China and Russia stood by Iran in March after the US demanded nuclear talks with Tehran, with senior Chinese and Russian diplomats saying dialogue should only resume based on "mutual respect."

Israel has called on China to use its economic and political influence to curb Iran's military and nuclear ambitions, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

“China is the only one capable of influencing Iran,” Consul-General in Shanghai Ravit Baer said. “Iran would collapse if China didn’t buy its oil,” she added.

Both China and Russia stood by Iran in March after the US demanded nuclear talks with Tehran, with senior Chinese and Russian diplomats saying dialogue should only resume based on "mutual respect" and all sanctions ought to be lifted, The Jerusalem Post previously reported.

“They can pressure Iran. They have political power over Iran. They can help change its malign activities in the region,” she said. “There are many things China can do.”

Silence during the Israel-Iran war

However, despite the fact that both countries have close relations with the Islamic Republic, neither offered assistance in the 12-day war between Israel and Iran.

“I don’t think China is interested in being a mediator” between Israel and Iran, Baer said. “Being a mediator is a big responsibility, requires lots of money, and hard decisions.”

According to Bloomberg, Baer added that Israel’s relations with China, its second-largest trading partner after the US, haven’t worsened much despite conflicts since 2023.

“We’re still having good conversations,” she said. “Even if we disagree politically, it doesn’t mean you cannot cooperate.”

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Trump could arm Israel with US B-2s and bunker busters if Iran tries to go nuclear under new proposal

A bipartisan pair of lawmakers has proposed authorizing President Donald Trump to transfer B-2 stealth bombers and 30,000-pound "bunker buster" bombs to Israel if Iran is found to still be developing a nuclear weapon after last week’s strikes.

Proposed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., the Bunker Buster Act would allow Trump to "take actions to ensure Israel is prepared for all contingencies if Iran seeks to develop a nuclear weapon."

B-2 bomber pilots launched 14 bunker buster bombs on Iran’s top three nuclear sites, in a move that Trump claims "totally obliterated" the Iranian regime’s nuclear program.

Israel, for its part, hit a number of Iranian sites and took out top military brass. However, it doesn’t possess the 30,000-pound GBU 57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, precision-guided munition bombs developed for the U.S. Air Force. The 20-foot-long weapons can travel 200 feet deep inside a target before exploding.

As of 2024, the U.S. had 19 B-2s in operation. It does not transfer custody of its B-2 stealth bombers to any of its allies.

"Iran, the leading state sponsor of terror, and one of America’s top enemies, can never have a nuclear weapon. That’s why I strongly supported our military actions earlier this month. Iran has killed scores of Americans, including our service members, and repeatedly attacked our key democratic ally, Israel. Israel must be able to defend herself against Iran, and ensure that Iran cannot rebuild its nuclear capabilities," Gottheimer said in a statement.

"This bill gives the President the authority to equip Israel with the tools and training they need to deter Tehran and make the world a safer place," said Lawler.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Chair Rafael Grossi told Radio France Internationale the centrifuges at Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear site are "no longer operational," after the U.S. strikes.

However, some have questioned whether Iran may have attempted to move its stock of enriched uranium away from the sites that were targeted, but Grossi told CBS over the weekend that Iran may again begin enriching uranium in a "matter of months."

"The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there," he said.

"It is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage," Grossi added. "Iran has the capacities there; industrial and technological capacities. So if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again."

Meanwhile, after a Houthi strike on Israel, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee suggested the U.S. send B-2 bombers to Yemen to strike Houthi targets.

"We thought we were done with missiles coming to Israel, but Houthis just lit one up over us in Israel. Fortunately, Israel's incredible interception system means we go to the shelter & wait until all clear. Maybe those B2 bombers need to visit Yemen!"

B-2 bomber planes traveled to Yemen to strike Houthi targets in October 2024.

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Trump must not waste his golden opportunity with Iran

Policymakers and intelligence agencies are still debating the extent of damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities from Israeli and U.S. strikes this month.

The most optimistic assessment came from President Trump himself, who claimed that “bunker busting bombs” had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. Democratic members of Congress, media critics of the president, and even some U.S. intelligence agencies suggest Trump’s glowing account is more self-serving hyperbole and that the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program by “only a few months.” Israel’s assessment, perhaps not surprisingly, is much closer to Trump’s, saying the attacks cost Iran several years of work on nuclear weapons development.

What is indisputable, however, are the geopolitical ramifications of the U.S. strikes, which crossed several strategic Rubicons.

What once seemed almost inconceivable — that Trump would risk being “dragged into another Mideast war,” let alone a direct conflict with Iran through a massive use of U.S. force — has happened. Additional strikes are now imaginable if Iran seeks to rebuild what it has lost from Israeli and U.S. attacks.

The fact that Iran has active strategic relations with Russia, China and North Korea, the three nuclear members of the new anti-U.S., anti -Western axis of evil, and was still attacked on its core strategic imperative is also a break from traditional U.S. restraint. It indicates that the Trump administration will no longer shy away from frontally challenging members of the aggressive collaboration. The action against Iran sends a strong message of deterrence to China, and North Korea as well, that Trump’s oft-stated aversion to military action is not as paralyzing as America’s enemies might have assumed.

Deterrence may be partially restored, with the glaring exception of Trump’s disgraceful acquiescence to Vladimir Putin’s criminal aggression in Ukraine and his blatant disrespect for Ukraine’s heroic president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump’s lack of interest in Putin’s vast array of war crimes against the Ukrainian people will forever besmirch whatever credit he has earned for addressing the Iran nuclear problem. His kowtowing to Putin has been met with the Russian leader’s disdain and virtual mocking of Trump’s almost desperate entreaties to end the conflict. When Trump dismissed the defiant remarks of Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s earlier place-holder president, by noting that Putin is actually “THE BOSS,” he was implicitly acknowledging that in Putin’s Russia, no official says anything that Putin does not want said, so Medvedev was delivering Putin’s latest insult to Trump.

Trump need not respond with his usual personal vituperation. Instead, he can take more meaningful and permanent action to rid the world of the Putin problem, using some of the information tools he has just scrapped. He is, after all, not the first U.S. official to take a chain saw to a government agency devoted to influencing the world not with bombs but with ideas, though he has carried the operation to extremes.

In Congress’s 1999 budget discussions, then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), minority vice-chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, collaborated with chairman Jesse Helms to eliminate the United States Information Agency and consolidate its functions within the State Department. USIA was created in 1953 during the height of the Cold War to explain and support American foreign policy and promote U.S. national interests through a wide range of overseas information programs. The agency also encouraged mutual understanding between the United States and other nations by conducting people-to-people educational and cultural activities. Its influence is credited with helping to liberate Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union by providing information to the peoples of the “captive nations” that was denied them by their communist oppressors.

While USIA’s functions under the Helms-Biden plan were absorbed into the State Department, the transfer was problematic from the start. U.S. diplomats conducted their official communications between governments whereas USIA, Voice of America, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia all conveyed accurate and unbiased information, without a suspect government slant, directly to the people. Eastern and Central European populations found the broadcasts refreshingly credible, laying the foundation of receptivity for Ronald Reagan’s rhetorical attacks that ended “the Evil Empire.” Trump’s rampant cutting of U.S. information agencies severely constrains America’s ability to replicate the liberation experience that brought a peaceful termination of the Cold War.

It appears that the extreme Islamist regime in Iran is on its last legs thanks to the military pressure from Israel and America’s unique advanced weaponry. The Iran precedent will strengthen Trump’s leverage to advance peaceful regime change in China, Russia and North Korea if he is inclined to pursue that goal. As of now, his administration denies even seeking it in the case of Iran. The U.S. Information Agency, by that organizational name, can remain buried in the ash heap of history, but the imperative of reaching out to the hearts and minds of the repressed populations can continue under a special Trumpian rubric.

Trump can easily exploit his penchant for creating new institutions and/or new names for existing entities. While the name of Trump’s social media outlet, “Truth Social,” may be self-serving, he could institute a new, historically accurate information outlet named “Truth Strategic” that, without explicitly calling for regime change, could offer essential information support to the Chinese, Russian and North Korean populations yearning for liberation from their tyrannical rulers.

The destruction of Iran’s ominous nuclear program re-opens the door to peaceful political transformation that Trump, in his quest for international recognition, should be loath to ignore — even if his erstwhile friend, Putin, is an early target of Trump’s peace through strength endeavor.