In Iran and Ukraine, what is at stake — what is fought for and against — is a rebalancing of power that will prove of world-historical magnitude when it is at last accomplished.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge passes through the Suez Canal during the U.S.-Isreal war on Iran on March 5. (DoD/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
First came news that, on April 8, Israeli jets bombed what is known as the China–Iran railway, a key component of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. Of all the targets the Zionist terror machine might have hit, why a Chinese-sponsored infrastructure project, you had to wonder.
Then on Wednesday came reports that officials from nearly 50 nations — I would love a list of these 50 — met in Berlin to make sure the fires of war against Russia do not flicker out. “We cannot lose sight of Ukraine,” Mark Rutte, NATO’s new secretary-general, declared a little forlornly.
There are other reports such as these of late. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced Thursday that the Pentagon has authorized the Pacific Fleet to interdict ships in the Indian and Pacific oceans if they are deemed to be carrying Iranian oil to Asian ports or “material support” from Asia — read China — to the Islamic Republic.
It is time for a stock-take.
The war in Ukraine drones (literally) on and on, the West showing no inclination whatsoever to take the Russian position seriously. In West Asia we find a variant: The United States and the rabid dog that Bibi Netanyahu has made of Israel have no intention of considering the 10–point document wherein Iran states its conditions for ending a war it appears perfectly willing to continue waging.
What are we looking at? What animates these two confrontations such that to understand our moment we must see Ukraine and Iran as two theaters of a single war?
I do not care for self-referencing commentators, but an exception to my rule is the swiftest way to my reply to these questions.
I have argued since the turn of the millennium that parity between the West and the non–West is the foundational imperative of the 21st century. Any given nation or bloc may favor or oppose this eventuality, but there will be no stopping the turn of history’s wheel: This was my take at the opening of the era that announced itself with the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
And it is the painful birth of this new time we witness as the wars in Europe and West Asia grind on. In each case what is at stake, what is fought for and against, is a rebalancing of power that will prove of world-historical magnitude when it is at last accomplished.
What have the Russians sought since Donald Trump began his second term and declared his intention to end the war in Ukraine and restore relations with Moscow to some kind of equilibrium?
It is the same thing Moscow hoped for at the Cold War’s end, and the same thing they proposed when, in December 2021, they sent draft treaties, one to Washington and one to NATO headquarters in Brussels, as the basis of negotiations for a comprehensive settlement between the Russian Federation and the West.
Moscow’s Push for Equal Standing
Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025. (DoD /Benjamin Applebaum)
Moscow has been clear on this point the whole of the post–Soviet era: It seeks a security architecture that takes cognizance of its interests and, so, recognizes Russia as an equal partner in its relations with the West.
President Putin and Sergei Lavrov, his able foreign minister, speak of the “root causes” of the war in Ukraine and insist these must be addressed if any kind of enduring settlement between East and West is to be achieved. This is merely another way of saying what the Russians have said for the past 30–odd years. [See: Ukraine Timeline Tells the Tale]
Neither has the West’s reply been any different: It amounts to one long list of refusals, however directly, dishonestly or incompetently these have been conveyed.
Last November the Trump regime issued a 28–point peace plan that was not less than shocking when cast against the past three and some decades of history. It called for a nonaggression pact Russia, Europe and Ukraine were to negotiate and sign. “All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled,” it read in part.
And further in this line:
“A dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO… to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation in order to ensure global security…”
These 28 provisions proved too good to be true. The Americans who developed this document, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, the incompetent Trump insists must act as his “peace envoy,” simply did not know where the fence posts lie: While they almost certainly did not understand this, implicit in their 28 points was an East–West relationship based on parity.
Out of the question, as was immediately evident.
The Trump regime quickly abandoned its plan, despite its favorable reception in Moscow, and seems to have dropped all thought of “a deal” with Russia. The Europeans, freaked out at the very thought of a negotiated settlement, now resort to upside-down versions of reality I find it hard to believe they even try on.
At that gathering of European officials in Berlin Wednesday, immediate pledges of new weapons supplies came to $4.7 billion, and there is more, much more, coming as Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, mooches his way around the European capitals.
Boris Pistorius seems to have spoken for the group when the subject of peace talks arose. “The truth is, anyway, Russia has never taken them seriously,” the German defense minister declared. “This is why it is all the more important to support Ukraine.”
Russia has never taken negotiations seriously: Can you imagine how this kind of talk lands in Moscow? Can you imagine how low are the Russians’ expectations that the West will take their legitimate interests seriously until events on the battlefield force them to do so?
Tehran’s Conditions
Jinnah Convention Centre in Islamabad served as media facilitation; the U.S.-Iran talks were held at the Serena Hotel in the background. (Humza Ahmed /Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Iranians, it seems to me, are in a similar predicament.
Read the text of the 10–point plan wherein Tehran advances its demands for ending the war with the United States and Israel. An end to U.S. and Israeli attacks is merely the Iranians’ opener. The withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the region, a nonaggression pact with the United States, recognition of Iran’s rights on the nuclear side, war reparations: To borrow from the Russians, this is a demand to address root causes, a demand for “a new security architecture,” a demand — returning to my principal point — for parity as a non–Western power.
There is a lot in the press these days about a return to negotiations after Vice–President J.D. Vance’s debacle in Islamabad last weekend. I have no trouble imagining the Iranians are eager to avoid more of the savage, indiscriminate bombing their civilian population suffered prior to the two-week ceasefire that went into effect April 8. But I do not think, at the horizon, they will abandon the 10 demands they have advanced any more than the Russian will abandon theirs.
Both nations appear to have concluded it is time to confront the West in the name of that 21st century imperative I noted earlier. Two reasons. One, Russia and Iran have both gathered strength as non–Western powers in recent years, forged in the heat of incessant confrontations. This, indeed, is what history’s wheel looks like as it turns.
Declining Coherence & Power
Two, it is not difficult to recognize the declining coherence and power — and so the creeping desperation — of the United States and its European allies.
Are the Western powers aware of the magnitude of the moment? I do not see how this can be anything other than so. Setting aside the Zionists’ obsessions and the visceral hatred Ukraine’s neo–Nazi regime nurses toward Russia and Russians, these conflicts are, when viewed broadly, about the defense of Western hegemony in its declining years.
This is how I read that attack on the China–Iran railway. O.K., the Israelis did the wet work, as they say, but the bombing of a significant Chinese asset was not without intent: It reflects the United States’ mounting anxiety as the non–West’s premier power advances an imaginative global agenda that has the policy cliques in Washington, now that they belatedly recognize its significance, quaking.
Look at the map in this link. This rail line is key to China’s long-term plan to build efficient connections through southeastern Europe and on to the European capitals. To date, Beijing has reportedly spent 40 billion yuan, about $6 billion, on the project. This is part of the $400 billion investment agreement Beijing and Tehran signed in June 2020.
A little to my surprise, the Chinese have not reacted since the Israelis bombed their asset. There are several considerations at work here, but the most operative appears to be Beijing’s desire to assist in diplomatic mediations while presenting itself as a responsible world power in the face of the Trump regime’s serial insanities.
China Daily ran an editorial cartoon in its Tuesday editions that sheds useful light on Beijing’s perspective. It shows Uncle Sam profligately scattering money and weapons as he bounds through a field marked “War, Hate, Chaos and Greed.” The headline at the top is “The U.S. Reaps What It Sows.”
It is a darkly humorous reminder that Beijing knows very well what the war against Iran is fundamentally about and what time it is on history’s clock. You can always count on the Chinese to take the long view.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon. Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been restored after years of being censored.
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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
I’d call them the Two Theaters of Wall Street’s World War for World Domination.
Ending Wall Street’s drive for World Domination would end this war. Ending the “non-West’s” fight for parity goes against all human nature and is thus not likely to happen. The “non-West” is not trained to react to every blow with a thank you and a plea for another blow. Thus, focusing on the cause of the war, which is Wall Street’s obsession with World Dominance, leads to an understanding of how to end the war.
4 Years, 10 Months, 22 Days, IS the “difference” between May 28, 2021 & Apr 19, 2026. W/o a doubt, on the land, in the air & on the sea, 1,787 days, later, the ask is: *“Itsa “Sea Change”… It’s NOT?!?
January 20, 2025 to April 30, 2025, 100 days of Trump’s 2nd Term; & “The RED Flag” flapp’n in the wind, warning that the WH’s “satanic culture & sinister intentions” are “conditions ideal for combustion & rapid spread.” Hence, the S.O.S., published, “It is time, plain and simple, to give up the thought that anything good is to come out of Trump’s next three and a half years.” May 28, 2025, Patrick Lawrence @ hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2025/05/28/patrick-lawrence-the-white-house-as-playpen/
Like Patrick Lawrence, China’s point blank & period, “War, Hate, Chaos and Greed.” The headline at the top is “The U.S. Reaps What It Sows,” see, above @ “China Daily’s editorial cartoon, that sheds useful light on Beijing’s” & “many people’s” perspective, “Make that money pile up. Make it, pile up higher!” i.e., “Uncle Sam profligately scattering money and weapons as he bounds through a field marked, War, Hate, Chaos and Greed.”
And, “there are no easy answers; BUT, there must certainly be measures that can be taken timeously in order to eventually achieve “parity.” However, history tells us, it’s unlikely to happen!!! “There’s blood in the water”.
TY, Patrick Lawrence. Onward & Upwards!
*“Sea Change,” the term originated fm Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” where it described a change brought about by the sea.”
4.29.21 “Competition, Not Conflict’ With China.” Jo$eph Biden, posing as POTUS masquerading as human, ‘free-wheelin’ “on the eve of his first 100 days, in the WH of Voodoo, “spelled out” that Chinese President Xi Jing Ping “ is deadly earnest on [China] becoming the most significant, consequential nation in the world. He and others, autocrats, think that democracy can’t compete in the 21st century.”
4.29.21 “Reactions to Biden’s Speech in China” @ hxxps://time.com/5995109/biden-congress-speech-china/
…. “You can’t just allow this kind of hostility or racism, to push China against the wall, so that people believe that the Chinese government is cornered without any way to hit back,” “Whatever differences there are between China and the United States, we need to have leadership and statesmanship with mature views of both sides to engage with each other.” Victor Gao, Director, China National Association of International Studies.
“BUT, there must certainly be measures that can be taken timeously in order to eventually achieve “parity.” 4.30.21, “China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, delivered a speech to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations” saying, China would “welcome the Biden administration to return to multilateralism” & called on the White House to treat his nation fairly!!!
All hail, China’s CLARITY, “The key is whether the United States can accept the peaceful rise of a major country with a different social system, history, and culture, it is undemocratic … to label China as ‘authoritarian’ or a ‘dictatorship’ simply because China’s democracy takes a different form than that of the United States.” Wang Yi @ TIME, Inc.
Multipolarity sounds like a good idea but it won’t happen until and unless Russia and China truly ally with the weaker non-aligned states like Venezuela, Cuba and Iran and truly have their back. No more abstaining from UN votes. No more providing weapons quietly from the sidelines. They’re going to have to grow a backbone and stand up directly to the U.S. through the kinds of sanctions and other means the U.S. uses to control the world. They’re going to have to openly defend Iran et al. Yes, it will risk nuclear war, but less so if they all stand together. Anyway, the U.S. seems determined to push us into nuclear war, so we might as well confront the issue.
This colonialist barbarism is so 19th century. It’s long past time for the West to grow the fuck up. It’s the West that is holding humanity back from progressing to a higher understanding of how to live in peace on this planet.
Thank you so much for this tremendous article to which I suscribe without reserve.
I think that the meeting in Berlin, convened by Rutte on wednesday 15 april, was a meeting of the 32 members of NATO
hxxps://www.brusselstimes.com/news/2080562/mark-rutte-urges-nato-countries-to-increase-aid-to-ukraine
On Friday 17 april, Starmer and Macron convened a 51 countries vidéoconference to discuss what could be done to reopen the straight of Hormuz
hxxps://www.miragenews.com/macron-starmer-lead-hormuz-summit-april-17-2026-1657642/
The list of the 32 NATO countries is easily found on the web
I did not manage to find the list of the 51 countries who talked to the captains… Probably 25 EU countries plus UAE, Canada, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Bahrein (hxxps://www.cnews.fr/monde/2026-04-17/detroit-dormuz-plus-de-40-pays-prets-participer-sa-reouverture-se-reunissent-ce)
This list would be of huge interest. Inter alia because the Trump administration was not part of it. This meeting also functionned largely as a neo-con reorganisation in view of seizing back the steering wheel of the empire. If you ever get it, please share!
It is an interesting thesis that the attacks on Iran and the ukrainin-NATO assault on Russia are intrinsically linked. Iran and Russia against the West. Well. I guess he considers Israel the West, and it is a western colonial power dependent on the US., including the Democratic Party
I must admit I am confused when you state that Witkoff and Rubio developed the 28-point plan and proceed to suggest they did not understand it. This is possible, I suppose, but I think it needs clarification.
I read this with some thoughts from Richard Medhurst’s thesis that the US is transition to a sea-based wrecked and pirate bent on cutting off and controlling world energy transport, leaving the hungry poor, starving, de-industrialized, and naturally dependent on the good grace of the Emperor. Seems a pretty plausible explanation of how Ukraine and Iran are connected, along with Venezuela, Cuba, China etc. If US succeeds, the global South, Europe, and Asia will all be even more impoverished and un-sovereign than before, all attempts at parity fail until they invent limitless non-fossil energy that is fast to scale.
Still incredible, and disconcerting that Russia and China don’t take visible actions against either the privacy takeover/energy blockade, or the attacks on energy and BRI land-based infrastructure. Somehow they keep passively bowing to wildly illegal US UNSC resolutions that are plainly against their interests, as well as the global future. Iran still thinks the US hasn’t priced in or planned for destruction of ME energy, that it won’t benefit Chevron, Exxon, and American plutocrats. Really looks like the world hasn’t figured out what is happening.
I’d love to see Russia’s and Iran’s demands merged into one document and then become a principle that is somehow enabled to be enforced at the UN for all countries.
Western privilege is long past is best before date, if it ever had one, and it’s underhanded and destructive antics have to be stopped.
We need a level global playing field. No more wars, sanctions, coups, kidnapping of countries leaders, assassinations and the like.
Thank you for this realistic “big picture” look at these conflicts, something the West cannot seem to see. How little imagination the Western politicians have that they cannot grasp what is going on, as well as a complete inability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Blindness and arrogance is what it is. It is tragic that the solutions for both Iran and Ukraine are tantalizingly within reach except for the tone deafness of the West. For shame.
It’s time for ‘Paddy’ Lawrence, to engage, and exchange points of view, in a dialogue with Richard Medhurst, independent, international, investigative journalist, despite the latter’s youth.
An excellent addition to Mr. Lawrence’s article would be that written in Democracy Defender titled “Follow The Money To Mar-a-Lago” which was highlighted in a recent Global Reseach piece called “The Endgame In Iran” dated 4-13-26. The same corruption schemes anchor the Ukraine war.
My only comment is that the statement: “the rabid dog that Bibi Netanyahu has made of Israel ” ignores the fact that Israel has always been a rabid dog, since 1948 through to today. Netanyahu is not the cause he’s just a symptom of the inherent sickness within that we see from the Stern gang through to the IDF. The Israelis have the same disease that the USA has, exceptionalism, this is what prevents parity.
Netanyahu and his fanatical administration has unleashd a particularly ferocious campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide in pursuit of Greater Israel.
You are right about since 1948. But it is not just a rabid dog-USA co-disease. Though they were the original hatchers along with the U.K. of that disease, it proved to be a highly contagious too across the developed world of the 20th century and also in the “West” in the Rest. Even in this 21st century these willing vectors whom the U.S. these a days dismiss as free-riders and sucker allies are only too happy to partake in that plague, so long as they are viewed and acknowledged as fellow First Worlders, loosely on par with the exceptional, god-chosen supremacists ! If this is the fate of even the long sucking allies and strategic partners than where and when would Russia and China secure their their aspired-to parity hopelessly by leaping frog over the likes of even overcherished Ukraine ? The exceptionality may concede a readjusted pecking order but nah not parity even theoretically !
I did not know that the Zionists had attacked the Belt and Road railway from China to Iran. Not an accident – deliberate. Typical Zionist escalation of conflict/provocation. Thanks for this essay, PL.