TEHRAN - Former Pakistani army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg has said that the 25-year cooperation plan between Iran and China shows failure of the United States’ policy of maximum pressure on Tehran.

“Tehran-Beijing partnership shows the United States’ strategic failure and the country’s policy of maximum pressure,” IRNA quoted him as saying on Friday in an article published by the Pakistani media.

Developments after Iran-China cooperation will challenge the West’s economic interests, especially the U.S., the former Army chief said.

He added, “Strategic partnership of Iran and China will create a geopolitical storm and will define new axes of world order as keys to economic and social progress.”

A U.S. newspaper has underlined the importance of the 25-year strategic partnership deal between Iran and China, saying the deal is a “massive failure” of the U.S. maximum pressure policy against Tehran.

“U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration pursued a policy of economic sanctions in an attempt to bring Iran to the negotiating table, but such approach pushed Tehran towards signing an accord with Beijing rather than Washington,” The Chicago Tribune wrote. 

“The new China-Iran partnership represents a massive failure of the administration’s Iran policy,” it said.

The daily noted that the yet-to-be-finalized accord would establish “a far-reaching economic and security partnership” between Iran and China.

Foreign media have launched a campaign against the partnership between Iran and China.

Li Li, an associate professor at Southwest University (SWU) in China, tells the Tehran Times, “I think such propaganda campaign from the mainstream Western media that are extremely inimical to and feverishly demonize the strategic Iran-China partnership is all too predictable and hardly avoidable. Mainstream media in the West especially in the U.S. have ample reasons to vilify Iran-China relations from their vested interests as they are tightly in the grip of the aggressive and warmongering neocon military-industrial complex and pro-Israeli Jewish lobbies.”

‘Powerful new blow to U.S. interests’

According to The Washington Post, Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran has failed to achieve any of the U.S. objectives.
 
The Washington Post editorial published on Tuesday stated that Washington unleashed its so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran in 2018 when it left the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Following U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal, Washington targeted Tehran with its “toughest ever” economic sanctions.

However, the administration's “maximum pressure” campaign not only failed in its objectives, including renegotiation of the Iran nuclear deal, prevention of Tehran's growing influence in the Middle East, as well as "regime change"; but also, unintentionally strengthened China's bilateral relation with Tehran.

The article stresses that the Trump administration's policy resulted "in a powerful new blow to U.S. interests, in the form of an Iranian partnership with China that could rescue Iran’s economy while giving Beijing a powerful new place in the region."

According to the Post article, "Trump’s confrontational approach to China in recent months, including his refusal to continue work on a comprehensive trade deal, has given Mr. Xi [Jinping] little incentive to cooperate with Washington’s geopolitical priorities. On the contrary, the Chinese leadership likely perceives a moment of critical U.S. weakness as Mr. Trump flounders amid a health and economic crisis and is moving to take advantage. It is expanding its presence in the South China Sea; it is crushing Hong Kong’s autonomy. Allying itself with the foremost U.S. adversary in the Middle East opens yet another front."

The Post article concluded that the hostile U.S. policy towards China, exacerbated by the hostilities of Washington's trade war on the Chinese nation, was pushing Beijing to shield U.S. adversaries from Trump's “maximum pressure” campaign.

In addition, China would gain more by "demonstrating U.S. impotence" as Iran becomes immune to the U.S. "pressure campaign".

"Trump is mistaken if he believes 'maximum pressure' is getting him closer to a deal with Iran. The policy is not leading to Iran’s capitulation or collapse, but entrenching U.S.-Iran hostilities and keeping the United States perennially at the cusp of war in the Middle East," according to another article published in the Foreign Policy.

The leading U.S. Foreign Policy magazine advised: "Trump to ditch maximum pressure and rebuild the trust necessary for successful negotiations."

Pointing to the former realtor, the Post said, "International relations and the real estate market are not similar." 

"Bullying and bluster do not win deals; mutual respect and 'win-win. compromise do," it concluded.

NA/PA