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Everyone’s Still Trying to Figure Out If The New China-Iran Agreement is a Big Deal or a Whole Lot of Nothing

by Eric Claude Olander
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, pose for a picture after signing an agreement in the capital Tehran, on March 27, 2021. AFP

Conservative commentators and media in the United States all seem to think that China’s newly signed 25-year strategic cooperation agreement with Iran is a game-changer and marks the emergence of a new anti-democratic power axis. But pretty much everyone else isn’t quite so sure. In fact, a lot of observers suspect that the agreement is really just an MoU, given that it contains no measurable targets, and is more aspirational than immediate in scope.

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