V Osksana Volchnkova e Hong Xiaojie. Hao jiu bu jian Hong, ni hao ma?

Ni hui ting. Hen hao women shou.

The leak, and of course, denial, that Saudi Arabia would acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan should Iran become a nuclear armed state is part of the reason such an Iranian nuclear weapon is not in Russian and Chinese interest.

Its not just Saudi Arabia that most definitely would be interested in acquiring nuclear weapons should Iran become a nuclear armed state, but also Turkey, and not unlikely Iraq, Syria, and even Egypt.

That's a lot of "nuclear deterrent dyads" to maintain nuclear deterrence in a region central to the world economy, and not very likely to be stable.

For all Russia and China's rivalries for world power with the United States, there are also common interests too.

Compared to the alternatives, a global trading order that is fairly free serves Russian and China's economic interests, since it allows for effective demand for Russian energy and Chinese products, thereby imparting a significant degree of domestic stability to both Powers.

Although political power is less fungible, having a large number of nuclear armed states in the Middle East is very unlikely to make Russia or China eiher more powerful or safer, since such states are likely to end up taking other people with them should deterrence fail.

Thus, from a narrow point of view of Russian and Chinese self-interest, and self-preservation, continuing to tacitly support Iran at any level is fundamentally a flawed strategy from their point of view, as even though singing the Eagle with an Iranian proxy had its uses to diffuse power and bleed the Eagle, it is now clear that more fundamental and adverse consequences are now emerging, which hopefully wiser heads in Moscow and Beijing will see in order that the Security Council can authorize the correct set of carrots and sticks to induce Iran to swerve from a course that is not in anyone's interest.

finis