone. To this end it is buttressed by the 16+1 initiative, which aims to develop closer economic ties between China and the eastern states in suspiciously non-transparent deal-making.

When it comes to fully realising these illustrious goals, Iran is indispensable. Not only does its highly educated population of 80m and enormously lucrative oil and gas reserves make it an essential Chinese trading partner in its own right, but more importantly, its geographical location, pinched in between the Caspian Sea and Arabian Gulf, make it China’s only viable land bridge out of Central Asia.

In other words a strong trade link with Iran is the difference between China the regional superpower and China the global superpower.

So how does this affect the United States? While the extent of US investment throughout the world means it would benefit monetarily from the sheer uptake in trade involved, ultimately these would be the residuals of a Chinese system, operating on Chinese terms. Europe, which has settled rather well over the years into its role as the sophisticated trophy wife of power politics, may be able to abide by such a transition, but the Americans are not about to play second string to anyone.

They have therefore found themselves playing the containment game once more. The last administration’s strategy was, one might say, more proactive in this regard. As the Iranian regime floundered in the wake of the Green Movement of 2009, Obama rode in with a lifeline.

The historic Iran deal of 2015 stabilised the Iranian economy, and set the stage for an unlikely mending of relations between the two countries. While not necessarily bad for China, in that it allowed them to further invest in Iran also, it might have been the occasion for a concentrated influence race between the world’s two premier powers, which the US would have been in a reasonably good position to win. A risky strategy perhaps, but a strategy all the same.

Trump’s strategy is riskier still. In pulling out of the Iran deal he has badly damaged America’s global reputation and risked totally alienating his European allies, but he has also thrown the Iranian economy back into disarray, and deeply strengthened US relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Many articles were published in the fallout of his decision discussing how the move drives Iran into the arms of China, but this, in Trump’s eyes, may not be a bad thing.

What better way to stop China coasting to victory as it were, than by forcing them to play their hand in a decisive way at the most inopportune moment imaginable? In the midst of an unprecedentedly large trade war which is already beginning to slow both country’s growth, Trump’s Iranian play aims to shake up a hornets’ nest of social distress and then force the Chinese to reach their hand in to clean up the mess.

Whether or not the strategy works, the reasoning behind it exhibits a surprisingly sophisticated reading of Iranian history. For a while now the Iranians have been stuck trying to decide whom they despise more between their own leaders and the leaders of other, globally ambitious countries. While in recent years the first hatred has become naturally hotter to the touch, the second is a more ossified beast, born out of 200 years’ experience being tossed around as the pet project, first of Russia and the British Empire and then later on of the United States itself. Although the revolution of 1979 certainly wore an Islamist skin, at its beating heart was a strong anti-colonial fervour.

Against this political backdrop, the image of an under-prepared China acting too quickly to prop up a failing regime could be disastrous. Any apparent rerun of the 1953 Mosaddeq crisis would not be tolerated for a moment by the Iranians, and yet it may be no worse an option for the Chinese than trying to deal down the road with a consolidated, nationalistic Iran which is strongly suspicious of outsiders. In fact, such an Iran would constitute one of the few educated peoples in the world who wouldn’t be inclined to laugh along with the rest of the UN assembly when Trump starts talking about putting his own nation first, and keeping out of others’ business.

‘Trump aims to shake up a hornets’ nest of social distress’