My assessment: China-Iran Visit Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is heading to Beijing today for talks with China’s top diplomat. Losing Iran as a partner in the Middle East means a lot more than losing discounted oil. The loss takes away a coercive actor that has long acted as a forward disruptor of regional order. In fact, Iran has given China three things at once: cheap energy, a regime that can absorb sanctions pressure (important for China to build a parallel financial system), and a network of militias and proxies that destabilize U.S.-aligned systems without putting Beijing on the front line. However, Operation Epic Fury is becoming a real embarrassment for Tehran: 1/ Militarily, Iran isn’t winning and the region is increasingly lining up against it. 2/ Economically, the situation is rough: inflation is high and the currency is sliding toward 1.9 million to the dollar, which tells you everything about the pressure the system is under. Beijing risks losing an actor that made life harder for the United States across the region, the fact that the talks are happening shouldn’t be surprising.