The US conflict with Iran, like so many of its predecessors in the region, was launched with the intoxicating rhetoric of decisive force and regime change, and has since settled into the familiar quagmire of escalating costs, strategic drift, and an enemy that refuses to play by the Pentagon’s script.Into this mess steps an unlikely — and, to many in Washington, unwelcome — potential peacemaker: the People’s Republic of China.
The irony is rich. For years, American hawks insisted that confronting Iran was inseparable from confronting China — that Tehran was merely a forward operating base for Beijing’s grand anti-American coalition.