China sought to shape the Middle East, only to watch the region plunge into chaos

Open this photo in gallery: People walk through a partially-shuttered Tehran Market on June 22. In the early hours of that day, the U.S. dropped a series of bombs on several alleged nuclear facilities in Iran, joining Israel’s ongoing war with the country.Getty Images/Getty Images In March, 2023, China won plaudits around the world for successfully brokering the normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, ending one of the Middle East's longest-running cold wars and advancing Beijing's efforts to become a power broker in a region long dominated by the United States. Months later however, as the Middle East…