Russia Benefiting From US-Iran War While Impacts on China Are ‘Complicated’: Analysts

How, or if, the United States’ primary adversaries can capitalize on its Middle East ‘distraction’ depends on the conflict’s duration, scholars say.

(L-R) Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, China's Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu, and Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi hold a press conference after their meeting in Beijing on March 14, 2025. Lintao Zhang/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

Operation Epic Fury presents Russia and China with a “mixed bag” of potential opportunities, but neither appear poised to take advantage of the United States’ “distraction” with Iran, according to analysts with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

That, however, could change if the United States cannot quickly degrade the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz to allow commercial shipping to resume, and secure with Israel a convincing victory in decimating Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons, they concurred.