I respectfully disagree. Turkey is currently playing this role. In fact, if you listen to Robert Baer about the Middle East before the Arab Spring started, he mentioned that Arabs, particularly Saudi Arabia, had failed to contain Iran in the Middle East and the US had to switch to Turkey to contain Iran's growing influence. And if you see what has happened after 2010 in the Middle East, you will clearly notice a very strong pattern where Turkey has constantly played that role for the US in the Middle East. And Turkey has 90 million people just like us. So, this idea that the US doesn't have such interests is a false premise.
You guys keep changing your list. One day you say the next in the list is Turkey, the other day you say it's Russia. Russia has over 6,000 nuclear and hypersonic warheads capable of reaching Europe and the US, including strategic nuclear warheads over 50 megatons to defend its sovereignty. I don't think Russia needs Iran, unfortunately. Why unfortunately? Because I would pay good money to see the Russians fall after betraying all of their friends, but it's not going to happen.
Nonsense. I am yet to see direct Chinese military assistance in any meaningful way whatsoever. Chinese military assistance has always been limited to indirect import of military chips and components, or raw materials like ammonium perchlorate when Iran was forced to quickly expand its production rate of solid-fueled missiles. The Europeans also have done that for us for decades. As I said, our entire nuclear weapons program was based on European components imported clandestinely.
I didn't compare China in different periods in terms of its own development. Needless to say, it is evident that China has developed itself into a major power in the last 2 decades. But it is absolutely comparable in terms of its business with Iran. If anything, China-Iran relations in early 2000s was miles ahead of our situation in 2026.
I don't think the US public opinion is that important. I don't consider the US to be a functioning democracy anymore. A country where over 30% of the wealth is hoarded by less than 2% of the society cannot be a real democracy.
Again, that's a false premise. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Emirates, Qatar, they all have benefitted from working with the United States. Republic of Azerbaijan has close ties with Israel and they finally took back their lands from Armenia with the help of Israel and the US. The idea that the US is inherently evil and anti-Muslim is a false premise as there are multiple examples right next to us who maintain amicable relations with the US.