Intel report claims China and Iran don't want President Trump re-elected, Russia doesn't want Joe Biden.

President Donald Trump. The Hill.

A new intelligence report says that China and Iran may interfere in the 2020 election against President Trump while Russia may interfere against Joe Biden. The Hill. China does not want President Trump to win because they consider him unpredictable. Both China and Iran were described as attempting to both sway voters and undermine the faith in Democracy of the American people. Russia does not want Joe Biden due to the Obama administrations treatment of Russia. 

My Comment:

I've said for awhile now that for all the whining done about Russia supposedly interfering with the 2016 election there was no coverage or investigation into other countries that did so. I have no doubt that China did so in 2016 and that they will do so in 2020. 

And I've also said for a long time that China has a lot more power in this area than Russia ever did. Russia had a few people in basements posting troll posts on social media. China has actual power. They have control over many politicians, are extremely influential on social media and control several US industries. Unlike Russia they are able to project their power and should be considered an extreme threat to election integrity. 

China also has the motive to interfere with the US election. No other US politician has been so tough on China. Nobody else would have blamed China for the Coronavirus outbreak and nobody else would have gotten into a trade war. And President Trump has also had a very low tolerance of China screwing us over. With Joe Biden I think China expects that they will go back to the exploitative relationship they had with the United States among previous administrations.  

Iran's a bit of a mystery to me. Though I have no doubt that they would love to see President Trump fail, I doubt they have much ability to do so. Like Russia I am guessing they would have to resort to troll farms posting nonsense. I don't think they have all that much ability to actually influence things. 

Iran has a huge motivation to do so though, President Trump cost them billions of dollars and derailed a lot of their plans. Undoing the Iran deal as brought their country to the brink of collapse and the only thing saving them right now is the fact that their security services have cracked down hard on civil unrest. I don't doubt they want revenge for that so whatever they can do they will do. I just don't think they actually have that much power. 

As for Russia, I don't doubt they want to keep President Trump there. Not because of any of the stupid reasons the Democrats cite but because of the Democrats themselves. Joe Biden is an empty suit but most rank and file Democrats wrongly blame Russia for their failure in 2016. If they gain power they may focus on Russia and could even start a war. Indeed, if Clinton had been elected in 2016 we might have never had to deal with Coronavirus because we would have been nuked back in 2017. Again though, if all Russia can do is post a few memes on troll accounts I have zero worry that they will actually influence the election.

Whatever happens though I don't think many people on either side will think that the 2020 election results will be legitimate. With foreign actors doing what they can to subvert it and with mail in balloting being a thing I don't think there is much of a chance of a free and fair election. Whoever wins in 2020, it's going to be a massive mess regardless.