Putin seeks military support from Iran, another G7 pariah
July 19, 2022
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Ian Bremmer takes a look at the week's top stories in geopolitics.
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Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60:
Is the severe heat wave sweeping across Europe the new summer normal?
Of course not. It is the coolest summer, just about you'll ever see going forward. Since we are at 1.2 degrees centigrade of warming and we're heading to 2.5, which is double where we are right now, and Europe is hit generally harder than the United States, It's going to get vastly hotter across Europe. So, I mean, enjoy it while you can. This is comparatively cool weather. Really kind of depressing to think about.
Why is the Chinese bank scandal testing people's faith in the Communist Party?
Well, in part, because the Communist Party isn't doing a lot to protect the people that are watching their savings melt away. Now, it's not a lot of money. It's not a lot of accounts. We're talking about six banks in a rural area of China. But nonetheless, we are talking about a country where people had a lot of belief that these accounts would be stable and that if there was ever a problem the government would back them up. And what we've actually seen is that a number of people that have protested have been beat up and police have been just standing by and the government's not really doing anything about it. In fact, there has even been some campaigns that have said that there's been corruption involved and some of the people that had their accounts there were actually involved in illicit transactions. Not what you want to see to build support and belief in the Communist Party system among average, pretty poor citizens. So this being the case, I think it's kind of a crisis, small crisis, but one that they really want to nip in the bud, could get a lot worse for the Communist Party. We should watch this one closely.
What does Putin hope will come from his trip to Iran?
Well, as opposed to China, Xi Jinping, who have aligned worldviews before the Russians invaded Ukraine. Today, it's Raisi and Putin, Raisi the Iranian President, that has the closest aligned worldview because Iran is actually a G7 pariah. They have been sanctioned and cut off from all of the advanced industrial democracies with massive sanctions against them. That's also true of Putin's Russia. It is not true of Xi Jinping's China. And so if you want to get military support, if you want to coordinate on the global stage, a lot harder for the Russians and Chinese to do that because China still wants to do good business with the Europeans, the Americans, a lot easier for the Iranians to do that. So you're going to watch really carefully as to whether or not the Iranians are willing to provide lots of drones for example, to Russia. Whether the Russians are willing to coordinate more with the Iranians on things like energy sales, since the Russians have been undercutting the Iranians and have taken market share. And finally, what does that mean for the Iranians returning to the Iranian nuclear deal, the JCPOA? Which is right now on life support or Weekend at Bernie's, pick it each way you want. But if that formally breaks, then the Americans and others are going to have to put more sanctions on Iran, then that will hurt energy prices, which are already pretty high.
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