A video recorded in 1997 has recently resurfaced on social media, showing Joe Biden—then a prominent member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee—at the Atlantic Council, mocking Russian warnings about NATO’s eastward expansion.
When Moscow warned that growing Western pressure could push Russia closer to China and Iran, Biden responded amid laughter from the audience:
“I wish them good luck with China… and if that doesn’t work, maybe they can try their luck with Iran.”
Nearly three decades later, that mockery looks less like a throwaway remark and more like a historical record of the scale of Washington’s strategic miscalculation.
Russia and China didn’t move apart… they moved closer.
Relations between Moscow and Beijing have evolved into a deep strategic partnership, driven by economic interests, energy, security, technology, and their shared interest in reducing dependence on the Western system.
And Iran was not isolated as Washington intended.
Instead, Tehran became increasingly embedded in the Russian and Chinese strategic equation, joining institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS while strengthening its economic and security ties with emerging powers.
As for sanctions and the weaponization of the dollar, they produced an unintended consequence.
The more Washington expanded financial sanctions and economic pressure, the greater the incentive for its rivals and partners to develop trade in national currencies, alternative payment systems, and commercial networks less dependent on Western financial institutions.
And therein lies the great paradox:
Washington tried to prevent the emergence of a rival bloc… only to accelerate its formation.
The unipolar world was never an eternal reality. It was the product of a particular historical moment. As the balance of economic, technological, and military power began to shift, the international system began shifting with it.
Today, the issue is no longer simply the rise of China, the return of Russia, or the resilience of Iran.
The transformation is deeper:
A gradual transition from a world in which one power could impose the rules of the game to a world in which power is distributed among multiple centers.
That is the essence of multipolarity.
The mockery that came from Washington in 1997 has not disappeared.
But history has turned its meaning upside down.
What was once dismissed as an impossible alignment has become one of the defining features of the emerging international order.