Goldman: Carolyn, I’m worried, but I’m not alarmed for a number of reasons. As Robert F Kennedy Jr put it so eloquently in his press conference last week announcing his support for the candidacy of Donald Trump, we pushed Russia into an alliance with Iran and China.

It was not necessary. It could have gone otherwise. In 2008, when the Ukraine crisis was first brewing, I published an analysis saying that we had a choice with Russia. If we push them to the wall over Ukraine, their obvious move would be to ally with our enemies, starting with Iran.

If, on the other hand, we found some kind of deal with Russia over Ukraine, which would have meant Ukrainian neutrality and protection for the Russian minority in Ukraine, we could have extracted from Russia a concession to help us with Iran, which is a prospective nuclear terrorist state. And the question I asked is, which is more important for American interests? Regime change in Ukraine, regime change in Russia, or the possibility of nuclear terrorism in the Middle East?

My strong view was that we should have found a way to deal with Russia over Ukraine and gotten their cooperation over Iran. That was on the table. It no longer is. So there is a three-way alliance, but there are strong limits to it because everyone has intersecting and divergent interests.

A Chinese commentary a couple of weeks ago on a website called Observer, which frequently represents State Council views, said Iran should not try to fight Israel. It can’t fight Israel. The air defense it has is primitive. They’re old Russian S-300s, and the Russians are not going to give them the kind of air defense that might be able to deal with the countermeasures carried by an Israeli F-15, let alone a stealth aircraft like F-35.

Iran has no land army to speak of, and certainly no tanks. Their aircraft are 50 years old and barely functional. So Iran is in no position to fight a war with Israel. Iran would lose. The Chinese are adamant in their discussion of this publicly and privately that they don’t want a war between Iran and Israel. And there’s an extremely simple reason for this.

A couple of Israeli rockets hitting the two big Iranian terminals on Karg Island would shut down all of Iran’s oil exports. The price of oil would go to US$150 or $200 a barrel. Who is the largest importer of oil from the Persian Gulf? Of course, it’s China. That would be a devastating blow to the Chinese economy. So if it came to a shooting war between Iran and Israel, China would be a major loser. Russia is certainly working with Iran to produce drones.

The Shaheed drones that it uses to reasonably good effect in Ukraine probably cost about $10,000 to produce, they might be even cheaper. They’re essentially a plywood frame with a moped motor and about $100 worth of electronics. They’re very cheap to make. And the Russians use them, of course, very effectively, not because they’re hard to shoot down.

They’re very easy to shoot down, but you could send 100 of them out at a time, swamp Ukrainian air defenses, and open the way for your more powerful ordnance, your ballistic missiles to get through, which is of course what they did this week in two waves of strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. But the Russians have been extremely cautious about giving Iran any of their better ordinance, the kind that might make a difference.

Iran wants the S-400 system, which can track aircraft much more effectively and in larger numbers and at greater distances than the S-300. We don’t know exactly how good the stuff is that Iran has because these Russians have domestic versions and export versions, which are far less effective. Iran has asked for these things, but Russia has not given them.

One simple reason is that Russia has an urgent need for all of its best air defense systems to fight the Ukraine war. It doesn’t have a great deal to spare, but it’s shown a great deal of willingness, as you know, to cooperate with the Israeli Air Force in Syria. Russia does not want to tangle with Israel.