The housing slump and the inbalanced trade due to easy access to credit by US consumers (in which money was created to stimulate consumption and the housing industry rather than creating and/or stimulating industry) was predicted by many respected financial players years ago (Warren Buffet warned about the housing bubble, dollar decline and trade deficit as early as 2005 link.
As far as Iran, neither China, Russia ... or Europe for that matter wants the US to have hegenomy over the top 3 oil producing states: Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran if they are to go along with US position on Iran. Strategically, China and Russia want the US to guarantee that they have a stake in the production of oil in both Iraq and Iran. China would seem to automatically get action in all these countries as leverage to US influence (and China has to be perceived by these states to be able to stand up against any US interests that runs counter to Iran, Iraq or Suadi interests) so China doesn't really feel the need to submit to US pressure.
But neither China, Russia, the EU or the US would want any of these major oil producing states to have too much power .... and it's not in the interest of any of these countries to have a nuclear armed oil producing state (Russia's only source of power now is oil and it's nuclear arsenal and countries are already nervous about that.)
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