What Iran’s Isolation Says About Moscow and Beijing’s Commitment to Latin America’s Dictators

Commentary by Ryan C. Berg

Published June 23, 2025

Events in one theater of the world occasionally provide analysts with opportunities to reflect and update their assumptions once considered axiomatic about a different theater of the world. The past six months in the Middle East have provided Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba watchers with several dramatic moments to reconsider basic assumptions-specifically, about regime security vs. mutual assistance. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's dramatic fall at the end of 2024 and Israel's spectacular campaign against the infrastructure of Iran's nuclear program challenge the basic assumptions of those who assess Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba as ultimately backstopped by a network of fellow authoritarians. More recently, the Trump administration's strikes, part of Operation Midnight Hammer, on Iran's most hardened nuclear facilities throw into serious doubt the commitment of Moscow and Beijing to the survival of the Maduro, Ortega, and Díaz-Canel regimes.

More distant, beleaguered, and distracted with objectives much more foundational to their core national interests, China and Russia (and now Iran), ultimately may not serve the role that is traditionally assumed-the white knights ready to ride to the rescue of their authoritarian ilk in Latin America. And if analysts in Washington can arrive at this conclusion, certainly Maduro in Caracas, Ortega in Managua, and Díaz-Canel in Havana can too.

Indeed, what is abundantly clear from the Syrian and now the Iranian cases is how little effort Moscow and Beijing have put into intervening to stop attacks on Iran (and possibly the eventual downfall of the regime), despite the obvious stakes Moscow and Beijing have in the Iranian regime's survival. With arguably less at stake in the survival of Maduro, Ortega, and Díaz-Canel, can Latin America watchers be sure Moscow and Beijing would ride to the rescue? Events in the Middle East require that Latin America watchers revisit assumptions regarding regime security and instead focus on the nature and extent of cooperation between the "axis of upheaval" and its like-minded states in the region.

Big Expectations, Minimal Efforts

To state the obvious, both Moscow and Beijing have a lot at stake in Tehran's survival. Both see the loose "axis of upheaval" formed with Iran and North Korea as key to challenging the current international order and shaping it to their interests.

The Russia-Iran relationship is robust when it comes to technical military cooperation. Most obviously, Russia benefits from Iran's delivery of Shahed drones, which have become crucial to its terror campaign in Ukraine. The U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran risk highlighting Russia's potential irrelevance in the Middle East, especially following its relative quiescence in the face of Assad's overthrow in Syria. Putin has always placed immense pride in Russia's (limited) ability to shape the Middle East, and his fateful intervention in Syria to save Assad's regime in 2015 provided Moscow access to bases on the Mediterranean, as well as another means to deepen its partnership with Iran. Trump's strikes not only add an element of unpredictability to Putin's relationship with him but also demonstrate the U.S. president's willingness to use force internationally, not just threaten it. Furthermore, when Putin did attempt to intervene in favor of Iran, an offer to mediate a dialogue, Trump summarily rejected it, telling Putin to focus on ending the war in Ukraine instead.

Putin has repeated his playbook of December 2024 as Assad's regime crumbled. Throughout the first week of Israel's Operation Rising Lion, Russia has taken advantage of the distractions to step up its air campaign against civilian Ukrainian targets but has shown little interest in assisting in an effort to shore up Iran's defense. Putin chose to attend the yearly St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, focusing his remarks on the war in Ukraine and U.S. efforts to seek a ceasefire there. While there, Putin stressed that the vaunted strategic partnership recently signed between Russia and Iran was not a mutual defense pact. The truth is that the Russians likely concluded Iran's defenses were feeble after earlier skirmishes with Israel in April and October of last year, in which Israel destroyed some of Iran's air defense, including its Russian S-300 systems. While it is possible Russia may still intervene, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is visiting Moscow, Russia is most likely to spearhead a symbolic emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to denounce U.S. actions.

Similarly, China has a strategic relationship with Iran in both the military and economic domains. In the past, the two have had a bustling defense industrial relationship. Most importantly, China is Iran's top destination for shipments of sanctioned oil, taking about 90 percent of its exports. Israel's disruption of Iran's oil shipments would be painful for China, but ironically, one of China's greatest contributions to the situation may be convincing Iran not to close the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, which the country's parliament has purportedly chosen to do. China is reliant on oil from other suppliers that also transit the strait, and China is not about to place at risk 50 percent of its oil supplies in the name of Iranian retaliation. Lastly, like Russia, there is little chance that Israel sees Beijing as a credible and neutral mediator-much the same way Trump dismissed Moscow's efforts. After all, China has sought to benefit from Israel's war against Hamas with anti-Israel rhetoric aimed at scoring points in the Global South. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council-like Russia-China is likely to support Iran's position at an emergency meeting of the body, denouncing the strike.

Reexamining the Intellectual Scaffolding

What does all this mean for Latin America? Analysts, the author included, sometimes write as if Russia and China are key nodes in the authoritarian network that anchors fellow dictators in Caracas, Managua, and Havana, while Iran and North Korea are important peripheral players in this dynamic. Indeed, past CSIS research has declared Russia, China, and Iran to constitute part of a "fabulous five" of large- and medium-sized powers working to "prop up" the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Another CSIS paper assessed Russia and Iran to be pursuing similar playbooks in Latin America, above all guaranteeing the survival of noxious authoritarian regimes close to the U.S. homeland. Still other research focuses on the comprehensive strategic partnerships established by Russia and China in the military, economic, and diplomatic realms, among others.

There is certainly plenty of material to make an argument. Yet, the reticence of Moscow and Beijing to come to Iran's aid-in its time of greatest need, no less-should be cause for reexamining these basic assumptions about the extent of their support for partners in Latin America. Specifically, this moment should force Latin America watchers to more carefully distinguish between regime support on the one hand and mutual assistance on the other. Several areas of analysis should guide this reassessment:

• Strategic interests: What are the core strategic interests of both Moscow and Beijing in the region, and to what extent are they willing to pursue them in the face of U.S. pressure? What the situation in Iran demonstrates is that if the United States and/or opposition movements on the ground were able to shake the foundations of Latin America's dictatorships with pressure campaigns, Moscow and Beijing could be forced to cut their losses because strategic interests elsewhere demand greater attention. In Moscow's case, the war in Ukraine has been all-consuming; in China's case, the focus is on Taiwan and disputes in the South China Sea.
• The role of proximity and influence projection: Russia and China have been reluctant to intervene on Iran's behalf in a region more proximate to both, while the United States conducted precision strikes requiring 18-hour flight runs in a distant region. In Latin America, neither Russia nor China enjoys proximity to the region, with the United States the dominant player, more capable of projecting power and influence. With one of Latin America's authoritarian regimes at risk, would Russia and China project influence in a distant region? In past moments of regime insecurity, Russia and China have reached for low-hanging fruit, such as disinformation campaigns or blocking internet access, but have not gone further.
• Status quo vs. uprising: Russia and China support Latin America's dictatorships during moments of regime stability. This should be deemed cooperation or mutual assistance. It is one thing to offer support for a regime during moments of relative calm (sometimes aimed at enhancing regime survivability) or to form part of a mutual sanctions evasion network, but one's true friends are clear and identifiable during moments of crisis. It is an open question whether Russia and China would offer crisis-level regime support to Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, but silence on Iran at the moment provides little cause for comfort. What are Russia and China ready to do in the event that an opposition movement seriously shakes the oppressive foundations in Caracas, Managua, and Havana? The context matters greatly.
• Regime security vs. mutual assistance and cooperation: What events unfolding in the Middle East have demonstrated is the divergence between analysis that assumes the "axis of upheaval" to be guarantors of regime security in Latin America and the "axis of upheaval" as a dangerous, yet opportunistic-and occasionally, shallow-grouping of authoritarians engaged in mutual assistance and cooperation in Latin America when it suits them. Of course, mutual assistance and cooperation can be aimed at building long-term regime security-and it often is-but in moments of acute crisis, Russia and China's reticence, on several occasions now, to intervene in favor of authoritarian partners, even in a forceful but diplomatic way, demonstrates the limits of these networks, especially in Latin America.
  

None of this is to minimize the deep inroads that Moscow and Beijing have made with Latin America's dictatorships. There is plenty of mutual assistance and cooperation, especially in moments of stability without acute crisis. And there may be more to come, particularly at the BRICS summit in Brazil in July, where Iran is a new member looking to lean into this network.

But lack of action on Iran thus far has certainly revealed a weaker hand and deeper strategic interests elsewhere than many analysts have traditionally assumed. If Washington can conduct this analysis in a matter of weeks, certainly Maduro, Ortega, and Díaz-Canel have realized this already, too. Until the conflict in the Middle East ends, with Iran's regime still intact, there are likely to be more sleepless nights in Caracas, Managua, and Havana.

Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

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