ForeignAffairsMag在2021-08-02~2021-08-08的言论
- 21: Iran’s War Within: Ebrahim Raisi and the Triumph of the Hard-Liners, submitted on 2021-08-06 22:22:51+08:00.
- 22: Kevin Rudd: Why the Quad Alarms China. Its Success Poses a Major Threat to Beijing’s Ambitions, submitted on 2021-08-06 22:48:40+08:00.
21: Iran’s War Within: Ebrahim Raisi and the Triumph of the Hard-Liners, submitted on 2021-08-06 22:22:51+08:00.
—– 21.1 —–2021-08-06 22:38:23+08:00:
[SS from the essay by Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, Associate Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran.]
As many of the leaders and movements that defined Iranian politics for the past three decades fade away, a faction of right-wing leaders has the opportunity to reshape Iran’s politics and society in ways that will expand the IRGC’s control over the country’s economy, further diminish political freedoms, and yet display limited tolerance on religious and social issues. It will champion Iranian nationalism to widen its popular base domestically, while relying on Shiite and anti-American ideologies to project power regionally.
These changes could also reshape Iran’s relationship with the world, and particularly with the United States. With the backing of a self-assured IRGC and no fear of domestic sabotage, the new government will not shy away from confronting perceived existential threats from the United States. Although it may compromise on the nuclear issue to mitigate mounting economic and environmental crises at home, the incoming foreign policy team will shelve previous presidents’ aspirations of a rapprochement with the West and instead pursue strategic alliances with China and Russia. Its primary focus will be the Middle East, where it will seek bilateral security and trade agreements with its neighbors and double down on strengthening its “axis of resistance,” a sprawling network of proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and the rest of the region.
U.S.-Iranian relations will be transactional and revolve around immediate security concerns. The alluring promise of a broader rapprochement will no longer find fertile ground in Tehran. The window of opportunity for a “grand bargain” between the two countries has likely closed.
22: Kevin Rudd: Why the Quad Alarms China. Its Success Poses a Major Threat to Beijing’s Ambitions, submitted on 2021-08-06 22:48:40+08:00.
—– 22.1 —–2021-08-06 23:03:59+08:00:
[SS from the article by Kevin Rudd, President of the Asia Society, in New York, and previously served as Prime Minister of Australia.]
As “strategic competition” with China has become a rare point of bipartisan consensus in Washington, Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken to warning that his country faces a “struggle over the future of the international order” with a United States determined to thwart China’s rise. Xi believes that Beijing has an opportunity between now and 2035 to make China the world’s top economic, technological, and potentially even military power. Integral to this push is persuading countries in Asia and around the world that Chinese dominance is inevitable and that, accordingly, they have no option but to start deferring to Chinese demands. That would enable China to begin rewriting the rules of the international order—and entrench its global leadership position—without ever having to fire a shot.
The Quad is uniquely problematic for China’s strategy because its aim of unifying a multilateral coalition of resistance has the potential to stiffen spines across the whole of the Indo-Pacific and possibly beyond. For Xi, the critical question is whether the Quad will evolve to be large, coherent, and comprehensive enough to effectively balance against China, thereby undermining any sense that its dominance, in Asia or globally, is inevitable. So far, Beijing has struggled to mount an effective response to the Quad challenge. Whether Chinese officials settle on a strategy that succeeds in undermining the Quad’s progress will be one of the key factors in determining the course of U.S.-Chinese competition—and the fate of China’s global ambitions more generally— in what has already become a “decade of living dangerously.”
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