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There are moments in geopolitics when the mask slips so far it can never be put back on. Thursday at the United Nations was one of those moments. The Security Council adopted a resolution — backed by 135 co-sponsors, opposed by literally no one — condemning Iran’s unprovoked, reckless attacks on its own neighbors in the Persian Gulf. And still, China and Russia couldn’t bring themselves to vote yes. They abstained. They whined. They tried to redirect. But they wouldn’t stand with the rest of the civilized world and say the obvious: that Iran is the aggressor, and what it’s doing to the Gulf states is indefensible.
The resolution, introduced by Bahrain on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council, demanded Iran halt its “egregious” and “deplorable” strikes against neighboring countries and stop targeting their energy infrastructure. This wasn’t some American-drafted power play. This came from the nations getting bombed — the Emiratis, the Bahrainis, the Kuwaitis, the people ducking Iranian missiles and drones while trying to keep their economies running. And the world agreed with them. Every single member of the Security Council either voted for the resolution or abstained. Not one country voted no.
But let’s talk about those abstentions, because they tell you everything you need to know about the so-called “multipolar world order” Beijing and Moscow keep selling. Russia’s U.N. ambassador Vassily Nebenzia had the audacity to call the resolution “extremely unbalanced.” Unbalanced. A resolution condemning a regime that’s launching missiles at civilian infrastructure in sovereign nations is somehow unbalanced because it doesn’t also condemn the United States and Israel for responding to decades of Iranian aggression. You can’t make this stuff up.
Russia even tried floating its own counter-resolution — one that called on “all parties” to stop military activities without naming Iran as the problem. It was a transparent attempt to create moral equivalence where none exists. Only China, Pakistan, and Somalia voted for it. That’s your coalition, Moscow. That’s who agrees with you.
China’s representative Fu Cong wasn’t much better, parroting the same line about “root causes” — as if Iran firing on oil tankers and bombing Gulf airports is somehow justified because the U.S. and Israel finally decided the ayatollahs had crossed one too many red lines. And Iran’s own ambassador, Amir-Saeid Iravani, delivered what can only be described as a masterclass in delusion, calling the resolution a “lasting stain” on the Security Council’s record. A stain. For condemning the country that’s been destabilizing the entire Middle East for forty years.
Here’s what matters for us back home. President Trump has been saying it plainly: the Iranian regime is evil, and the nations of the world are unifying against it. Thursday’s vote proved him right. When 135 countries line up behind a resolution and the only holdouts are Beijing and Moscow — not even voting against it, mind you, just too cowardly to vote for it — you don’t need a degree in international relations to see who’s on the right side of history.
The UAE’s ambassador put it well when he said his country reserves the right to defend itself “individually or collectively” against Iran’s violations of international law. That’s the language of a region that’s done asking for permission. And with American strength backing them up, the mullahs in Tehran are finding out that the world isn’t going to look the other way anymore.
Scripture tells us that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Iran’s sin — its relentless aggression against its neighbors, its sponsorship of terror, its pursuit of nuclear weapons — is now a reproach that the entire world has formally acknowledged. Even China and Russia, for all their posturing, couldn’t bring themselves to defend it outright. They hid behind abstentions like children who know they’re wrong but can’t admit it.
What do you make of China and Russia’s refusal to stand with the rest of the world — are they allies of Iran in everything but name, or just too compromised to pick a side? Sound off in the comments.
Via Breitbart News
Providence watches over the bold.