Republican Support for Russia is Support for Iran

How GOP's antipathy toward Ukraine and affinity for Moscow helps Tehran.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin greets Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during a December 2023 meeting in the Kremlin. (Credit: Pavel Bednyakov/AFP via Getty Images)

Early in his 2024 State of the Union speech, President Biden appropriately castigated former president Trump for his invitation to Vladimir Putin to invade a NATO ally. Biden also upbraided Trump’s Republican acolytes in the House for failure to pass the bipartisan border security and foreign aid bill—including funding for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan—passed overwhelmingly by the Senate. 

Recent revelations that Russia seeks to develop space-based nuclear weapons and the recent Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka after four months of brutal fighting makes Trump’s invasion invitation and the House’s failure to act all the more pernicious.

Wittingly or not, House Republicans have thrown their hat in not only with Russia but also Iran and its so-called Axis of Resistance—Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, and multiple militia groups in Syria and Iraq allied against the United States, Israel, and America’s allies and partners in the Middle East and Europe.  

In mid-2022, Russia began to buy thousands of attack drones, missiles, and other single-use weaponry from Iran for use in Ukraine. Iran even sold Russia a production line to manufacture such weapons domestically in Tartarstan—just out of range of Ukraine’s Storm Shadow cruise missiles. As a result, Iran has become a major global exporter of such lethal weaponry—all to U.S. adversaries.

In addition, Iran signed a deal in November 2023 to purchase Russian Su-35 multirole fighters, Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Yak-130 jet trainers; their delivery remains unconfirmed. Russia busted sanctions on Iran and reinvigorated the Iranian economy at a time the Iranian government was reeling from both continued sanctions and months of unrest following the arrest and murder of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for not properly wearing her mandatory hijab. 

What is the danger in these ties between Russia and Iran? Let’s look at two key parts of the Axis of Resistance: the Houthis and Hezbollah.

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas War, American and allied forces have come under over 200 attacks from Axis of Resistance groups. The deadliest attack occurred when a drone launched by Kataib Hezbollah—an Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militia group—struck Tower 22, a U.S. outpost in Jordan near the Syrian border, on January 28, killing three American soldiers and wounding 47. In retaliation for Tower 22 and other attacks, the United States and allies have struck and continue to strike pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria.  

In Yemen, the Iranian-backed Houthis initially launched missiles at the Israeli town of Eilat, some 1,300 miles away, that were shot down by U.S. and Israeli missile defenses. On March 18, however, a Houthi cruise missile got through missile defense systems and landed just outside Eilat—no injuries reported, but a possible harbinger of things to come. With the slogan “God Is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam,” it’s not hard to determine what exactly the Houthis stand for.

Since November 2023, moreover, the Houthis have attacked and hijacked ships in the Red Sea with ballistic missile and drones. Two recently declassified reports by the Defense Intelligence Agency demonstrate that the Iranian drones used by the Houthis and are virtually identical to those used by Russia in Ukraine. On February 18, the Houthis hit a Belize-flagged vessel carrying 22,000 metric tons of toxic fertilizer—causing an 18 mile long heavy oil slick and other serious ecological damage. On March 6, a Houthi attack on a Barbados-flagged ship killed three crew members.

Major Western, Arab, and Asian shipping companies have re-routed cargo around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa rather than risk the shorter and cheaper route through the Suez Canal. That adds several weeks of additional costs—fuel, wages, pollution, and delays—and deprives a precarious Egyptian economy of a critical source of revenue and foreign currency. As the world recovers from post-pandemic inflationary pressures and supply chain issues, this diversion deleteriously affects the global economic recovery.

At the same time, Hezbollah and Israel have edged up to the precipice of full-blown war. Hezbollah has begun to target cities far from the Lebanese border, and Israeli retaliation has gone deeper into Lebanon, reaching as far as Baalbek—about 50 miles northeast of Beirut. Rhetoric on both sides is escalating.  

Unlike Hamas in Gaza, however, Hezbollah has received serious weaponry from Iran. It possesses well over 150,000 missiles that can hit any target in Israel as well as massive stockpiles of lesser-range munitions such as artillery, mortars and anti-tank weapons that are used against stationary targets in Israel’s north. In other words, Hezbollah could fire 400 long-range missiles against major Israeli cities and infrastructure every day for a year without the need for resupply. Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow rocket and missile defense systems would not be able to catch them all. And, of course, Iran would eventually re-stock Hezbollah’s arsenal.

Russia’s arms trade with Iran helps pay for that weaponry. Allowing Russia to conquer Ukraine or encouraging Putin to attack a NATO ally means support for Iran, its economy, and its burgeoning arms industry. Such a course remains antithetical to U.S. interests as well as antipodal to purported Republican support for Israel. 

Republican complaints about the recent U.S. abstention on a UN Security Council resolution calling for a cease fire in Gaza may make for good political rhetoric. But in terms of policy, Republicans need to choose: support Putin and the Iranian regime, or back the U.S. and its allies.

Jonathan D. Strum is an international lawyer and businessman based in Washington D.C. and the Middle East. From 1991 to 2005, he was an Adjunct Professor of International Law at Georgetown University Law Center.