The U.S. And Iran Are Fighting A War - And China Is Winning

 

The following insightful post is by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman:

Make America Great Again? Hah. Donald Trump has weakened us with astonishing speed. Under his “leadership” America’s influence, reputation and credibility have peeled away like the liner in the Reflecting Pool.

The disintegration of U.S. power was well underway before Trump started his war on Iran, but the pace of decline has accelerated sharply since the magnitude of our defeat started becoming apparent.

And when future historians write about this tale of self-immolation, they may well do so in Mandarin.

China hasn’t been a direct combatant in the third Gulf war, and its support for Iran has, until recently, been discreet. (China is now reportedly preparing to send Iran advanced munitions — Phillips O’Brien suggests that it is “going in for the kill.”) But China has clearly relished our humiliation. And both the way the war has played out and China’s role have drastically shifted the global balance of power in China’s favor.

China has been a serious geopolitical rival to the United States for some time. China’s manufacturing sector overtook the US in 2010, and the gap has continued to grow (I’ll explain the line labeled “US+EU” shortly):

And China’s role as the workshop of the world inevitably gives it a great deal of geopolitical influence.

However, there were a number of factors that, two years ago, arguably still gave an America a power advantage despite China’s economic weight and manufacturing prowess. These factors included:

· America still led the world in science and cutting-edge technology.

· The U.S. military appeared to have vastly better weapons and leadership than any other nation’s.

· The dollar’s dominant role in international transactions gave the United States enormous financial clout, including the ability to cut other nations out of the global payments system.

· Above all, the U.S. wasn’t alone. We were the leader of history’s most successful alliance system, nations bound together not just by mutual interests but by shared democratic values.

Yet Trump and his lackeys have quickly squandered all of these advantages.

A great deal has been written about the Trump administration’s attack on science, which is a topic largely separate from the Iran war. As one recent discussion put it, Trump officials

have orchestrated a series of attacks on scientists and their laboratories, implemented through funding cuts, grant interruptions, and immigration restrictions. Scientists are gravitating to Canada, Europe, and China, and we are rapidly losing the depth of our innovative and essential scientific community.

The undermining of other U.S. sources of strength was also underway before the Iran war, but the war has accelerated the downward spiral.

Even before the bombing of Iran began, some observers worried about the state of the U.S. military. Had U.S. military leaders adapted to the new world — revealed by the war in Ukraine — of cheap, ubiquitous drones? How much damage had the pro-testosterone, anti-intellectual leadership of Pete Hegseth already done? Now we know the answers to these questions, and America’s military reputation has nose-dived.

Oh, and as a December 2025 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out, a Chinese supply chain underpins “the architecture of modern drone warfare.”

America’s dollar-linked financial power has also sharply declined. True, as I wrote a month ago, “The dollar’s role as the dominant currency for ordinary business is not under threat.” However, the war has demonstrated that, thanks in large part to China’s underlying economic power, America’s ability to weaponize the dollar has been greatly reduced:

Iran was able to continue selling oil (until the U.S. temporarily imposed a military blockade) and buying essential imports, despite U.S. financial sanctions, by taking payment in yuan and using those yuan to buy Chinese goods. Ships that paid Iran for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz also paid in yuan (or in cryptocurrency, whose only real use case remains criminal activity.) The details are complicated, but using yuan essentially allows those designated by the U.S. government as rogue actors to fly under our financial radar.

Finally, the war has really put the nail in the coffin of the U.S.-centered alliance system.

America’s alliances have been a fundamental source of global strength since World War II. The line labeled “US+EU” in the chart on manufacturing value added is an indication of how much these alliances used to strengthen us: It shows that even now the US and the democracies of the European Union combined produce more manufactured goods than China, a lead that would be larger if I included the UK, Japan, Canada, etc.

But Trump began torpedoing our alliances on day one. Discussions of the Trump tariffs, even critical ones, don’t emphasize enough the fact that every one of these tariffs broke international agreements made by the United States in the past. So Trumpian tariff policy, by itself, was an announcement to the world that agreements with the U.S. government are worthless. Add to this the demands that Canada become the 51^st state, that Denmark hand over Greenland, and so on, and America had thoroughly lost the trust of its former friends even before the Iran war.

Then came the war. And in the past five months the U.S. has shown itself both erratic and ineffectual. Trump launched a war that, in addition to creating death and destruction, cut off much of the world’s oil supply without so much as consulting other nations. Once the war began, America proved both incapable of imposing its will on Iran and unable either to open the Strait of Hormuz or to protect regional allies.

So now the world neither trusts nor fears us. The chart at the top of this post, drawn from the Pew survey of global attitudes, shows views of the US and China in multiple countries. Even many of our oldest allies, the nations that helped us win World War II and the Cold War, now have a more favorable opinion of China than they do of us.

Let’s be clear: The end of U.S. leadership and China’s growing geopolitical ascendancy are bad things. China is a corrupt autocracy, with little respect for human rights and none at all for democratic values.

But people around the world have concluded that the Chinese are serious people, and that we are not. So America lost the war — and China won.

Trump Says He Is Winning The War With Iran - He's Not

The following is a post by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

Mr. Trump, may I have a word?

Bad enough for you to insist — in the face of all evidence to the contrary — that you won the 2020 election.

 

But it’s another thing for you to pretend — in the face of mounting deaths and injuries, ballooning expenses, and rising prices — that you won, or are winning, the war with Iran you began on February 28. 

“Let me say, we’ve won,” you told a rally in Kentucky on March 11.

“I think we’ve won,” you said on the White House South Lawn on March 20.

 

“We’ve won this war. The war has been won,” you said in the Oval Office on March 24.

“We are winning so big,” you told a fundraising dinner on March 25.

“We’ve had regime change,” you told reporters three days ago. “The one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead.” Iran has now moved onto its “third regime,” and American negotiators are now speaking to “a whole different group of people” who have “been very reasonable,” you said. 

You’re making all this up. In fact, you’re losing your war. And so is America and much of the rest of the world. 

After a month, your war has already cost 13 American lives, cost American taxpayers at least $30 billion, cost American consumers at least a dollar more per gallon of gas than they paid a month ago, pushed up food prices and mortgage rates, and pushed down the value of 401(k) retirement plans. It’s mangled supply chains for industries that rely on items such as fertilizer to grow food or helium to make computer chips. It’s also wreaked havoc across the Middle East with at least 1,574 civilians killed in Iran, including 236 children, and at least 50 killed in Iran’s attacks on other Gulf nations.

You assumed Iran would give up its nuclear program. Wrong. After more than a month of bombing by the United States and Israel, you’ve most likely stiffened the regime’s resolve to produce a nuclear weapon. 

In this respect, too, America is worse off — more endangered than we were in 2018 before you withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama. In that deal, Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program — reducing uranium stockpiles by 98 percent and capping enrichment at 3.67 percent, and allowing inspections — in exchange for relief from UN, EU, and U.S. nuclear-related sanctions.

Iran now holds a stockpile of approximately 970 pounds of uranium enriched up to 60 percent purity, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. That’s close to weapons-grade. No one knows where it’s stored.

 

You thought winning this war would be as easy as abducting Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and setting up a puppet regime there. Wrong again. The old ayatollah is gone, but the new one and his regime are even more radical and hard line.

You assumed America’s military might would weaken Iran’s military capacity. Wrong. They’ve embraced asymmetric warfare — using cheap drones and missiles and blocking the Strait of Hormuz — rather than take on America’s and Israel’s superior forces directly. 

You thought the regime would soon cave. Wrong. It’s been over a month and they’re the ones playing the waiting game. They think they can withstand the mounting political and economic pressures better and longer than you and America can. They may be correct. 

Reportedly, you’ve told aides you’re now willing to end the war even if Iran continues to block the Strait of Hormuz. Maybe this is your best option at this point. But it will allow Iran to decide in the future how much oil gets through and for whom, and could cause the economic damage to the U.S. to grow exponentially worse.

Mr. Trump, do you really believe you won this war? Do you really believe America is better off than it was when you began the war?

Maybe the people around you are telling you that you’ve won the war and we’re better off because you punish the bearers of bad news and reward those who tell you what you want to hear. Presumably you’re hearing the same fictionalized good news from Republicans in Congress, from sycophantic leaders abroad, from other assorted lackeys and suck-ups. 

Or maybe you think that if you can convince enough people that you won and we’re better off, you will have won and America will be better off. Because for you it’s always about public perceptions of reality rather than reality itself. Everything depends on hype, spin, exaggeration, and outright lies. For you there’s no truth, only belief. 

Or maybe you think that if you keep saying you won or are winning, and America has come out on top, your magical thinking will in fact come true.

 

But this isn’t a game, and you’re not a magician. This is real blood and guts. Real pain. Real deaths and injuries. Real price increases at the gas pump. Real hardships for real people — in America, in the Middle East, and elsewhere.

You can’t pretend, sir. This isn’t reality television. This is for real. And the reality is Americans are worse off now and less secure than we were when you started this. 

Most Americans Say The Republicans Won The Shutdown Fight

 

The charts above are from the CBS News / YouGov Poll -- done on November 13th and 14th of a nationwide sample of 2,124 adults, with a 3.3 point margin of error.

The Winners And Losers Of The 2024 Election

 

My list of the winners and losers of this election:

WINNERS

Donald Trump - He not only gets to be president again, but can use the office to kill the criminal charges filed against him, and can use the office to make himself much richer (thanks to the immunity granted him by the Supreme Court).

MAGA Republicans - With Trump in the White House and control over Congress, they can pursue their horrid agenda unhindered.

Vladimir Putin - With his favorite fanboy back in office, Putin will have a much easier time conducting war against Ukraine, and might even see the sanctions against his country lifted.

The Super-Rich - They will now get more massive tax breaks.

Evangelicals - With their control over Trump and the MAGA-controlled Congress, they will find it much easier to impose their brand of religion on the rest of the country.

Wall Street / Financial institutions - They will not only get tax breaks, but will be able to get financial regulations lifted.

LOSERS

Democrats / Other Trump opponents - Trump has threatened to use the Justice Department to punish them. He tired to do that in his last administration, but was stopped by rational Republicans. There will be no rational Republicans in his new administration.

Mainstream Media - Trump hates media criticism, and will use his power to silence them. This is another group he is likely to use the Justice Department against.

Ukraine - With Trump on Russia's side, Ukraine will find it much harder to defend their democracy. Trump may even cut off military and financial aid to them.

Western Allies (NATO) - Trump wanted to withdraw from NATO in his first term and his sycophants may let him do it this time. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on these trading partners.

Constitution / Rule of Law - Trump, thanks to the Supreme Court immunity ruling, can do anything he wants, even things that are illegal or unconstitutional.

Individual rights - Voting rights are sure to be restricted even more as the Republicans design rules that will help them retain power in the future. Reproductive rights will not improve in the next few years, and a nationwide abortion ban could be imposed. Women will continue to die. There is also likely to be a roll back of LGBTQ rights.

Low-wage workers - There will be no raise of the minimum wage, and the power to unionize will be curtailed.

Consumers - There will be fewer regulations to protect consumers from price-gouging, and the Consumer Protection Bureau is likely to be voted out of existence by the Republicans.

Democracy - Trump wants to establish an authoritarian presidency. The current Supreme Court and incoming MAGA Congress will allow him to do it.