Russia and China's shadow war: How Iran's precision strikes point to a new axis against Washington

Iran's missile and drone campaign against American bases and covert CIA facilities across the Middle East has grown alarmingly precise in recent weeks, forcing US officials to suspect a quiet alignment of Russia and China behind Tehran. Both countries could be supplying the technology, intelligence and tactical guidance that Iran will not be able to manage on its own.

US intelligence estimates put Iran's military capability at roughly 70 per cent intact despite weeks of American retaliatory bombing. Iranian strikes have reached American bases in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. On July 17, an Iranian ballistic missile breached US air defences at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, striking prefabricated housing units and killing three American service members.

More alarming still were the strikes on covert CIA stations, one housed within the US embassy in Riyadh, the other at a facility in eastern Iraq. These sites are absent from public maps, so targeting them demanded a level of intelligence few believed Iran possessed. In one instance, an Iranian drone punched a hole through a vulnerable section of a facility, and a second drone flew through that opening seconds later. Analysts have called it potentially one of the most serious breaches of American intelligence security overseas in decades.

Such levels of sophistication point towards Russian involvement. Iran lacks the satellite capability such precision would require, making it highly likely that Moscow is supplying Tehran with sensitive spatial data. Russian assistance appears to go well beyond targeting information. Multiple reports indicate Russia has supplied Tehran with the Kometa-M anti-jamming navigation system, technology that allows Iranian Shahed drones to resist electronic interference and hold their course even when adversaries attempt to jam their signals, considerably improving their lethality and their ability to evade air defences. Iran has also begun drawing on Russian battlefield tactics learned in Ukraine, deploying smaller, more calibrated salvos and using drones to distract air defence systems before sending ballistic missiles through the gap.

China's role has been less direct but no less consequential. The first phase of Iran's improved targeting relied on Chinese commercial satellite imagery, prompting Washington to sanction Chinese companies, among them Mizar Vision, for exposing the locations of US Patriot and THAAD air defence systems and military aircraft at bases across the Gulf. Iran's ballistic missile programme, meanwhile, remains heavily dependent on Chinese electronics and on ammonium perchlorate for rocket fuel. When Iran launches its missiles, it draws simultaneously on China's BeiDou system, Russia's Glonass and American GPS, a combination that produces warheads capable of adjusting course mid-flight and travelling at several times the speed of sound. Beijing, reliant as it is on Middle Eastern oil, would reportedly prefer to see the war wound down, yet continues to supply Tehran with vital components, advancing its longer-term ambition of a Middle East less tied to Washington and a world more dependent on Chinese technology.

For Moscow and Beijing, this loose "tripartite alliance" is less a formal treaty than a partnership of convenience, built around a shared interest in diminishing American global influence. The conflict pulls Washington's military and intelligence resources away from Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific. The destabilisation of the Strait of Hormuz, worsened by Houthi blockades in the Red Sea, has also driven up demand for Russian crude oil.

Washington has kept up a heavy tempo of retaliation, recently carrying out its 13th consecutive night of strikes against Iranian targets. President Donald Trump, having initially threatened a "massive attack," has since scaled back his rhetoric, suggesting Iran now appears to be taking negotiations seriously. He has nonetheless warned Moscow and Beijing explicitly against arming Iran, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed that both nations are enabling Tehran's actions. Trump said yesterday that he trusted China and Russia not ​to help Iran. He, however, warned that if ‌they did get involved, "it would be very bad for them."  

To counter the wider threat, the US is reinforcing its presence not only in the Middle East but across the Indo-Pacific as well. Most notably, it has deployed "Dark Eagle" hypersonic missiles to Guam, placing Beijing within a twenty-minute strike radius, a clear signal that Washington remains capable of defending its global interests even as the Iran war strains its resources.