Public opinion on the Iran-China ballistic missile deal is notably polarized. While many emphasize Iran's sovereign right to self-defense and approve of the collaboration with China as a counterbalance to US influence, there is significant skepticism about the reliability of Chinese military products and the geopolitical implications of the deal. Skepticism is compounded by criticism of Western double standards and perceived media bias. Concerns focus on potential escalation of tensions, especially with Israel and Western nations, and the potential for misuse of military technology. There is also anxiety about the broader geopolitical balance and mixed views on the diplomatic ramifications.

Iran

China

United States

Israel

Iran just ordered missile fuel from China,  enough for 800 ballistic missiles, per WSJ. Some of it’s going to proxies like the Houthis, who are *already* firing at Israel.

Israel says it won’t strike unless Trump signals diplomacy has failed, but they’re clearly prepping. Meanwhile, Iran keeps enriching uranium to 60% and rejecting U.S. proposals.

At this point, it’s obvious: Iran’s gearing up for long-term confrontation, and Israel’s just waiting for the green light.

kezguyfour

DocumentNo3571

China sent it with assembly instructions and one hexagon key.

jaspreetzing

Didn't Israel sell China F-16 blue prints at some point?

NecessaryViolenz

Iranian forklifts gonna have another opportunity to show how funny they can be.

RippingOne

What else can it make? This isn’t journalism, it’s fear mongering

colsta1777

Let’s hope Israel destroys the regime so that the people can live freely again and minorities, women and lhbt’s are no longer being hanged.

Personal-Agent7819

These missiles are likely going to be given to terrorists, to russia, or be turned into nuclear weapons.

Someone needs to make it clear to china this kind of sale is not acceptable.

The_Frostweaver

Nothing to see here because no one will sanction China. China gives Iran missiles, supports the Russian war machine, prepares to invade peceful democratic Taiwan, etc.

LAUGHABLE

EmotionFriendly1096

They bought aluminium tubes. Do I need to tell you what you can do with an aluminium tube?

shaun1330

China is a sponsor of terrorism and Islamic extremism.  China should be boycotted and heavily sanctioned.

The-M0untain

Lmao and? Every nation should beef up their military power today.

WealthStateOfMind

dongkey1001

randomnogeneratorz

Holy smokes, this is actually huge news. The Saudia have historically only worked with China on economics, not foreign policy. That was always exclusively the domain of the US. They've been toying with it with some arms purchases from China but this is a big signal to the US that they want a better deal. This is going to deteriorate the US-China relationship further I'd the US feels like China is poaching its partners.

InfelixTurnus

Lets go 🇨🇳 🇮🇷 🇸🇦 ! I love when america &amp; europe get pissed off man. Im tired of Europe and America thinking they run shit mfs always got to team up to do shit.

Affectionate_Arm9720

[deleted]

SGC-UNIT-555

Wow! Somebody really messed up America’s foreign policy.

mehwars

cipher_ix

HOLY SHIT!!! If Saudi is making a military agreement with China, expect regime change in the next 2-5 years. 

Puts on nuclear rods.

AlexJamesCook

Undercoverbrother007

This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/491462.aspx) reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot)
*****
&gt; &amp;quot;Following talks, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have agreed to resume diplomatic relations and reopen embassies and missions within two months,&amp;quot; the official Iranian news agency IRNA said, citing a joint statement.

&gt; Israel, Iran and the US. Shortly after the news broke, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett took to his official Twitter account on Friday to express his concerns regarding the renewal of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

&gt; Bennett said: &amp;quot;The renewal of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a serious and dangerous development for Israel and is a political victory for Iran. This is a fatal blow to the effort to build a regional coalition against Iran.&amp;quot;.


*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/11nqd7b/china_brokered_agreement_between_iran_and_saudi/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~675848 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Iran**^#1 **Saudi**^#2 **between**^#3 **Arabia**^#4 **Israel**^#5

autotldr

Just imagine a world in which Donald Trump didn't tear up the Iran nuclear deal and assassinate their top military leader.

Quick, someone tell me how this is a bad thing?

Gen_Harambe

It’s crazy how the US would never even try to do something like this

jesusnuggets

Those conflicts with china head lines are about to be so much more prevalent.. &amp; my anxiety over the U.S. just writing off china just went through the roof!

Openblindz

Nooooooo, it can't beeeeee. My favourite international mainstream journalists told me only war could bring those savages civilization and peace, nooooooo.

I hope China keeps up the good work, this is great news.

camaron28

That’s great news for world peace if it succeeds.

Ok-Ease7090

Imaginary-Lawyer-510

China capitalizing on the US's incompetence in the middle east and Europe's incompetence in Africa meanwhile Americans think Russia is a threat

Laj3ebRondila1003

The day Trump led us to break our own agreement was the the day agreements itself lost value, as if its value was high to begin with.

Now we laugh at all agreements, waiting for it to break like a new normal. Because we're so realistic and cynical, aren't we?

But promises only work when kept between friends, these are no friends. And we're no love makers.

duocsong

A lot of white Americans are crying in their seats right now. 

They feel threatened and rightly so!

If you have been having suspicious thoughts about Saudi Arabia those suspicions have been confirmed.  This has all been happening because the spoiled Saudi crown prince is upset the entire western world considers him to be garbage, which in fact he is.

CaptainSur

How dare China win in diplomacy, War mongering Americans want to start world war 3 asap.

moeez023

Has Iran turned over a new leaf? Peace with the Saudis and welcoming nuclear inspections? Or perhaps they are trying to buy a little time to complete enrichment.

Human-Entrepreneur77

China is looking for more allies in their anti-west coalition.

I guess Biden/US administration look stupid now - given they capitulated on "only deal with the king" to sucking up to the de-facto king, preparing army to deal with attack on Saudi etc.  while they actively undercut US request to hold steady on oil output/price.

WPackN2

This may mean that China likely expects Russia to lose its war with Ukraine and is looking for a steady supply of oil.

Killing both TPP and the Iran nuke deal is going to allow some bad partnerships.

Unpleasant_Classic

Looks like Saudi Arabia got tired of being lectured on human rights. Iran and China doesn't do that. This was actually predictable but what can you do. 

The US is not perfect on human rights but that doesn't mean we can stay silent on it either when another country is many times worst.

wizgset27

Distance from Iran to Israel: ~1000 km

Distance from the PRC to Taiwan: 130 km

WulfTheSaxon

A mid tier economy with medicore tech,  building ballistics with 50% duds had ~20% penetration rate for missiles that didn't fail to launch when attacking the densest missile defense network in the world with days of warning and 1000km of distance to intercept. Like does a stacked carrier group with 5-6 DDGs and defense perimeter the size of Israel have as much anti-missile defense as whole of Israel +co? I think PRC weaponeers are adjusting their salvos downwards if anything.

dirtyid

The thing is Taiwan has nowhere near the air defense coverage that Israel does. A couple batteries of PAC3 and TKIII don't make a comprehensive shield against attack, especially because Taiwan is far closer and also has to worry about manned aircraft. 

AmericanNewt8

Both in ukraine and now Iran, people are determined to learn lessons about Taiwan. But China isn't that country. The millitary isn't underfunded or massively undertrained. Pilots do their hours. The red team wins in war games sometimes. The missles actually work.

I don't know to what extent China has been underestimating US capabilities, but in that recent major thinktank wargame in the US they assumed an insanely low hit rate for Chinese ASMs and still lost two carriers. It can work both ways.

WhoDisagrees

"China would likely look at the incident to work out how it could get past the technology and the alliance that foiled the attack." 

They foiled the drone attack by getting a week to prepare then had 9 hours to intercept the slow ass drones over uncontested airspace. 

The 120 or so ballistic missiles is more impressive but still 50% failed due to technical error and Israel have one of the best missile defense in the world and got helped by several destroyers pre positioned of the coast. Still a few got through.

All in all the defense worked as expected and i do not think it have any relevance to a Taiwan scenario.

Ok-Lead3599

This article is fueled by wishful thinking.

I guess Iran's and Chinese's militaries are totally comparable both in terms of sophistication and quantity. And even then, it would still not be a good comparison.

Pklnt

iHaveSeoul

Chinas drones and missiles operate in a different league compared to Irans. It actually has a functioning Air Force.

Taiwan is not Israel, and it took five countries combined to blunt Irans attack - and they still hit the targets they wanted to hit. It also cost the US roughly $1 billion to ward off drones and missiles that collectively are worth maybe $2-3 million.

In a fast war, the US wins. But in a war of attrition, China can more than hold its own. Its manufacturing base is larger, its nuclear armed, cans its logistical tail is a fraction of the size of the US.

Top_Pie8678

This is comparing apples to oranges. A well-telegraphed attack with slow drones over a vast distance, intended as retaliation for an attack on an embassy vs. what will likely be a massive attack with fast, modern missiles, well-coordinated, and likely the opening shots to a huge international conflict. And all that across a strait.

I don’t know. I feel like the interception rates were expected or even a little worse than expected. The cruise missiles and suicide drones were obviously all going to be intercepted given the several hours flight time. For the ballistic missiles, half didn’t even manage to reach Israel from malfunctions and of those that did, at least 9 hit airbases. When you consider that it’s likely several ballistic missiles didn’t hit anything at all, given the in flight failure rate, at least 25% probably got through. This is in addition to the fact that Israel and the US got hours of warning from the suicide drones.

eassd

Irans attack was highly telegraphed and really mostly a symbolic attack so they can look like they are being tough on Israel to their population but in reality it sounds like there was a lot of back channel warnings and they announced it with plenty of time so defence could be prepared. They don't really want an outright war with Israel or the US. People acting like it was the start of WW3 but really it's actually both sides de-escalating in their own ways.

If China is going to go for it against Taiwan they are not going to give them a few days notice to prepare and allow the US and allies to also preposition and prepare assets ready for defence. Although even if they did, they probably have enough cruise missiles, drones and even old converted drone aircraft that they could send over to completely exhaust the defensive missile magazines before even sending in anything manned.

"Report says" is just an opinion from someone from the u.s Taiwan business council. There is nothing credible about this report.

widdowbanes

Even if China launches only low tech kamikaze drones, and each one can be easily intercepted. Can the rest of the world produce air defense missiles faster than China produces cheap drones? The quality of air defense missiles is irrelevant when the quantity decreases to 0.

Accomplished_Mall329

Iran's attack was actually very successful. The cost of intercepting those drones was over $1B. China's equivalent of the Shahed-136 is the CH-806 which cost 20k CNY = $2800 each. The missiles used to intercept those drones cost $1M each.

Israel/US actually spend an average of $3M for each drone/missile they intercepted. They probably launched at least 2x missiles per drone.

jz187

No, it is Taiwan and the US that need to rethink the ability of subsonic cruise missiles to get past a multilayered defense on high alert.

Pluto_coc

Doesn't China already have 076 on the roadmap?

chem-chef

It's just over 300 gadgets, China can easily add a zero after it, and if that's not enough we can add another zero.

Lianzuoshou

This whole thread: "Nuh-uh, the PLA could so too level Taiwan with drones, which is why they should be afraid because mother China loves them!"?

InvertedParallax

With a fraction of their current budget, they can easily launch 100-1000 drones per hour for 30 days straight, if they want to overwhelm the AD of a 200km target.

fookingshrimps

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AutoModerator

More than Israel hopes for and fewer than Iran would like.

The most likely is that Iran cannot sustain repeated waves for more than a month. But it is also difficult for Israel to keep shooting them down reliably. 

Hard to predict how it all turns out but it is likely that Iran probably does not want to use up most of them. And causing civilian deaths will simply prompt more destructive retaliation from Israel. Neither benefits from massive escalation but they're also playing a domestic and regional political game and the calculus is not always fully rational. 

Bad outcomes usually come about when one side or the other fails to understand the strategic game and miscalculate the potential effects.

phiwong

Iran is a huge country with a large share of the resources that are needed to produce these missiles and drones, which is why Russia and others buy Iranian arms. As for a specific number, or a cap on a specific amount, it’s not directly definable other than the number is likely infinite. A better question would be how many missiles and drones can they produce in one month, which is likely dismal compared to whatever max amount they’ve stowed

NO_N3CK

The answer is that nobody knows! It is absurd that a country with 1.6 million square km area only had 3000 ballistic missiles to launch! What they get incorrectly is that their launch capacity is 3000 per some amount of time (for example they can only shoot 3000 in one day, or in one week) cause the logistic of translating huge missiles under or above ground is a challenge itself!

For example when they retaliated in true promise 2, they said they only used 10-15 % of their CAPACITY. not their STOCKPILE! Therefore I think they must have stockpiled at least a million or half a million rockets and missiles throughout the last 30 years that they were getting ready for war with US!

There is a lot of mis and dis information used as soft warfare and also anti-warfare in regional wars like this between states and no one can be sure at the end of the day, but that is my understanding of the situation. Not to mention they have divided the country into more than 30 autonomous war regions in case the central power collapsed, each region with it's own underground facility and missile stockpile, continuing the resistance!

BTW, their range limit is only self inflicted when they were hopeful to get to the good grace of the west and specially EU, looking at their silo images, one can easily conclude they can change their doctoring into increasing their range to God knows what! We know that they copied a lot of north Korean tech, so they might even have inter continental variants that they never tested!

Also, they are a de-facto threshold state! One can assume under enough pressure, they will change their nuclear doctrine also! That will instantly brings them to nuclear equilibrium with the Israel! No matter how you look at it, they can never lose in fighting with a foreign power! The West's (I mean collective west, including Israel) hope is imploding from inside like regime change or something!

sslelgamal

It was estimated at 3000 ballistic missiles and 3000 shared drones

G0TouchGrass420

Iran does not have 3,000 varieties of ballistic missiles rather up to 200,000. 

Iran has a total missiles arsenal of up to 2,000,000 missiles. 
Surely 10% of these missiles would be ballistic missiles. 

There is no clear number on how many different weapons does Iran possess. 

U.S. officials said Hezbollah has 200,000 missiles rockets and drones and around 1,000 of this number is believed to be ballistic missiles mainly the scud B/C and the Fateh-110. 

U.S. officials said the Yemeni Houthis have around 4,000 ballistic missiles. 

How and why on earth would Irans only sit at 3,000 when they’re the most diverse and sophisticated missile striker in the region. 

My guess 2 million missiles and rockets. 
100,000 - 200,000 ballistic missiles. 

70,000 - 100,000 drones + UAVs

Icy-Equivalent-2353

Iran has approximately 2 million missiles and rockets in its arsenal with about 100,000 ballistic missiles with various ranges.

Where do they keep them is the better question.  The situation is already escalated, break their ability to launch.

128-NotePolyVA

The number of ballistic missiles Iran possesses may fluctuate depending on Israel's response. According to some Israeli sources, Hezbollah has lost 50% of its rocket and missile arsenal, which is estimated to be in the tens of thousands.

rrron7

Recent reports highlight Iran's orders for thousands of tons of missile fuel from China to manufacture ballistic missiles, raising concerns amidst geopolitical tensions involving the US, Israel, and Iran's nuclear program.

Iran-China Ballistic Missile Deal

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