by Nathan Smith

Is Iran a threat to US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia? Maybe. It depends on what is meant by “threat.” A BB gun is a “threat” to my eyeballs, but not to my house.

Obviously, if Iran had nuclear weapons, that would constitute a “threat” to Israel and Saudi Arabia. But I’m not convinced that nuclear weapons are a real thing, in the sense of what we have been told. Even if they are real, there is a big difference between having a bomb and being able to deliver it to a target. Missile technology is no joke. It’s literally rocket science. And Iran isn’t exactly brimming with high-IQ engineers…

Iran does have plenty of proxy groups that could hurt Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those would certainly be a “threat.” Or, I should say that Iran used to have proxy groups. In case you weren’t paying attention, Israel’s strategy of “mowing the grass” this time managed to get at the roots of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis (why do they all begin with “h”?). Those Iranian proxies aren’t dead, and the grass will grow back. But I’d be surprised if they even have BB guns left at this point. “Death to America!” Yeah? You and what army?

The theatre of the Iran “threat” explains why the latest US-Israel attack on the country feel so half-hearted. I’ve seen real regime change efforts, and simply put, if the US wants regime change, nothing can stop it. The US military knows that airstrikes are not enough. Ever since the Roman times, regime change has always required boots on the ground. A change in the regime is not the same thing as a regime change. The US and Israel are mowing the grass in Iran.

Without real regime change, root and branch, the grass will still need to be mowed again in the future. Iran will re-arm and its proxies will recover. The game of brinksmanship, which has led to so much gain for Iran (in relationships with China and Russia, for example) will cycle over and you will once again hear the impotent theatrical chants of “Death to America!” So sleepy…

It’s true that Iran was on the list of countries in the crosshairs for US-led regime change efforts after 9/11. Every single country on that list – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia – has been attacked by the US in some way over the last 20 years and most of them have been cast into the abyss of political chaos. Two decades in the desert is a long time and the US is keen to refocus. Getting bogged down in a new regime change effort against Iran would be crazy in 2026. The US just wants to move on to deal with much bigger fish.

The biggest fish of all is China.

The Iran “threat” mostly incidental from the perspective of US grand strategy. The entire point of US military activity in the Middle East since 2001 was to break up any potential for a cohesive bloc of Muslim-majority countries. That these countries were also a threat to Israel is part of the rationale. But Washington didn’t need much convincing.

After the perceived victory of 9/11, there was a clear movement among radical Islamists to leverage that attack as political energy to galvanise Muslims everywhere. Former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (perhaps the smartest Arab since Saladin) had a wide vision for a pan-Arab alliance back in the 1970s. His vision was largely secular and in the context of the Cold War, but had it been successful, pan-Arabism would have been a convenient shell for other crabs to climb into and wield power over the region.

If Islamist radicals had commandeered pan-Arabism, they could have closed off the Middle East to the international markets. No more (cheap) oil. Worse, the combined resources of the region would put key waterways at risk, and an Islamist-controlled pan-Arab alliance might decide to grow larger. Soon, this alliance might rub up against the US Navy for control over the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean or, god forbid, the Atlantic Ocean. At that point, mainland US would not be safe.

This is how the United States thinks. It fundamentally cannot allow any political structure dominate a major portion of what Halford Mackinder called the “World Island” (the Asian landmass). Such a political structure would control enough resources and humans to counterweight the US, risking a future where the US mainland itself would under threat from invasion or blockade. This grand strategic thinking explains why the US engaged in WWI, WWII, the Cold War and the Global War on Terror.

And it is also explains why the US is so worried about China.

After 20 years in the Middle East, Islam is no longer a strategic threat to the US grand strategy. There is no risk of anything like Nasser’s pan-Arabist dream reforming again. For a start, Iran is predominantly Shia Muslim, whereas the Arab world is predominantly Sunni Muslim. Suffice to say, there will never be an alliance between these sects. Moreover, Iran is Persian, not Arab. Just think about cats and dogs. They don’t get along.

But China has a homogenous ethnicity (the Han) with a single overarching language (Mandarin) operating an uncontested state religion controlling a landmass that is only 2% smaller than the total US landmass. That’s right – including Alaska and Hawaii, the US works is almost the same size as China. Without Alaska and Hawaii, the US is actually 16% smaller than China. Not only that, but China’s population is about 320% larger than the US population (1.41 billion in China compared to 335 million in the US).

Washington is extremely aware of these numbers. When I say “extremely,” the China question dominates every serious discussion inside the Beltway and the White House. Iran is a problem, sure. Yet if Iran survives to fight another day and the game keeps going, that’s not a loss on a grand strategic scale. China is pass/fail.

To be fair, China would not be strong without the truly Herculean help from US finance and industry over the past 50 years. China is essentially the 51^st US state dedicated to manufacturing. US money made China and US money keeps China alive. China has excellent skills in innovation (improving on existing ideas) but it still struggles with invention (new ideas). Because of this, China prefers to steal from the US and claim these ideas as organic to China. Again, this just means China is still heavily reliant on the US for its survival and in no way should be considered an independent country.

But it could become independent. And it is not entirely clear when that line will be crossed, what that line looks like and if the US will know when it has been crossed. These are dangerous questions. Maybe China’s umbilical cords to US capital markets and innovation are already severed? Is China reliant on the US for 50% of its economy? 60%? 40%? What is the exact nature of the relationship? It’s getting harder to tell.

This ambiguity keeps Washington’s smartest people up at night. The more independent China becomes, the larger the risk of China leveraging its huge landmass and human resources to create de facto control over areas of Asia (the World Island). This would be a positive feedback loop. The more resources China has, the stronger China gets. The stronger China gets, the bolder it will become in attempts to control key waterways and other strategic geographies.

Once the US Navy can no longer guarantee its uncontested movement in East Asian waters, what’s stopping China from extending that ambiguity out to, say, Guam or even the Philippines? Very quickly the US Navy may no longer be able to guarantee free movement of its vessels in the entire Western Pacific Ocean, perhaps all the way up to the Hawaiian island chain. Suddenly, the coastline of California becomes vulnerable.

Now you can understand the sleepless nights in Washington.

Whether China wants to achieve these goals is largely irrelevant. The only thing that matters for the US grand strategy is making sure China never gets into a position where it could contest the US Navy for dominance over the Pacific Ocean. At minimum, the US Navy must always be assured that if it is ever forced to roll the dice in sending its ships anywhere it pleases, that it could do so without much worry. In 2026, this is still the case. But how long will this dominance last?

Washington can’t deal with any of this if it remains in the Middle East. Iran is a danger, but China is pass/fail. Get that wrong, and you can kiss Pax Americana goodbye.

Originally published on Flat Circle.