March 4, 2026
The war on Iran is waging on - and will continue do to so for a while. Tehran gets bombed to smithereens, the hydrocarbon infrastructure in the Gulf is shutting down or gets damaged, the economic pressure on the global economy is starting to show.
Neither effect answers the question of why the U.S. did decide to attack Iran. U.S. President Trump has give about a dozen different reasons none of which holds up to scrutiny. Iran wasn't making nukes, didn't build intercontinental missiles and had no intend to attack anyone. Its internal situation was and is stable.
Since the mid 1980s the Zionists have tried to push the U.S. into war with Iran. All the time the U.S. did not submit to their pressure for good reasons. To suggest that this pressure is now at the root of the conflict is too perfunctory. As are suggestions that the current Russiagate scandal, aka the Epstein files, has anything to do with it.
The empire is not a joke. It acts for strategic reasons.
One has to zoom out from those narrow views to make sense. Andrew Korybko is onto something when he claims that this campaign is Part Of Trump's Grand Strategy Against China:
The goal is to obtain proxy control over Iran's enormous oil and gas reserves so that they can be weaponized as leverage against China for coercing it into a lopsided trade deal that would derail its superpower rise and therefore restore US-led unipolarity.
...
That's the brainchild of Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, and it was expanded on in this analysis here from early January. As was written, "US influence over Venezuela's and possibly soon Iran's and Nigeria's energy exports and trade ties with China could be weaponized via threats of curtailment or cut-offs in parallel with pressure upon its Gulf allies to do the same in pursuit of this goal", which is to coerce China into indefinite junior partnership status vis-à-vis the US through a lopsided trade deal.
China is well aware of that the U.S. strategy is aimed against it. It is one reason why it is giving technical and military support to Iran, mostly in the form of intelligence, while avoiding to get directly involved in the conflict:
Intelligence reports on February 27, 2026, indicated that China sent "loitering munitions" (kamikaze drones) and air defense systems to Iran shortly before the attack began. Along with China supplying Iran with missile programs, negotiations continued between Beijing and Tehran to supply Iran with CM-302 supersonic anti-ship missiles, a technology that is difficult to intercept and is considered a game-changer in the region. Along with providing cybersecurity to Iran, China began in January 2026 a strategy to support Iranian digital sovereignty by replacing Western software with closed Chinese systems to protect against Israeli and American cyberattacks. With China rebuilding Iran's missile capabilities, China contributed to compensating for Iran's weapons losses following the 2025 attacks, including the provision of advanced ballistic missiles.
A loss of Iran would cause significant damage for China's energy position as its dependence on Gulf sources for oil and gas is still significant. It has been hedging that position by making new energy deals with Russia:
On the one hand, China takes into account the increased regional risks in West Asia. According to some reports, the rise of Beijing's interest in [the Power of Siberia Pipeline 2] was triggered by the Iran-Israel war in June. As concerns arose about the reliability of energy supplies from Gulf Arab states, Beijing decided to consider alternatives-a step that fits into its overall strategy of minimizing external risks to energy security.
On the other hand, as an economic confrontation with the US is unfolding, China seeks less dependence on hydrocarbon supplies from close partners of Washington while also actively reducing oil and gas imports from American suppliers. In this regard, expanded purchases of Russian energy is a useful hedging strategy.
In light of this it is interesting that Trump today set the length for his war on Iran to four weeks:
"We're already substantially ahead out of our time projections," Trump said. "But whatever the time is, it's okay. Whatever it takes...Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that."
Trump will visit China four weeks from now - from March 31 to April 2. His position towards China was weakened when the Supreme Court recently buried his tariff edicts. Being bogged down in Iran would further weaken his position.
But coming to China while having won concessions from Iran would be bonus for Trump. He could claim that the U.S. is able to forcibly change governments, in Iran and Venezuela, who supply energy to Beijing. A victory in Iran would put Trump into a good negotiation positions.
China, on the other side, will want to avoid a loss of Iran. Its interest is to see the U.S. bogged down in the Middle East and with its arsenals empty. Everyone and everything that helps to that will be in Beijing's favor.
The time horizon of four week thus matters. It is the time frame in which Trump has to win. It is the time frame which Iran needs to sustain to come out as a (nominal) winner.
The four weeks are to be kept in mind when and analyzing the procession of this uneven fight.
Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.