Michael Rubin: Iran will regret any deal it signs with China
Michael Rubin, a well-known expert on Iran affairs and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, says the reported terms of the strategic agreement between Iran and China pose a "significant risk" to Ali Khamenei and his subordinates.
Rubin wrote in his analytical article published in the National Interest magazine on Monday: "Any agreement between the Iranian government and China that would allow for long-term leases of Iranian territory would provoke public anger among the Iranian people and a large segment of the country's political spectrum."
According to Mr. Rubin, “not only ordinary Iranians, but also Iranian officials, are now concerned about whether the benefits of an agreement with China outweigh the risks to Iranian national sovereignty.”
He writes: “Every time the Iranian government allies with and approaches a new power to counter its dissatisfaction with a previous one, the result is bad for the Iranian people. Khamenei may not see it, but ordinary Iranians [do see it.]”
Rubin also warns of the negative consequences of the proposed agreement for Iran if it is rushed into signing.
Rubin writes: “If Khamenei and [Iranian] President Hassan Rouhani finalize a long-term agreement with China before Khamenei’s death—a death that could be accompanied by a succession struggle, widespread anti-regime protests, and even a shift in the stance and orientation of many Iranians toward the West—then a more aggressive Beijing might simultaneously try to exert its interests militarily or use debt traps to undermine the reconstruction of post-Khamenei Iran.” Rubin, however, does not rule out the possibility of Chinese “internal interference” “in Iran.”
Such a scenario, Rubin writes, “may be a problem for the next American administration, but for the Iranian people—a people who long to be free and left to their own devices—it would be a disaster.” Rubin emphasizes that “any deal with China would be regrettable in the long run.”
Source: Voice of America
