When Iran agreed to a deal in 2015 that would require it to surrender 97 percent of the uranium it could use to make nuclear bombs, Russia and China worked alongside the United States and Europe to get the pact done.
The Russians even took Iran’s nuclear fuel, for a hefty fee, prompting celebratory declarations that President Vladimir V. Putin could cooperate with the West on critical security issues and help constrain a disruptive regime in a volatile region.
A lot has changed in the subsequent nine years.
China and Russia are now more aligned with Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” to an American-led order, along with the likes of North Korea.
The disappearance of that unified front is one of the many factors that make this moment seem “particularly dangerous,” said Vali Nasr, an Iranian-born professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, “maybe the most dangerous in decades.”
Persons:
Vladimir V, Putin, ”, Biden, Vali Nasr
Organizations:
White, Johns Hopkins School, International
Locations:
Iran, Russia, China, United States, Europe, American, North Korea, Israel, Beijing, Moscow, Iranian