Russia and Iran Put on a Show of Unity — Against the U.S.

MOSCOW — Sitting across a long table from President Vladimir V. Putin at a Covid-conscious distance, President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran reminded his Russian counterpart on Wednesday that Tehran had been “resisting America for 40 years.”

And now that Russia was plunging deeper into its own confrontation with the United States, Mr. Raisi told Mr. Putin in televised remarks, it was time to take on “the power of the Americans with an increased synergy between our two countries.”

It was a bit of geopolitical theater at the Kremlin at a critical moment for Washington and its adversaries. Mr. Raisi, the hard-line Iranian leader, started a two-day trip to Moscow on Wednesday designed to showcase tightening bonds between two countries with often-diverging interests and a history of strained relations — but, increasingly, along with China, a single adversary: the United States.