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Post being replied to

How much influence do China and Russia have with the by Raoul

leadership of Iran? I assume China and Russia support Iran's deadly mischief insofar as it distracts us from them and their ambitions in their own areas. I assume the best we can do with Russia is get support to Ukraine to keep them occupied. Do we have leverage with Iran and China by threatening to blow up or blockade their oil ports/refineries. They are sanctioned but we know Iranian oil still goes to China (supposedly 1M barrels a day per reports last fall).

It seems to me we have two choices: (1) be more direct with Iran and demand a stop to all attacks including Yemeni Houthis - and threaten direct retaliation; or (2) accept that we can't stop it and that we can't deter Iran and shrink our military footprint and tell ships to re-route. Re-routing shipping is very problematic for the world, though. And I do not know the implications of scaling back further in Syria and Iraq than we already have.

P.S. We already have problems with logistics in the Panama Canal. If the Red Sea remains problematic, everyone loses, especially Europe. The UN is really worthless if the Yemeni situation cannot be handled by them. It would seem that such is exactly what the UN is designed to managed.