ASPEN, Colo. — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum that the U.S. should work to exploit frictions between Iran, Russia, China and North Korea, to interfere with their deepening alliances.

Rice suggested that, rather than trying to disrupt links between Iran and other adversaries, the U.S. should “slam them together” because “they actually have very little in common and they actually have a lot of problems between them.”

“Nobody could feel very good right now in their alliance about the Iranian situation,” Rice said, emphasizing that Russia had declined to provide any military backing to Iran after it was attacked by Israel and the United States, and China is also trying to “keep their heads down.”

“I’ve thought this alliance is somewhat weaker than we sometimes would give it credit for, and I’d slam them together and make them deal with their own internal contradictions,” Rice reiterated.