Josh Hammer, Senior Counsel for the Article III Project, is interviewed by One America News Network host Riley Lewis about the geopolitics behind China’s decision not to get involved in the Israel-Iran conflict.

RILEY LEWIS, ONE AMERICA NEWS NETWORK: Welcome back to The Real Story. So let’s stick with foreign policy for just a moment. While President Trump ramps up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin in an earnest attempt to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, there have also been some brand new developments regarding Russia’s relationship with Iran. In fact, Iranian officials have been communicating with officials from Russia and China as Tehran looks for more support following its 12-day war with Israel. And they even held talks just today at a summit for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China is hosting the summit and the members of this group include India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and many others. And their discussion reportedly focused on Iran’s current situation. And it comes right after Iran’s foreign minister made a major announcement regarding its nuclear program. So on Monday, the country’s foreign minister said Iran will respond to any reimposition of sanctions on its nuclear program by the United Nations. Although, to be fair, no clarification at all was given by Tehran on what exactly that might look like. And according to Reuters, a French diplomatic source revealed that European powers would have to reimpose sanctions on Iran through the snapback mechanism if no deal was made that guaranteed European security interests. So the snapback mechanism is a process that would impose sanctions on Tehran under a 2015 nuclear deal that lifted the penalties in return for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program. And that 2015 deal between Britain, Germany, France, and the U.S. and Russia and China, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, states that if parties can’t resolve instances of significant non-performance by the Iranian regime, the mechanism can be triggered to limit its operations. Now, one Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson also said the threat to use this mechanism by the U.N. lacked legal and political basis and would be met with an appropriate and proportionate response. And the same foreign ministry spokesperson also said that the constant threat of this possibility as a tool is a gross and fundamental violation of the JCPOA. However, it sounds like this is exactly what this plan of action was created to do. Tehran constantly denies efforts to create nuclear warheads, and yet they have gotten their uranium enrichment level to 60%, well above the level of civilian use. And that raises a whole lot of disturbing but important questions. What’s more, Rosemary DiCarlo, Undersecretary General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, exposed what’s been happening with Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency in a Security Council briefing back on June 24th. ROSEMARY DICARLO, UN UNDER SECRETARY FOR POLITICAL AND PEACEBUILDING AFFAIRS: The IAEA reiterated that its verification and monitoring activities related to the JCPOA have been seriously affected by the secession of implementation by Iran of its nuclear-related commitments under the plan. The agency also again noted that it had lost its continuity of knowledge on many aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, as it had not been able to perform verification and monitoring activities in the Islamic Republic of Iran for more than four years. LEWIS: Well, there it is. And now President Trump continues to urge Iran to engage in negotiations over its program to no avail. And as of right now, all talks seem to be at a standstill. But here with Reaction is Josh Hammer, a Senior Editor-at-Large for Newsweek and Senior Counsel for the Article III Project. Josh, thank you for being here today. JOSH HAMMER, ARTICLE III PROJECT: My pleasure, Riley. Thank you. LEWIS: So let’s start with this growing alliance between Iran, China, and Russia. What do you make of it? HAMMER: Well, they’ve been in cahoots and effectively lockstep for a very long time now. This is not exactly a recent development. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea oftentimes gets added. I mean, those four regimes are typically outliers when it comes to a lot of Western-style alliances. They have a way of attaching themselves at the hip. Frankly, we know that China and North Korea have been aiding greatly Russia’s war in Ukraine. Iran has actually been aiding them by sending them some weaponry as well. So we know that these alliances run very, very deep. Riley, I think one important thing to note, though, speaking of Iran in particular, and especially in the context of the recent 12-day war between Israel and Iran and then the United States coming in at the end with the B-2 bombers and so forth, it was really interesting to me that this alliance between China and Russia and Iran apparently does not necessarily extend to when Iran is getting completely bombed. Because China and Russia, interestingly, barely lifted a finger, actually, to save their nominal ally there in Iran. There were some reports that China maybe sent some small arms, but even that was disputed. And frankly, from my vantage point, Riley, the fact that China and Russia barely lifted a finger to help their ally in the region, whereas on the other hand, the United States lifted a great finger to help their ally in the region, Israel, the United States looks a lot, lot stronger coming out of that there. And I think China’s credibility has taken a great blow in this 21st century great power competition that we find ourselves in. LEWIS: Well, and just following up on that, you made this point recently at a Turning Point USA speaking event, which that was an awesome speech that you gave and great discussion. But you mentioned the fact that with Operation Midnight Hammer in Iran, not a single American casualty, not a single American life was lost. On top of it, it didn’t plunge us into a war with Iran, which many people out there predicted it might. So I just want to say, that’s really interesting. And I don’t know what it means, but I do want to ask you then about the significance here and what this growing alliance between these countries means for Israel and for the US. HAMMER: Sure. Look, for the United States, China is the threat, okay? So from an American foreign policy, geopolitical perspective, China is the first, second, and third greatest threats. Now it happens to be the case that Russia, Iran, and as we’ve said, North Korea are in many ways closely allied with China. But virtually everything that America has to do in this 21st century has to be aimed and directed at containing the growing imperialism and hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party, basically the exact same way that the second half of the 20th century was aimed at trying to contain the imperialism and hegemony of the Soviet Union. So too is it now the case for the Chinese Communist Party. But again, I think it’s really instructive. I think it says a lot that China, for all of their alleged might, essentially did nothing whatsoever to help one of their allegedly great allies in a war in a time of need. And that says nothing good about China’s commitment to the great power competition. And again, America, I think looks quite good actually as a result of this. LEWIS: Well, so on that note, is it about commitment for China or is it about a lack of capability, do you think? HAMMER: I think potentially both. Definitely partially capability when it comes to resources. China is, their economy has been up and down, to put it politely, in recent years. The real estate market in particular has been deeply rocky. There is a tremendous concern in China about the demographics as well. Recall they have the so-called one-child policy in effect for a very, very long time. And some of the economic chickens are coming home to roost from that deeply barbaric policy that the Politburo of the Communist Party had in place for many decades now. So we have reason for believing that China maybe, maybe is not necessarily the superpower that some people think they are. On the other hand, they are rapidly escalating their military buildup. There are some harrowing war games that show that China could potentially even defeat the United States in a war, God forbid, over Taiwan and so forth there. So it’s definitely not a power to be taken anything other than incredibly seriously, but they definitely do have restrained resources as does the United States and every other country there. But to me, the number one takeaway is that the fact that China did not go to bat for Iran shows to me that they are increasingly focused probably on their own neck of the woods and the Indo-Pacific region more broadly. LEWIS: Okay, so where does that leave Iran? That’s the main point I want to get to. We’ve seen senior level people in Hamas, wiped out. And the proxy group Hezbollah, wiped out. The Houthis in Yemen seem to be fledgling. And now we’re all wondering, what is left of Iran’s nuclear program? And really, what is their ambition? Is it to develop warheads? And if so, what would they do with them? So I want to get your thoughts about that, Josh. HAMMER: Sure. So it seems like that the assessment, the consensus that we’re now starting to get from both the United States and Israel is that the nuclear program was set back by, call it three years, something roughly along those lines. It’s very hard to kind of give a precise number on this sort of thing. But the Israelis are also saying that not all of Iran’s enriched uranium has been incapacitated, which makes sense. This is a very, very large country. And there probably is still some enriched uranium somewhere. So, you know, President Trump is now doing the right thing by trying to get them to come to the table to try to have some agreement to give up that enriched uranium. Now, President Trump now also has established that he is totally unafraid to use overwhelming military force to try to get rid of that enriched uranium if need be. So the Iranians now know very, very well that this man is not bluffing whatsoever. So this is the only language, really, that these people speak, that the mullahs of Iran speak. They absolutely, 1,000 percent, are ideologically committed to getting the world’s most dangerous foreign weapons. They’ve been trying to do this for 30 years now. This is a genocidal Islamist regime at its core. But you have to have that overwhelming threat of force in the background in order to potentially, potentially induce them. It is the only language. It’s just raw power. That’s the only language that the mullahs of Iran speak. LEWIS: Okay. Final question for you. And it calls for some speculation, but to your point there, which is a good one. So President Trump has made it known we know how to use force, and we will if necessary, but he doesn’t want it to get there, which leads to another question. Will Iran ever come to the table in good faith and actually work out a deal to say no nuclear warheads? We can enrich uranium to what we need for civilian use levels, but we won’t ever go for warheads because that’s really the question I think that President Trump is wondering, and I’m wondering about that too. HAMMER: Riley, color me skeptical. Again, this is a regime that is not predicated upon sober, calculating decisions. This is a genuine, theocratic Islamist regime, and they actually believe in the whole 72 virgins and heavens and all the various dictates of jihadist ideology. So color me deeply skeptical, but I will say that there is one thing and one thing only that maybe has any chance whatsoever of inducing them to actually come to the table in earnest is the overwhelming threat of force, and in this case, the actual demonstration of overwhelming force.

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