China and Russia Side With Iran at the UN — And What That Tells Us

When China and Russia cast their vetoes at the United Nations Security Council — blocking a resolution that would have called on member states to protect navigation in the Strait of Hormuz — they did not just obstruct a procedural measure. They issued a declaration. They told the world, plainly and without apology, whose side they are on. And if Washington's foreign policy establishment is still surprised by this, it has been paying very little attention.
The resolution in question was modest almost to the point of toothlessness. It called on UN members to "coordinate efforts, defensive in nature" to ensure the safety of shipping in the Strait. It did not authorize military action. It did not impose sanctions. It simply asked the international community to agree, collectively, that commercial vessels should be able to sail through an international waterway without being blown up. China and Russia said no. Their stated reason — that the resolution was "biased against Iran" — tells you everything you need to know about how Beijing and Moscow view the current global order and America's place in it.
This is the world the Biden administration spent four years pretending didn't exist. The world of "rules-based international order" rhetoric, of multilateral summits, of the belief that if America would only be more collaborative and less assertive, its adversaries would respond in kind. China spent those four years expanding its military, seizing the South China Sea, intimidating Taiwan, and deepening its economic and strategic partnership with Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine. Iran advanced its nuclear program. North Korea tested intercontinental ballistic missiles. And at the UN, China and Russia continued to use their veto power to insulate every rogue state from international accountability.
The UN Security Council, as currently constituted, is not a tool of international law. It is a veto-wielding oligarchy in which two authoritarian great powers can block any resolution they find inconvenient, regardless of its merits. Republicans have understood this for decades. The left continues to treat the UN as a font of legitimacy — which is why Democratic administrations repeatedly handicap American foreign policy by seeking Security Council authorization they know will never come, wasting time and signaling weakness to adversaries who interpret the solicitation itself as an invitation to dig in.
The deeper story here is the consolidation of what analysts have taken to calling the "axis of autocracies" — the deepening alignment between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. This is not a formal alliance, but it is a functioning bloc: they share intelligence, they sell each other weapons, they coordinate diplomatically at international institutions, and they provide each other economic lifelines when Western sanctions bite. Russia buys Iranian drones and uses them to kill Ukrainians. China buys Iranian oil, providing Tehran the revenue it needs to fund Hezbollah and the Houthis. North Korea supplies artillery shells to Russia. The circularity of this arrangement is deliberate and sophisticated, and it is directed against American interests and American allies.
What should America do about it? First, stop pretending the UN is a viable framework for addressing security threats posed by states with veto power. The Hormuz crisis proved that when it matters most, the UN will not act. America must be willing to act without a Security Council resolution — and the Trump administration has demonstrated that willingness. Second, tighten the economic screws on China's relationship with Iran. Beijing's provision of a financial escape valve to Tehran undermines every sanction regime. Secondary sanctions on Chinese entities that purchase Iranian oil should be enforced without exception. Third, accelerate the military partnerships with regional allies — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel — that provide the on-the-ground deterrence architecture the UN demonstrably cannot.
There is also a lesson here for American voters. Every time a Democrat argues that America should "work through international institutions" to confront adversarial states, ask them what happens when China and Russia veto the institution. The answer is: America is helpless. The alternative — maintaining overwhelming military superiority, projecting strength, building bilateral alliances, and acting in the national interest without waiting for multilateral permission — is not isolationism. It is realism. It is the foreign policy tradition that won the Cold War and kept the peace for generations.
China and Russia have told us who they are. We should believe them.