A (2:29)

I think that what I meant was that whenever the United States uses its power, whenever it is involved in a region or another, whether it's Latin America or the Middle east, the consequences of that involvement goes beyond the region itself. Whenever there is an articulation of US Foreign policy in the militia East, I think we have this tendency to Just look at the countries involved and who is saying what. And it's usually Middle east countries, but there's a big player, and the big player here is China. China has been investing in the last two decades immensely in courting, in coordinating and cooperating with Gulf countries, with Iran itself, and also with its proxies. And so I thought that. That what the Trump administration is doing, it's a total break, first of all, with other administrations when it comes to directly tackling Iran and its ballistic missiles, its nuclear program. And nuclear program is not just a military aspect, but there's also a political aspect to it. And I think that this means not just tackling the Islamic Republic, but also tackling its sponsor, which is China.

B (3:52)

So another headline that really caught my eye, this was in the Free Press. This was heavy. Reddigur, right? His line was, this isn't Israel's war, which is one of the popular narratives out there for what I'm seeing. It's America's. The US Went to war in Iran because Iran made itself a Chinese weapon. What's he saying?

A (4:12)

I think he wrote this. His piece is really great, and I completely agree with his assessment, and I think it's the perfect depiction of it. Basically, the Israelis have been fighting since October 7 against Iran's proxies, against Hamas, against Hezbollah, against the Houthis, against many others across the Middle east, but also Africa. And so it has always been this discussion about Israeli national security, Israeli involvement. But behind all of that involvement, as I said, there's also the sponsor of it, which is China. So obviously, from a US Perspect perspective, as I discussed, being involved does not just mean helping an ally. It means reshaping the configuration of a Middle east that has been for a very long time, I think, a Chinese chessboard.

B (5:11)

He says that it's really, you know, Israel is at war with Iran, but it's the US this war. This is the US Being actually at

A (5:18)

war with China, in a sense. I would say so, because it is China that has helped Iran acquire different components. Their fingerprints are all over Iran's military arsenal when it comes to the missiles. I did some numbers, and it's been basically the Chinese helping Iran get a lot of the chemicals. Components are very crucial for that arsenal. Iran does not have really the domestic capacity to produce these chemicals because of the orientation of its industry, very heavy on petrochemicals. And also they don't have the skills and mastery of it. And so the Chinese really just stepped in and they helped. And there's one thing that I thought was very interesting. And I've been looking at that since, I would say since 2020. And it's the Chinese, the Chinese eagerness to make, to export its surveillance model, its technology model. There were already a lot of scandals about Chinese 5G in Gulf countries. For example, how the UAE chose 5G over American weaponry, but American jet fighters. But this also applies to Iran. If one looks at it, China has helped Iran's whole telecommunications architecture. They have reshaped it exactly as they would do in Beijing. A lot of those crackdowns that happened in January against the protesters, they happened in such a brutality because Iran was able to use Chinese technology that was absolutely sophisticated, but also, but also made in a way that they could track very easily who wears a hijab or not, who is doing this or that because they perfected it in Uyghur camps. And I think that there is this digital gps, I think aspect that is very important.

B (7:27)

You know, you're just reminding me. I'm going to comment here a little bit. There's a case in front of the Supreme Court right now. It's a case called Cisco v. Doe. It's been running for about 15 years. And the allegation in the case is that Cisco basically built the prototype for China of what's called the Golden Shield project, which is this comprehensive system now that you're basically describing. On the one hand, hand it's surveillance, on another hand it's censorship. The social credit system fits in there. But the other part is the persecution aspect. All this is integrated into one system. And I've been asking myself, you know, as I've just, I've been looking at these documents recently, right? You know, how much of this Golden Shield. A lot of people don't understand this deeply integrated system that's being used to persecute the Uyghurs and the Falun Gong practitioners and, you know, House Christians increasingly in China that, that in a sense they probably just white labeled it basically for the Iranian regime with of course, control mechanisms on their end. Right?

A (8:33)

Yes, yes, that's exactly what they did. First of all, it's a great business, right? You have access to an immense market, 90 million people, you get to track them, you get to make your systems much more sophisticated and you get to export that system under the premise that, okay, you are saving the Islamic Republic, I mean, you as China, and that the world is watching that African states are watching that they have a huge regime stability issue. They are desperate as well to maintain power. And the Chinese were able to Sell that as basically a winning argument as to why doing business with China has immense gains. I think that all of that is really vanishing today.

B (9:21)

Well, this is fascinating, right, because yet Iran is really kind of the strategic fulcrum for Beijing in the Middle east, isn't it? I mean, they've spent an insane amount of blood and treasure. Well, blood, not so much blood, I guess, but treasure to build this. But they're not actually. It don't seem like they're particularly good allies right now.

A (9:42)

Yeah, I mean, even in terms of their diplomatic engagement, there was one Chinese Citizen reported killed, 300, I think Chinese citizens also evacuated. And they have not really been that eager to engage even in diplomacy to say, hey, we can help dealing with Iran or other things. Their foreign Ministry, I think, said that it's a clear violation of sovereignty, but they're not supporting in any major way. In fact, a lot of their own technology has been proven to just not be that good. It's a huge embarrassment when you are trying to depict yourself as a competitor to the United States. And it's even more interesting in the sense that There was this 25 year cooperation and I think it happened in 2020 and they pledged to invest $400 billion and they invested quite a few, not the whole total, but it was a discussion and they' the defense very involved. And the other part here is that Iran is very, very important when you're planning to invade Taiwan for two main reasons. The first one is that Iran is absolutely key when it comes to sanctions evasion. Xi Jinping looked at Putin as, you know, the exact guide of what are the things you should not do as a leader. And one of them is that you should make sure that you have a plan B and a plan so that you don't get suffocated by Western sanctions. And you can see the state now of the Russian economy. The Chinese, therefore have been building this parallel system with Iran through barter agreements, through other arrangements, making sure they bypass a lot of Western, a lot of Western financial channels, making sure that Iran can still survive with or without those channels. And the Chinese were just perfecting that type of system and they were very proud of it to the point where it became one of their talking points about that this is the rise of a non, non Western world. This is why they talk about Global south, even though it doesn't mean much, but they've been selling that. The second reason why Iran is so important for China is that as you've seen, for example, with the Red Sea, how the Houthis were able to do this huge blockade that is costing to US Allies, but also to Europeans thousands and thousands of dollars every single day. And the United States needed to get involved there were successful, and they were really, really stuck. And that's exactly what would help China. In case of an invasion. You want to make sure that you're able to distract the United States. You want to be able to, first of all, make sure that US Allies do not trust the United States involvement militarily when it comes to securing their interests. And you want to make sure that the Houthis, which they have been provided a lot of targeting data from Chinese companies and has been reported by Reuters, that they are playing their role in opening another front. And I think that closing those fronts is absolutely key for, I think, the Indo Pacific century as I depicted it.

B (13:36)

And just to be clear, right, you're basically saying the Houthis are just a proxy for Iran. That's how it plays out.

A (13:42)

Yes, yes. I mean, they're absolutely a proxy for Iran and also more and more for China. Because actually, what happened after the Hezbollah pager attacks, it was very clear that the Islamic Republic is not capable of rescuing its own major partner. A lot of the proxies were watching that the Houthis started thinking whether the Islamic Republic was even their friend. There was a huge debate at the time, and the Chinese, I think, stepped in. They do provide them a lot of. A lot of weapons and support. In fact, I found that 35 share of the indirected Houthi arms originate from China.

B (14:30)

35%?

A (14:31)

Yes.

B (14:31)

Oh, wow.

A (14:32)

That's significant.

B (14:33)

Oh, yeah. No, that's remarkable. So why, okay, why is the Islamic regime firing on, like, just this morning on Turkey? I mean, it's sort of the most vocal. I think the most vocal response in support of Iran came from Turkey, from Erdogan, perhaps. I don't know. I haven't followed all of them. But they're firing on all sorts of people that they might be hoping would be an ally at some point. I don't understand it.

A (15:00)

Yeah, they are. It's disparate measures for a disparate regime during desperate times.

B (15:09)

But what are they trying to accomplish? Are these things misfiring? I just don't understand it, quite honestly.

A (15:14)

I think that their chain of command has been just completely dismantled. They don't know what they're doing. And this is just not an understatement. It's an understatement to say that they don't know what they're doing in the sense that a lot of key commanders have already been killed during the 12 day war. And they thought that they had it totally under control, so they did a restructuring. But it seems that that restructuring made them more vulnerable. The key commanders, they were killed in the first hundred hours of the conflict. And so I think that they generally are really desperate, and they also are trying to basically trigger a response where other US Allies say, you know, you should stop hitting Iran. They're hitting us. But what is happening is that everyone is watching them being weaker and weaker. And so the logic reverses itself precisely because the Islamic Republic is weaker. We need to just finish it. They've been a threat to everyone. Every single neighbor they have, they had a conflict of some sort with. So I think that this is basically what I think is going on on Turkey's side. I mean, they've been. They always are playing a double game, a balancing act, because they don't know how it's going. They want to make sure that whatever happens, they do benefit from it. And it's a very logical way to behave yourself as a power. And also, Turkey is a great power. They command one of the largest militaries in NATO. And so I think that now the calculus is really for Turkey to take advantage of whatever openings the fall of this regime will offer.

B (17:11)

Tell me a little bit about shipping insurance, because this has been kind of a popular topic on the talk shows recently, because I think not a lot of us realized how extremely important it is for the flow of oil or goods or whatever it is. And if that insurance leaves, ships aren't doing their thing anymore, which is astonishing. And of course, President Trump is often made some guarantees of US Protection to get that insurance back. Just explain to me that system briefly how it works.

A (17:42)

I'm unfortunately not really an expert on the question, but what I can tell you is that the Trump administration is working very hard in making sure that it regains its total dominance on maritime navigation. And the shock is very hard, obviously, on a lot of producers, a lot of shipments, a lot of businesses, a lot of U.S. companies, non U.S. companies. And so I think that here it's really about providing a signal that this is a very temporary shock. And I don't think they would have said that if it were, if it wasn't the case. And so I think that. I mean, the Trump administration basically said. Trump himself said that, you know, they're looking at four or five weeks, a little bit more, but that's the timeline, and with the pace of the operation, it just tells you how it's unfolding very, very fast. I think faster than any other US Engagement ever. And so I think that they are looking at that from that perspective of really reassuring the market. I can tell you precisely about the insurance, but this is how I look at it from, like, a geopolitical perspective.

B (18:54)

Right. Well. And one thing I found really interesting, there's a lot. I remember President Trump was saying to the Iranian people, help is coming. And a lot of people sort of made fun of that, as I remember. It seems to me like the president is showing himself to be highly consequential in his statements, which I think has also kind of a profound kind of geopolitical impact. And I'm curious if you have thoughts on that.

A (19:20)

I think that he. You know, I have been saying since December that Khomeini was over. The moment I saw the protests, I realized that he made a huge mistake. There is a cost when you lose a war. Khamenei lost a war last year during the 12 Day War. There's a consequence to that. There's a social aspect, a political aspect, but also a power aspect to it, in the sense that he was always able to delay negotiations, to make a mockery out of US US Presence in the region. He even started making tweets. His team was of Trump being this maniac psychopath leader, comparing him to some Faroes and others. And I think that Trump was just being very patient, waiting for the. The proper timing for all the military assets to move and to make sure that this operation unfolds rather quickly, but also at a good manner. And I think that he was not joking when he said help is on the way, in the sense that, first of all, this military operation is dismantling the whole structure of the Islamic Republic, and it has different components to it. There is the irgc, there is the Basij, there is the Guardian Council, and other structures. The Islamic Republic is very sophisticated when it comes to its governance, and they are doing a decapitation strategy, going one after the other and making sure that whoever replaces them, if he is obviously hostile to the United States, does not want to cooperate, gets killed. And it has been the line. And that in itself provides a reassurance to Iranians that when they go and protest or ask their family members who are officers, who are part of those structures to defect, that there is a real belief that when they defect, they will not be killed or that the loyalists will come back because all of them will have been killed and eliminated. And so I think this is how I've been Looking at it. And the other aspect is that this is a very different regime change. This is not a typical we are coming, we are killing every single IRGC commander and officer and we're going to install a democracy a little bit transplanted here. They're trying to basically maneuver an organic uprising, which is why they have been. I mean, Iran is a big country and we're talking about 90 million people. And they've been hidden targets across all regions, which tells me that they are trying to provoke some sort of organic transition towards whatever the next Iran will be. It will not necessarily be a democracy. It's going to be a transition and transition. We don't really know how long it will take. But what this administration is making sure of is that it's just not a hostile entity.

B (22:58)

You know, I've seen like the best data that I've seen is that, you know, the Iranian people's position on the mullahs is about an 80, 20 issue, 80% sort of against 20% for. Is that correct based on your analysis?

A (23:14)

Yeah, I think it's 100% correct for a very simple reason. The first one is that when you're an Islamic republic, you're not, you're not just a theocracy or a dictatorship. They are revolutionaries. They need to send people, they need to train people, they need to teach and educate people, which is why they have so many seminaries across the Middle east, but across Africa as well. And they've been trying to have more and more in Europe. And it means that they have always been in the business of creating the next generation of Islamic Republic loyalists and, and soldiers, a lot of that absolutely collapsed. All the young people who protested, I think in 2023 during Mahsa Amini protests and then more recently, it just shows you that people do not believe in that regime anymore. And you can see that in the capital flight and you can see that in how the Islamic Republic was completely incompetent when it comes to basic things such as water management. I wrote a whole piece about management because I think it's a great indicator when it comes to the health of a governing body, because it's really about the allocation of resources to satisfy long term needs. And they were completely incapable of doing that. The state of water management is absolutely horrifying to the point where I think the President of Iran said that Tehran might no longer be the capital because of how dry it is. And these things, whether you are pro Islamic Republic, anti Islamic republic, you look at it objectively as a citizen. What is this Islamic Republic giving you nothing. And in exchange of what? Of hiring Iraqis, Syrians to terrorize everyone in the region? And so it's a very, I think, basic calculus that people are making even more right now because of its weakness.

B (25:29)

There isn't much of an appetite for regime change in the American electorate. That's very clear. Whatever political orientation, what you described is very interesting. So you're saying this is a regime change. This is the US Doing regime change, but in a different way, where if I understand you correctly, I mean, we heard President Trump speaking to the Iranian people saying thing, here's your chance. I'm paraphrasing here, right. But there's a real possibility of further instability. Like, I'm always looking at things through this geopolitical lens of China. That's why your article caught my eye immediately. And this use China using Iran as a tool of massive distraction, creating instability in the Middle east to keep America's gaze on the Middle east and not on the Indo Pacific. I mean, that's, of course, been a major, major piece of their strategy right now. If this happens quickly, if this goes according to plan in the timeframe that the President and the Secretary of War and Secretary of State have described, that might be fantastic. But when you do this sort of thing, there's a lot of instability. You don't know how it's all going to play out ultimately. One factor we discussed, Iranian people do not like the mullahs in massive amount, like 80, 20 for sure. That's different than other scenarios like this in the past, for sure. But what other things does Iran as a free or new, more friendly regime that isn't revolutionary, that isn't exporting instability throughout the region and the world? What does that vision have going for it? How do we know that we're not going to just get another source of instability that will precisely prevent the US from looking at its greatest adversary, China, under the Communist Party.

A (27:38)

I think it's a very fair question and I can answer with a very simple answer. The United States is destroying everything that would make that possible. Every single launcher, every single missiles facility, their whole navy has been absolutely crushed. And you can see that in the loss of military assets that Iran had, I was doing this morning a kind of brief assessment of just looking for where they destroyed, where things are. And you can see that it's 2000 targets so far and they're hitting even more. So they are absolutely in the business of making sure that even if the next Iran wants to, it just cannot. And I think that in itself is a very important, I think, premise to work with and it's an early assessment and it just tells you where things are going, I think. But the military aspect and how they are structurally going to be incapable of launching things at others in the future in the next few years, I think that's a very important parameter to evaluate. And the second thing is that there is the proxy question because Iran, the Islamic Republic, is not just the nuclear program, the missiles, there's also the proxies. The proxies are also getting hit in this process. They're hitting their own commanders because for every, for example, Hezbollah unit, you get some IRGC Quds forces getting involved on the Iranian side so that they can train and they can coordinate with proxies in Iraq. They can no longer by the Syria, but they can still do some damage. And you have Lebanon now absolutely taking drastic measures against Hezbollah. I would have never thought that would have been possible. But the dismantlement of the proxies as well is key to this. That can be, I think, a very important thing to monitor because, you know, you can still have a proxy problem, but it will be of less intensity, I think whatever the Islamic Republic was doing. So the truth is that when people think about how worse it can get, I would say that it has already been worse and that the worst case scenario, yes, it would be complete fragmentation, maybe a civil war, something of this sort. But so far this administration is making sure that no one has even the means to fight.

B (30:38)

You know, you mentioned Iraq and Syria, Lebanon. I mean, it's a dangerous neighborhood. Okay. And so, you know, you're kind of making the case that the US is eliminating Iran's ability to project military power, but also probably defend itself if given it doesn't have those things. So, you know, what's stopping one of these? You know, like I said, it's a very dangerous neighborhood there. You know, coming in and doing their thing and installing their own regime.

A (31:08)

I don't think they will have the capacity. Also they have to be appealing, as you mentioned, you know, no one believes in those things anymore, at least in Iran. I mean, in having, you know, a revolutionary mindset. I mean, why? Because also they see how all of their neighbors are modernizing. Azerbaijan is absolutely rising as a power. Saudi Arabia, the uae, all of the Gulf countries, they are investing in the youth. They're investing, modernizing. And so Iranians watch that. Why can the government provide that? And I don't think they will allow the Hezbollah guys or others to insert themselves again. I don't think they will have the political legitimacy or even the following, install a similar structure.

B (32:07)

Let's go back to the broader geopolitical perspective. Okay. I see the US Having decapitated two major CCP proxies, Venezuela and now Iran, very consequentially. There's a few things that come from that. One of them is it's a showcase of American power. If they pull off, off the plan, so to speak, in Iran, that'll be kind of an amazing, again, expression of what the US can do when it decides to act. So that's one thing. And I think Russia and China are watching very carefully at how these things unfold. On the other hand, there's also kind of a message being sent here, isn't there, like, we can do this if we want to. What is the significance of that for these belligerent powers? Let's say.

A (33:08)

Yeah, it's absolutely what you just said, that United States can assert absolute dominance in its own spheres of influence. The Middle east is a sphere of influence. And it's even more than that. I mean, Beijing has been selling to his own people, 1.4 billion people, that America is in decline, that America is just not it anymore, that the east is rising, that the west is in total decline and collapse, that Americans cannot do much.

B (33:41)

It's not just Beijing that's been selling this. There's been a lot of Americans that have been selling this.

A (33:47)

But I am sure that Beijing would agree with them. And the United States has proven them wrong. I mean, Trump has proven them wrong, that the use of military power does not have to be erratic and with no strategic coherence and against America's interests. It doesn't have to be about managing problems, but either fixing them or finding a way around them. But playing the game of the Iran threats, this forever threat, and they're only accumulating ballistic missiles over time. And it's. I think he's in the business of just restructuring the global system in a way that directly benefits Americans. And also there is a real coherence, actually, I haven't seen people talking about this, but the Iranian market is basically a virgin market. If it opens up and you have a friendly regime, it's thousands of European businesses back. It's the whole German industry finding new clients. It's endless opportunities also for the region. It's a new corridor. It's the dismantlement of the Belt and Road Initiative. It's the elevation of the Abraham Accords as a real framework rather than just normalization agreements. It's Making sure that the Red Sea is not blockaded because it's Egyptians and Sudanese and Saudis who are paying the price for that. So I think we have to think of also the benefits for this and the cost of if the United States did not do this, it will have to pay a price. And the price of inaction, I think, as stated by Secretary Rubio, was very clear when it comes to the missile.

B (35:57)

You know, you just said something incredibly important. Right? It's the dismantlement of the Belt and Road Initiative. I mean, this is the signature effort of the CCP to create this new world order around itself with Beijing at the center. The CCP and Beijing at the center.

A (36:14)

Yes.

B (36:15)

Just tell me a bit more about that.

A (36:17)

It's very important for China to diversify and to access a lot of markets. It's a very mercantile mindset. But in doing so, what they are actually trying to do is to get access to more U.S. allies in the process. When you go to a U.S. ally, and it was the case, for example, with Italy, why don't you join our Belt and Road Initiative? You will get all of these cookies, but in exchange, we get to have access to EU frameworks to know about your infrastructure. We will know about every single things that happens in Europe, but also in the United States, because United States is also involved in securing the Mediterranean. And so there were real gains for China, but they were also selling it as an alternative model to the U.S. one that the United States, whenever it comes, it comes with conditions, with human rights, with all of these things that China never demands any of it, which is true, by the way. Until recently, I think Trump completely changed that. This is why he dismantled a lot of US Aid and a lot of these things. And so China was really trying to court a lot of US Allies and make sure that the Belt and Road Initiative is a very attractive alternative to countries who think they can get a better deal by going to China. And the fact that they invested a lot in it. I think the evaluation estimate is a trillion dollar, and they've been trying very hard to sell it as an alternative model. The thing is, yes, these countries will still deal with China, they will still sell oil to China, but it just will not be the same. The Chinese will no longer have the upper hand. They can no longer just storm a place and say, we give you, you give us, and it's the end of the end of the discussion. I think that recalibration will cost China a lot.

B (38:38)

Just one comment. You were talking about Trump and the administration changing how it interacts with other countries. It might have sounded like you're saying that they're dismantling the human rights requirement for having a relationship, things like that. And just my own observation has been that it seems to me like these institutions, I think the administration's view was that this institution was being used in a significant amount to kind of launder money through a system and export ideology, not human rights and things like that. Do you think that actual sort of human rights requirements are going by the wayside with this new approach the US Is taking?

A (39:25)

I think I should have been a little bit more precise in saying that actually going after the Islamic Republic is the best way to protect human rights. And it's very clear. Clear. The other thing is a lot of these countries, they don't even have the capacity to go for big questions on social questions, political ones, because they're not satisfying their basic economic needs and they want more cooperation. They have terrorist problems. You can see that in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger. These countries are suffering when it comes to terrorism. They want first of all to make sure that their youth does not join terrorist organization. And that cannot really happen just with ideological messaging. It needs to happen with real structures and real economic cooperation, which is why the critical minerals, for example, industry is a great, is a great news for a lot of these countries because they can finally use their resources, get a good deal out of it. But, you know, the whole campaign, messaging, communications, pr, I think approach did not work. In fact, China has been rising because of it. Recalibrating a little bit, I think, is a very good thing.

B (40:54)

So this has been a fantastic conversation for me. As we finish up, I'm going to get you to go. Let's go back to the beginning and ask this question. Right. This whole. Your contention is this whole Iran thing, the whole Iran thing is all about China and the rise of the Indo Pacific century. Give me that thesis as succinctly as you can.

A (41:18)

As we finish, I would say that China cannot rise without having the United States weakened in one of the most important regions in the world, being the Middle East. Iran has been. Been that tool. It has. China has built Iran's military arsenal. It has collaborated extensively with its proxies, especially the Houthis, who are doing this blockade in the Red Sea and reversing that calculus is what Operation Epic Fury doing. And I think that this is absolutely crucial when watching next events and holding well.

B (42:05)

Zina Brabua, it's such a pleasure to have had you on.

A (42:08)

Thank you. A real pleasure of mine. As well.

B (42:11)

Thank you all for joining Zina, Babua and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Janya Kellick.