The Iranian crisis confronts Beijing and Moscow with a dilemma of the revisionist powers: to take advantage of a partner that blocks the West, without paying the price of an overt show of solidarity at a time when pressure is rising. Iran is for them a lever—geopolitical, energy, diplomatic—but it is not an ‘ally’ in the strict sense of the term. And it is precisely when Washington shows its muscles (military posture, coercive signals) that the real nature of this relationship appears: transactional, asymmetrical, prudent.

1) The illusion of ‘axis’: coalition, not alliance

The idea of a structured axis between China, Russia, and Iran as a nearly mechanical block became common in the West. In reality, we are more faced with a coalition of circumstances: convergence on American anti-hegemony, occasional technical-military cooperation, and opportunistic use of sanctions to create different circuits. But an alliance requires a rare thing: the acceptance of a shared risk. However, neither Beijing nor Moscow has any interest in turning the Iranian file into a credibility test comparable to a........

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