Russia and China are bolstering the military threat of the rogue regime in Iran by holding a four-day joint naval drill in the Indian Ocean, starting Saturday.  An implicit message seems to be that Iran has defenders in case push comes to shove in the mullahs' quest to become a nuclear power and wipe Israel off the map, as they have often stated.

Shades of the Axis of Evil.

A group of Iranian Navy vessels.
Tanshim News Agency via Wikipedia.

Nasser Karimi reports for the AP:

The drill, which is to start on Saturday, will be the first such trilateral exercise as Tehran seeks to boost military cooperation with Beijing and Moscow amid unprecedented economic sanctions from Washington. Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also stepped up in recent years.

Iranian military spokesman Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi said the joint maneuvers, which are aimed at promoting regional security, will extend as far as the Sea of Oman. The drill is seen as a response to recent US maneuvers with its regional ally Saudi Arabia, in which China also participated.

That last sentence is an attention-grabber.  China is participating in maneuvers with the U.S. and Saudi, while also participating with Russia and Iran.  That would seem to put it in a privileged position of learning much about both sides' military procedures, equipment, and vulnerabilities.  I honestly don't understand what's going on beneath the surface.  Given the fact that the U.S. is in a multidimensional confrontation with China, and the great deal-maker Trump is comfortable with complex tradeoffs of political, economic, and other interests, there may be something going that we have no idea about.

Hat tip: Bryan Demko.