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Does disaster in Iran make war with China less likely?
As the fog of war begins to clear after the last ten days, a few things have become evident.
There is no revolution in Iran. The IRGC’s grip on power has strengthened, or at least not weakened. In Khamenei’s son it has its preferred candidate in power, at least nominally (it may be the institution rather than the man who is in power, but it doesn’t really matter). The IRGC has more than 150,000 men, heavily armed, extremely well trained, in control of more than 40% of the economy. True Shia believers, deeply committed to the Islamic revolution, they know they have no future in a secular Iran and will do anything to prevent it. The secular middle class can flee, as they have for decades, and have low casualty tolerance. Even worse, the risk-takers in that demographic were already killed or jailed in the previous wave of repression. According to various sources, more than 80-90% of Iranian mine laying speedboats and other platforms are still operational. These are very hard to target from the air, they’re small, easily hidden, widely dispersed along the coast. Minutes ago, Fars announced that Iran will not allow a single ship affiliated with America or its allies through the Strait. According to CNN, US intelligence believes mine laying has already commenced.
The US has only two escalations left open. The first, which is low-casualty (comparatively), is to bomb Kharg and/or Iranian oilfields, pipelines and refineries, and/or Iranian tankers using the Hormuz or Iran’s Eastern ports where they’re scaling up shipping. In that event, Iran’s low cost drones will attack Gulf oil production. The Strait will remain heavily mined and inaccessible for months for cargo traffic. Oil surges to $150, perhaps beyond; the Gulf nations will be forced to sue for peace with Iran, expelling US bases. The regime holds, even still; the people are not armed, resistance is limited. The second option is that the US goes all-in, attempting a ground invasion, arming the Kurds (destroying further relations with Turkey); thousands of American soldiers die but Tehran can likely be occupied, the IRGC retreats to hardened mountains it knows well, quagmire with far higher casualty rates than Afghanistan, and far less US support. Both routes end with the GOP finally turning on Trump and a wipeout in the midterms.
The consequences are clear, and for all his faults, the president has very good immediate political instincts if poor military ones: the US will declare mission accomplished, the president may well personally blame the Iranian people for failing to rise up (“you know, I really thought they’d do it, it’s a shame, you know, but they had their chance”), Witkoff will force Israel’s hand to stop further action like he did with the Gaza deal. Through back channels with Turkey or Russia, the Iranians will agree to slowly stop their action, so that they can rebuild. Iran will quickly complete its bomb. A period of rebuilding and greater domestic repression will follow. The Gulf states will be angry with Iran, but will ultimately draw closer with it out of necessity.
Most importantly, and this is true in pretty much every scenario, the US will have experienced a major geopolitical and military humiliation that makes conflict with China much less likely. Missile defenses shredded by cheap drones that can be mass produced by the million by China will rightly create visions of entire hundred billion dollar carrier fleets destroyed by a hundred million dollars of Chinese drones in a massed attack. Unlike in the Gulf, in a Taiwan conflict in which the US actually fought, bases in Guam, Korea, Japan and elsewhere could definitionally not be evacuated abroad (those forces would be needed to fight).
And while some Americans, Jewish and Evangelical, place eschatological and otherwise deep religious important on the geopolitics of the conflict with Iran (or rather, on its hated adversary), even these people are less motivated for a war with China over Taiwan, especially as chip production diversifies geographically. Who actually wants war with Taiwan? Some AI labs who don’t want Chinese competition? Seems unlikely, open source models will get out regardless. The influential Taiwanese diaspora like Lisa and Jensen? Seems unlikely that they want their country destroyed; most smart Taiwanese I know have made peace with their country’s destiny a long time ago. Neocons? Even many of them seem to be going on record to say this war is a bad idea, and many don’t care much about China for the reasons above.
This analysis is nuts. Xi just purged his top two generals, and the CCP looks like it’s actually going to stand up to him about that. China is in no position to go to war, especially after finding out from Venezuela and Iran that Chinese radars can’t beat American stealth. Before the war we were assured that Iranian missiles would quickly overwhelm our interceptors, and we’ve instead found that we can wipe out Iranian missile launcher sites while keeping our carriers safe and sound. Iran is getting crushed, and they resorted to putting the impotent son of the old Ayatollah in charge, the one who is so incompetent that his dad specifically ordered in his will that he not be put in charge. Oil is cheaper now than it was in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, and it looks to stay that way.
The only part of this analysis I agree with is that the Iran war makes war with China much less likely, because China would be crazy to try to take Taiwan now that they’ve seen how outmatched they would be, and that Trump is willing to break things and let the chips fall where they may.
The “Xi is surely finished - the CCP elites are rising against him” is such a tired genre after Bo Xilai is out. And the ability and will for the Chinese government to control information flow is much stronger now compared to then. Tell me what are the signs that he’s losing control?
I beg Americans to stop consuming YouTube or xitter slops on Chinese politics. The Chinese themselves don’t even understand Chinese politics enough to give you that level of insights. A couple of neurotic Chinese dissidents assuring that Xi is surely finished this time or English teacher in China/grifters posting the coming collapse of China ver#192 don’t know shit. Please ask your most trusted AI to summarize their previous findings and check their predictive power. That’ll save everyone’s time.
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I would like to know more. I've heard about the firings, but not about any signs of the rest of the party developing a backbone.
My understanding is that while Xi purged Zhang and Liu in January, the National People’s Congress have so far declined to remove their delegate status. Normally purge victims are stripped of their status pretty quick, and it was expected that would happen during the NPC’s February meeting, but it didn’t. So either they didn’t vote on it, or they voted on it and it didn’t pass. Legally speaking NPC delegates can’t be formally investigated the way Zhang and Liu have been. So this could be an act of resistance against Xi, refusing to make his actions against the generals retroactively legal, the way they usually have in the past.
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That’s where Epoch Times and other Chinese expats take you. Some call themselves “bed listeners”, ie if you’re under someone’s bed to listen to the cracking sounds when they have sex. The point being that you can’t get information directly from the communist party, just like you can’t be a transparent voyeur, so you’d have to infer things from the way they arrange cups during politburo meetings, the orders they call out names in government papers etc. It’s a clever name and they do occasionally get things right, but the noise level is incredibly high.
Btw Americans should have realized a long time ago that x country diaspora don’t usually give you more insights than trusted American domain experts. Diasporoids like Pahlavis or Southern Vietnamese or Chinese dissidents are more neurotic than average and wanted to summon Roman Legions to do their biddings, and have incentives to distort reality to get what they want.
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The way they did that was by just not using the carriers, and running the entire first week of the war by an elaborate relay of aerial tankers to run squadrons in from far away for sorties. Smart, but not an effective tactic in the pacific and not a good sign either.
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Dunno man - they seem to work pretty realiably. The moment one of them explodes, you know there is F-35 nearby.
I don't even know if one can know that.
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