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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.
I am begging you to think through the implications of "missile defense doesn't work" for China when their most obvious path to seizing Taiwan by force is "successfully defending a few hundred transports against tens of thousands of missiles and guided bombs."
Their most obvious path (diplomatic / ‘peaceful’ / semi-peaceful unification aside) is a blitz campaign (with or without attacks on US bases in the region) followed by a quick deal with whoever survives in the leadership. The options for them at that point are “make a deal with Xi” or “call in the yankees and turn my country into a wasteland and die along with hundreds of thousands of civilians and my family and friends”, and they will pick the former.
I am begging you to think through the implications of "Operation Epic Fury has failed" (as you posit) for China if their most obvious path to seizing Taiwan is "Operation Epic Fury With Chinese Characteristics."
What makes you think that it failing in Iran isn’t due to specific characteristics of Iran rather than some universal strategic truth?
Let me give you an example: if Trump bombs Belgium heavily tomorrow demanding some political arrangement, they would surrender by midnight; the political leadership don’t want to fight and won’t, they would rather be ruled by America than die. Maduro’s party preferred making a deal with America to dying. The Iranians don’t.
Taiwan is neither Venezuela nor Belgium nor Iran, but its political leadership is closer - when it comes to ideological position on this - to the former than the latter. If the Islamic Revolution is overthrown then the IRGC are penniless and prosecuted at best and hunted and slaughtered at worst, probably the latter. If the Taiwanese elite accept Chinese rule relatively quickly…they get to go back to being rich in Taipei, or at worst exile themselves to America if they love democracy.
If Iran was ruled by people with the character and belief system of EU bureaucrats they would have surrendered on the day, shaking their heads.
Has Delcy actually done anything that benefits America and goes against their interests? So far it seems like sanctions shuffling or limited sanctions relief with oil being redirected to US refineries. I'm not plugged into what the flow of drugs looks like at a statistical level, but it sure doesn't feel like there are fewer drugs around.
Has this ever come true? The same was said about Ukraine wasn't it, that surely they would surrender their fake bullshit country? I don't know what country has ever actually surrendered under bombardment without even a threat of ground invasion.
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I am open to the idea that Taiwan might be different, but traditionally coercive bombing campaigns by themselves have had limited success achieving regime change. Operation Allied Force is the typical example of a successful bombing campaign, but NATO was preparing for a potential ground campaign, and Yugoslavia threw in the towel on the same day as a JCOS meeting specifically about pivoting to a ground invasion, leading some to conclude that it was the preparations for a ground offensive that tipped the scales. But even this did not lead directly to regime change, although it set the stage: Milošević was overthrown by his own people at a later date.
You can even see similar arguments about Japan, even after nuclear weapons were used against them, there were those inside the Japanese government of the opinion that the Japanese should continue resisting, and some argue it was the Soviet success on the ground that ended up tipping the scales.
That's not to say that air operations never succeed - for instance, Operation Preying Mantis or Operation El Dorado Canyon. But these were retaliatory, punitive strikes, not regime change operations.
Furthermore (unlike Belgium) Taiwan is preparing for this sort of coercive action to be taken against them. I have real questions about the resiliency of the Taiwanese people in the face of adversity and the effectiveness of their efforts to prepare, but it's not as if they have not taken steps to harden themselves materially and psychologically against an attack by the mainland.
It is also worth noting that the parallels between Iran and Taiwan extend beyond just "might get bombed." Iran's mountainous terrain and underground fortifications are often cited as an advantage; Taiwan has both. And while Taiwan is isolated due to its status as an island nation, Iran is relatively isolated geographically as well (in the sense that they are not going to be receiving regular resupply from China or Russia, unlike, say, Ukraine) and more vulnerable to ground attack, since it shares a border with potential adversaries. Iran is much larger than Taiwan, and much more populated, which is a massive advantage, although their domestic military technology stack might lag Taiwan's.
It is also worth noting that "Epic Fury With Chinese Characteristics" might be less effective and face steeper resistance than Epic Fury. Because of the comparatively long flight time, Chinese ballistic missiles in particular will likely be inferior to American air-delivered guided munitions as a way to hit mobile targets (such as missile launchers) and Ukraine has been able to contest Russian air dominance with systems like the Patriot, which is also in Taiwan's inventory, although it is possible China might be more capable than Russia in performing SEAD/DEAD, and Taiwan less capable than Ukraine in preserving their assets. And unlike Iran, Taiwan has a superpower patron (the United States) that has deployed a tripwire force on the ground, enabling it to "wave the bloody flag" in the event of an attack. In the event of such an attack, if it has not already occurred, Taiwan will likely be able to follow the Ukraine model of integrating closely with US intelligence apparatus, while Iran's ability to integrate with China and Russia's inferior intelligence capabilities is likely less efficient.
I don't actually think that the fate of Taiwanese leadership is all that rosy if China takes control of Taiwan. Presumably they noticed what happened to Hong Kong and will respond accordingly.
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