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While the United States has been busy with the presidential elections and the blazing fires out West, the U.N. arms embargo on selling conventional weapons to Iran, under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has expired. This essentially allows Iran to import weapons and systems from various countries—the two most obvious ones being Russia and China.
Following the failed attempt a month ago in the U.N. Security Council to renew the arms embargo, Iran has laid the groundwork and began negotiating arms deals with Russia and China. Just a day after the renewal of the embargo was thwarted, the Iranian Minister of Defense flew to Moscow to discuss the purchase of the S-400 system, the advanced SU-57 stealth fighter-jet, T-90 tanks and a number of missile systems.
Iran has also recently signed a 25-year trade and military partnership with China worth $400 billion. According to reports, the military component includes joint training and exercises, joint weapons development, intelligence sharing, and, of course, arms sales, such as C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles.
This is a recipe for disaster, and an arms race waiting to happen. On Oct. 19, the day after the U.N. weapons embargo officially expired, Iranian Minister of Defense Brig. Gen. Amir Hatami announced the Iranian intention of selling more weapons than it will purchase. If Iran is planning on a massive shopping spree of new weapons, systems and technology, that can only mean that they will be exporting a ton more to “the countries despised by the Americans if they ask for it,” in Hatami’s words. The natural reaction to this would most likely be an arms race in the Middle East.
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