Cool heads required
RUSSIA has been working closely with Iran in places such as Syria, but if this escalates the Russians will have to decide if they want to be forced into an open conflict with America. They will wish to avoid this.
Iran will too, both for their own sake and to keep their Russian allies happy. But accidents happen in these situations.
Wars occur when not intended, and Russian and American troops are very near to each other in the Gulf. Both countries need to work hard to keep the lid on this situation.
China has recently conducted maritime drills with Russia and Iran but is cooperating with Iran primarily for economic reasons.
I can’t see the advantage to China in taking sides over this. America is so much more important to them economically.
There’s more chance Russia will be drawn into something, but they could take the opportunity to tell Iran they have a degree of comeuppance after Soleimani went out of control.
It’s time to cool things and find a route out of all this.
Nobody wants a war, not least a war with the Americans. They remain the most powerful nation in the world.
Asymmetric operations, the sort of thing we see in the Middle East every day, will continue, but all-out confrontation is the last thing anyone really wants or needs.
Iran will be more subtle and work primarily through proxies. It will seek to further ensnare America in the region at the very time Trump’s pre-election policy is to get out.
My instinct is that Russia and China will wish to see this contained, and will not do anything that will lead to direct confrontation with America.
From the moment the Russians went in there, both they and the US have worked hard to minimise risk of conflict between them. I don’t anticipate this ending.
I just don’t see what President Trump has done as being so important to the Russians that they would risk a war with the US.
China, meanwhile, has no history, tradition or apparent desire to get involved in military activity thousands of miles away.
They think long term and strategically. Something the West should learn from them.