Trump’s indifference to Iran and Russia’s military collaboration is staggering
Donald Trump keeps America’s friends close but has also kept its Russian enemies in an embarrassing embrace.
However, his passion for Vladimir Putin is being tested as his envoys clamber into bed with Iran’s envoys, welcoming Tehran’s foreign minister in St Petersburg on Monday. Like the victim of a coercive relationship, Trump has seemingly gone out of his way to forgive the infidelity of Russia’s president.
Asked about Moscow’s supply of intelligence to Iran that has been used to kill American personnel over the last two months, he replied: “I don’t know, look, they can give all the information that they want but people they’re sending to are overwhelmed. Russia would be overwhelmed too. Anybody would be overwhelmed.”
Speaking as American military bases were under attack from Iranian drones and missiles, the US president shrugged off Russia’s help to Iran by saying: “They’d say we do it against them. Wouldn’t they say that we do it against them?”
Such indifference to military collaboration between Iran and Russia at a time of war is staggering.
But it is not surprising. And since then Trump has continued to remain silent on Russia’s close cooperation in the production and development of missile technology with Iran.
He’s not asked the Russians to step back from their continued involvement in Iran’s development of nuclear power – Russian experts are still on the ground at the Bushehr nuclear facility in Iran.
The US president has also given Russia financial headroom amid international sanctions on its experts of fossil fuels by lifting some US restrictions of Moscow’s oil exports.
And on 14 April, his vice president JD Vance described his “proudest moment” of the presidency so far as the decision to cut military aid to Ukraine – a nation that Russia invaded but has been under pressure from Trump and his officials to succumb to Putin’s demands as part of a “peace process” that has been described by many European governments as a recipe for Kyiv’s capitulation to the Kremlin.
But now Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Aragchi has arrived in Russia to seek more support for its war against America. This is Trump’s opportunity to send at least a minor signal to his friends in Moscow that he’s at least publicly embarrassed by the flirtation.
Iran’s ambassador to Moscow has said that it’s much more than a long look across the negotiating table or side eyes over canapes at a diplomatic convention.
No. This, he says, is a full blown relationship.
Kazem Jalali, said in a post on X that Mr Araghchi would meet Putin “in continuation of the diplomatic jihad to advance the country’s interests and amid external threats”.
“Iran and Russia are present in a united front in the campaign of the world’s totalitarian forces against independent and justice-seeking countries, as well as countries that seek a world free from unilateralism and Western domination,” Jalali said.
