While Israel is still pressing the US for an attack on Iran, the calculations involved are complex, and its hard to predict Trump’s policy, argues Chris Bambery 

Israel’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sharren Haskel told a press briefing for foreign reporters in April that in regard to Iran: ‘Iran must not possess nuclear weapons. It is the most significant destabilizing element in the Middle East, arming, financing, and terrorizing all surrounding regions. Disarming Iran from nuclear weapons is in the interest of the entire world.’ 

When one journalist asked about Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Haskel just bulldozed on, ignoring the question, and even claiming that Israel has never began a war (despite 1948, 1956, 1967, repeated invasions of Lebanon…). In fact, Iran has not started a war with anyone in either the twentieth or twenty-first century. No-one should welcome any state acquiring weapons of mass destruction but Iran, and every other state in the region, is very aware that if Israel ever faced defeat, it would use its nuclear weapons.  

Of course, there is massive hypocrisy here. Donald Trump joins the chorus saying there is no way Iran can have nuclear weapons but says nothing about Israel’s; which France and Britain helped her acquire. 

In fact, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa against developing nuclear weapons. Rather than it being ‘the most significant destabilising element’ in the region, an accolade surely won hands down by Israel, Iran has pursued a very cautious policy since 7 October 2023, keen to avoid a war with either or both Israel and the USA. 

The Supreme Leader is a moderating figure in a regime usually pictured as being divided between ‘conservatives’ and ‘moderates’, but matters are rather more complex. A new generation of younger leaders is increasingly important. One view, for example, is: ‘In this complex transition process, the authority of the Supreme Leader continues to be respected, albeit by accentuating his role as first among equals rather than sole decision-maker. The real decision-making centre of Iranian political power is now the Supreme Council for National Defence, a collegiate body acting as a special clearing house where all generational, institutional and political components are represented in a quest to reconcile increasingly divergent positions between the parties.’  

This younger generation want a shift away from Khamenei’s traditional pragmatism and caution. Consequently, faced with a series of Israeli provocations, Khamenei sanctioned reprisals which represented a shift away from that cautious policy which Iran has pursued for four decades. 

In April 2024, and then again in October, Iran responded militarily to the attacks launched by Israel, first against Tehran’s consulate in Damascus and then following the assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. However, Tehran was careful to state these were one off reactions to those Israeli attacks and that they did not wish a regional war. Iran has traditionally relied on its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Gaza to keep Israel bogged down far from the Iranian border. Today that is no longer possible. 

War on Iran? 

Benjamin Netanyahu is urging war on Iran, but he needs the US to join in. Even together, it’s difficult to see both states succeeding with an air war on Iran. It has had a long time to prepare for such an event and its ballistic missiles are buried deep underground where even US ‘bunker busters’ cannot penetrate, as we saw in Gaza. On its own, Israel could not wage a strong enough campaign, lacking refuelling planes. 

Since the 1979 revolution which overthrew the US and Western-backed Shah, Iran has been politically and economically isolated. Iran’s economy is hit by US and Western sanctions, its dependence on oil revenues, which don’t come near those of the Gulf States, high inflation, currently 40%, and an aging infrastructure. 

The international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has kept Iran on its blacklist. This decision, reaffirmed in February 2025, means that Iran remains subject to increased international scrutiny and countermeasures, which severely restrict access to the international banking network. The lack of membership in this organisation has increased trade transaction costs and reduced foreign investment. 

The US and the West have long predicted economic collapse, but then so they have in regard to China. Also, Iran’s economic isolation is much reduced with Russia’s ‘pivot to the east’,  Iran’s ‘look east’ policies and China’s New Silk Road. 

Russia and Iran have close economic and military ties, signing a new treaty in January this year. While this does not include a mutual-defence clause, it restates previous commitments to joint exercises and to exchange information. Russia has provided Iran with its most sophisticated air-defence system. Russia’s formerly good relations with Israel have broken down after Israel  supplied early warning systems to Ukraine.   

In 2025, Iran will join the free-trade area of the Eurasian Economic Union, whose members are Russia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. It previously joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2023. Russia and the other EEU states are members of both along with Uzbekistan, and China is a member of the SCO. India and Pakistan attend its meetings as observers. 

Iran is also a member of Brics, the intergovernmental organisation comprising ten countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China,  South  Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s deepening links with Russia, China, and the Central Asian states are a consequence of a perceived US threat. 

Nicole Grajewski is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on Russian and Iranian policies in the global order. She points to how the war in Ukraine has impacted on those countries: ‘Russia definitely doesn’t want to see Iran being subject to a military intervention, and that’s been a consistent position that they’ve had throughout the whole saga over Iran’s nuclear program. With the nuclear issue, Russia never wanted to see Iran get to the level where it is today, even though they didn’t push as hard as the United States or the European Union (EU). But, since the war in Ukraine, I’m not sure how much Russia is able to pressure Iran. They used to be frustrated when the Iranians defied the IAEA’s or the UN Security Council’s sanctions. Iran is making a lot of veiled nuclear threats about potentially weaponizing, but it is unclear what Russia would do or whether or not they have the influence to dissuade Iran at this point. That’s troubling because there was this history of longstanding Russian cooperation with the US and the EU on Iran, and China kind of followed. But now that doesn’t seem to be the case, and it just presents far more challenges for the international community.’ 

In fact, the CIA accepts that Iran has no plans to build a nuclear bomb. Nevertheless, the point is that the USA under Joe Biden pushed Russia and Iran closer. 

The China factor 

Iranian relations with China have also been affected. China is the largest purchaser of US-sanctioned Iranian oil. However, sanctions continue to limit the degree of trade and Iran receives less Chinese investment than Gulf states. But China used its economic clout in the region to help bring about a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran.  

While China gets Iranian oil, it has supplied materials and technology vital to Iran’s development of a ballistic-missile arsenal. Its presence in the Persian Gulf also meant the Houthis did not target Chinese vessels. 

US sanctions and a shared fear of encirclement have brought Iran and China close: ‘As nations often targeted by Western sanctions and interference, Iran and China share a commitment to defending their sovereignty and resisting unilateralism. This shared challenge strengthens their resolve to build a cooperative framework independent of Western pressures.’ 

China has also become the largest source of imports of manufacturing goods for Iran. Both Russia and Iran have welcomed the use of Chinese currency in economic transactions instead of the US dollar. That gets round Western financial sanctions.   

In March, the fifth annual joint Russia–Iran–China naval exercises took place in the Gulf of Oman. Iran has, and is, benefitting from the massive rift between Western countries and Russia following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Tehran knows that the permanent members of the UN Security Council can’t unite to pressure it. 

It’s also important to say China does not want a war which would stop its supplies of oil from not just Iran but the Gulf States. China wants to maintain good relations with them. Iran-China trade in 2023 was about $32 billion, but with Saudi Arabia it was $107 billion and with the United Arab Emirates $97 billion. 

So as Donald Trump begins his tour of the Middle East where are US-Iranian relations at? Trump threatened Iran in March, telling NBC News: ‘If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing, It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.’ However, since then, he has sent his own personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, to negotiate a deal over its nuclear programme. That will not be easy. 

It seems Trump decided not to back a planned Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance warning against intervention. Since then, the neo-con advocate of exactly that, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, has been removed from that position.   

We now await the outcome of Trump’s meeting in Israel with Netanyahu. Trump’s policy making is, to say the least, volatile!