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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.
From where I sit, the situation is exactly the opposite. The first week of the war was spent going high priority targets (missile launchers, SAM batteries, military leadership, etc) with expensive long-range missiles. They also had to focus a lot of attention on shooting down Iranian counterstrikes. But at this point, their air defense is gone, and their missile attacks are down 92%. The US and Israel are now free to focus on low cost, relatively low-intensity bombing, using cheap drones and JDAM bombs. This is where they'll start to focus on targets like the lower-level IRGC commanders and barracks. The IRGC might be "well trained" at massacring protesters, but it's pretty useless at defending itself from this kind of bombardment, and once all they're military is destroyed they'll be in no shape to handle mass protests or Kurdish insurgents. Their nuclear program and everyone who ever worked on it will be killed, probably by Israel if the US for some reason doesn't do it.
Iran's last hope was shutting down oil through the straight of Hormuz. They've done that so far my making it too risky to be worth the trip, but not actually mining it or making it impossible. Oil prices have risen, but not to crazy levels- oil futures still seem to be assessing that the flow will resume before too long. Saudi Arabia can build new pipelines to avoid the straight of Hormuz, while other countries like the US, Canada, and Venezuela can ramp up production. The only country that really needs to export oil through the Persian gulf is Iran.
What it shows, mostly, is that Trump is not an isolationist- he's perfectly willing to go to war overseas if he thinks its necessary. That should be good news for the people of Taiwan, although perhaps bad news if that means the increased risk of WW3. I think it will pressure Congress to approve a large increase in military funding to increase stocks of the high-end missiles that were depleted in this conflict.
If killing leaders was a sign of success the US defeated the taliban 10x over. Loads of vietcong leaders died. The US replaced the Ayatollah with his son.
The air defences in the gulf states and Israel are so degraded that the number of successful strikes by Iran haven't diminished even though they are using less ammunition. Iran is holding 15 million barrels of oil a day hostage while the US can't even come close to doing anything that resembles winning. The US largely abandoned the gulf states and let them fend for themselves.
The Epstein fury has to fire expensive long range munitions that are of limited supply which clearly weakens them against China.
The US operation against China might be 2x the current size of Epstein fury which would be inadequate against China. The US has lost several long range SAM-systems and used an unsustainable amount of interceptors while failing to defend its bases in the region. With Chinese level of level of bombardment these bases would be completely smoked.
Compared to 2003 this invasion is lack luster and clearly shows the US would not be able to take out China.
I mean has anybody beyond the strongest Ameriboos ever claimed that the USA could 'take out' China? The whole thing with Taiwan is more 'it would be a massive mess with minimal tangible benefits for the Chinese beyond ego' than 'The US could guarantee a sovereign/non-starving Taiwan in perpetuity against actual bombardment'
Ironically, "take out China" is actually easier in many ways than "defend Taiwan."
In some ways, defending Taiwan while not destroying mainland China might be the hardest problem. What is the US supposed to do, just build interceptor missiles forever while being forbidden from counterattacks? Screw that.
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