Australian experts question Kamala Harris for naming Iran over China as America’s greatest adversary

The US Vice President said something she is most likely now regretting when she was faced with a question over who is America’s greatest rival.

Australian security experts are baffled by what they say is Vice President Kamala Harris’s incorrect and naive declaration that Iran – not China – is America’s greatest adversary.

The would-be president nominated Iran as the main rival to the US in an interview this week, contradicting the Biden-Harris administration’s national security strategy which positions China as the “most consequential geopolitical challenge” facing America.

Two former Australian government security officials questioned Ms Harris’s comment, which could have consequences for Australia if it dictated her strategy in the White House after November’s presidential election.

Vice President Kamala Harris says Iran is America’s greatest adversary. Picture: AFP

Harris made the comments in the wake of Iran’s latest missile barrage on Israel. Picture: AFP

Her opponent Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance also dismissed the Vice President’s assessment, affirming that he believed “China is the biggest threat confronting this country”.

Appearing on 60 Minutes in the wake of Iran’s latest missile barrage on Israel, Ms Harris said Iran was the “obvious one in mind” when asked to name America’s main adversary.

“Iran has American blood on their hands,” she said, adding that she was determined to prevent the Islamic Republic becoming a nuclear power.

Hudson Institute senior fellow John Lee – who served as former foreign minister Julie Bishop’s national security adviser – said it was “not the sensible or correct answer”.

And Strategic Analysis Australia founder Michael Shoebridge, a former top official in two of Australia’s intelligence agencies, said it was “odd” and “not a little naive”.

Top American security experts say China and Russia are America’s biggest rivals, ahead of Iran. Picture: AFP

Top American security experts also questioned the Vice President’s assessment, after a long-running effort under Mr Trump and US President Joe Biden to refocus America’s foreign policy on the threat posed by China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Mr Shoebridge said it highlighted that “foreign and security policy isn’t an area she’s spent a lot of her career on”.

“China under Xi Jinping is far and away the largest, most difficult and complicated geopolitical, strategic, technological, military and economic challenge America and its allies face,” he said, with nuclear-armed Russia “a clear number two” amid its war in Ukraine.

“Scale, capability and consequence make this almost just a mathematical equation, meaning it doesn’t take a fine judgement to get this right.”

Dr Lee agreed China was “the only country that fits that criteria”.

He said Australia relied upon America’s willingness to “confront China and back up its allies”.

“This means the US needs to be tolerant of disruptiveness and turbulence in its relationship with China if allies and smaller nations are to enjoy that cover,” Dr Lee said.

“The question is whether a possible President Harris and her administration are prepared to do that.”