War With Iran, Phase Two: All Three Plausible Explanations Call for One Corrective Action
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
On May 25, US president Donald Trump went back to war with Iran, launching strikes in the southern part of that country on a laughable claim of “self-defense.”
The previous phase of the war was stupid, evil, and illegal, as is this phase.
It was and is stupid because even given Trump’s constantly shifting (and mostly themselves stupid) objectives, there was no way to “win” it other than nuking all of Iran’s major cities and sending in a massive occupation force for the foreseeable future.
It was and is evil because war is always evil. Noncombatants are killed, injured, and impoverished, purposely or accidentally. There are seldom any “good guys” on the “leadership” level of any side — it’s merely a street gang turf rumble writ large, with regular people caught in the violent middle.
It was and is illegal because here was no declaration of war, and the attack didn’t even meet the minimal requirements of the War Powers Resolution. Additionally, even if that resolution was constitutional (it wasn’t), Trump had 60 days to get congressional approval for continuing the operations (he didn’t — and no, the clock did not magically “reset” just because he took a brief break).
Wars usually aren’t really “won” in any meaningful sense of the word, but in this war the US regime — and the American people — have clearly lost, no matter the military outcome. It’s already impoverishing us considerably, and we’re only seeing the early impact of a situation which will drag on for a long time regardless of what happens next.
The most obvious indicator, of course, is the price of gasoline at the pump, but the shortages of petroleum products and fertilizer components that usually pass through the Strait of Hormuz will soon become very real in the prices we pay for consumer goods and groceries.
So, here we are: Instead of taking his lumps, letting the war end, and hoping for an economic upturn before the midterm elections mangle his party’s present projects and future prospects, Trump is doubling down.
There are three, and only three, plausible explanations:
Explanation One is that he’s evil, hates America, and is doing his damnedest to destroy the US economy. If that’s the case the US House of Representatives should impeach him and the US Senate should convict and remove him. His illegal war clearly meets the standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Explanation Two is that he’s stupid — whether by nature or due to his obvious cognitive decline — and just doesn’t know what he’s doing or understand its moral, political, or economic implications. If that’s the case, the vice-president and a majority of the cabinet should, per the 25th Amendment, “transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” after which the vice-president can become “acting president” and put a stop to this nonsense.
Explanation Three is that Trump — again, possibly due to the obvious cognitive decline he’s publicly and frequently displayed since before his second inauguration — isn’t in charge; the presidency is effectively controlled by other people who happen to be evildoers. If that’s the case, and if the 25th Amendment isn’t invoked because those evildoers also control — or consist of — the vice-president and cabinet, then it’s the public’s job to shut the war machine, and the regime controlling it, down.
That might look like a general strike, or even a revolution. It wouldn’t be pretty. But Trump clearly must be removed from power, and a popular uprising would likely be less ugly than the alternative, which is that US military commanders cease obeying Trump’s unlawful orders and depose him themselves. A junta is a lateral move on the evil and stupidity metrics, not an improvement on either.
There’s no question of “winning” the war. The war is lost, and lost it shall remain. The questions are about how much longer it lasts, how many more people are killed, maimed, displaced, and impoverished, what the terms of the US surrender look like, and what comes after. The sooner Trump loses the power to babble non-answers and act on them, the better.
Iran’s shockwave in Asia
Wednesday 27 May 2026, by Pierre Rousset
By dint of dragging on, the United States’ war against Iran seems to be becoming a real international tipping point whose scope varies according to the region. Its consequences are expected to be major in Asia. On the geopolitical terrain, of course, as illustrated by the Xi-Trump summit in Beijing on 14-15 May. But it will also aggravate the social crisis in many countries as well as boosting the global climate and ecological crisis. It is the beginning of multiple upheavals that will only be fully measured with hindsight.
Donald Trump had postponed his visit to Beijing (to the great displeasure of Xi Jinping) to give him time, he hoped, to finish with Iran and arrive in a position of strength. The opposite happened. He has come to beg the Chinese, allies of the Iranians, to help him get out of a mess for which he alone is responsible.
In the current situation, Beijing and Washington share common goals, starting with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas transits. China currently imports about 40 percent of its oil from the Middle East, and many of its refineries are designed to process oil from Iran. Moreover, even if it supports Iran, the Chinese regime does not want to see a new country enter the very exclusive club of nuclear powers. This is a fact that Tehran does not seem to have understood. Possessing (or threatening to possess) the weapon certainly appears to be a guarantee of security and influence, but the great powers have tolerated the appearance of new applicants only if their own interests are at stake (for example, North Korea from Beijing’s point of view, a buffer state between South Korea and US bases and its border).
Xi Jinping knows, however, that Trump is under pressure for domestic political reasons (the midterm elections are taking place in November), and he has put the deal in his hands: he must make big concessions on support for Taiwan. For the time being, he does not seem to have made any commitment to intervene vis-à-vis Iran (assuming that he can indeed change Tehran’s policy).
Dangerous uncertainty for Taiwan
Xi elaborated on his warning on 14 May, the day after Trump’s arrival, saying at a press conference that the Taiwan issue was “the most important in Sino-American relations.” Well treated, “relations between the two countries can remain stable overall.” Otherwise, they will “clash, or even come into conflict.” Trump seems to have been taken aback, as this subject is not usually dealt with in the public sphere, and he dodged journalists’ questions.
Very concretely, Xi demands that the United States replace its official position, “the United States does not support Taiwan’s independence” with “opposes Taiwan’s independence” and that it stop supplying arms to the island state.
After announcing an agreement to deliver $11 billion worth of U.S. weapons by the end of 2025, the U.S. administration is considering a new program of some $14 billion, a record amount since the United States committed in 1979 in the Taiwan Relations Act to deliver sufficient military equipment to Taiwan to defend itself. This law was passed by the U.S. Congress in the wake of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing the same year and the concomitant severing of U.S. diplomatic ties with Taipei. Since then, America has remained almost the only country to provide military aid to Taiwan. To meet Chinese demands, the US Congress would therefore have to abrogate this treaty.
The CCP would now prefer to impose a severe economic blockade of the island, rather than attempt a rather random military invasion. The invasion of Taiwan would not be an easy task. Xi Jinping promises great things to businessmen, mafiosi and politicians who would serve as his fifth column, to ensure Beijing’s stranglehold, but given the way he has been blithely purging his allies for a while, they should be wary. It also plays on soft power, with many fun shows being watched on both sides of the Strait.
Taiwan (the Republic of China) has a very special history. Beijing is playing on its internal contradictions. The Kuomintang, a counter-revolutionary party, invaded the island after its defeat on the mainland in 1949, imposing a dictatorial regime until the Sunflower Movement in 2014, which gradually led to the establishment of a democracy. The KMT nevertheless retains a social base and political weight, with the help of clientelism and corruption. Its leaders are now divided over relations with China.
However, it is difficult to see why the Taiwanese population, which enjoys a (bourgeois and imperfect) democracy, would freely opt to abandon it in favour of an opaque and super-authoritarian regime. It has the right to a self-determination exercised without external threats.
Taiwan is de facto independent, but does not officially proclaim it. The entire regional balance is due to this strategic ambiguity. Xi Jinping is once again questioning it, and Donald Trump seems to be taking his pressure into account. Just before leaving Beijing, he sent a form of warning through the Fox News channel to Taiwan against declaring independence at the cost of a distant war. “I want [Taiwan] to lower the temperature. I want China to lower the temperature.” If the statement is worrying, it is because the proclamation of independence was not on the agenda at all.
In doing this, Trump forced the Taiwanese authorities to react. The foreign minister said he took note of the remarks, noting that the arms sales were a U.S. commitment to the island’s security that was guaranteed by the Taiwan Relation Act and was a common form of deterrence in the region. The Taiwanese government, led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and President Lai Ching-te, declared on May 16 that “Taiwan is a democratic, sovereign and independent nation, which is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China,” reaffirming the traditional position: de facto independence, although not proclaimed.
Strategic Balances in East Asia
Donald Trump is therefore now helping to reopen the Taiwan issue, a veritable Pandora’s box: geostrategic balances and control of the seas in East Asia are at stake. This state is located in the middle of the first chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Taking possession of it would give Beijing a key point of support for controlling this international seaway of primary importance from a commercial point of view (it is one of the busiest routes), very rich in resources (including in its seabed), whose sovereignty China claims, against international law, (at least in its southern part, which it has militarized to excess, without recognising the maritime borders of the other riparian countries).
The entire region is therefore concerned, from Japan and South Korea to Vietnam, including Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines. The conquest of Taiwan would be a real earthquake whose “aftershocks”, given the geopolitical centrality of Eurasia, could affect Central Asia, the Arctic, Russia and Europe.
Donald Trump’s erraticism and his lack of regard for the interests of his allies are already having consequences. Thus, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has initiated a real strategic turning point for Japan to assert itself as a great military power. The United States had imposed a pacifist constitution on the country in 1947 (with article 9), which the population had largely accepted. The counterpart to this renunciation of war was obviously the assurance of American protection in the event of a threat. This quid pro quo no longer seems obvious and allows Tokyo to justify the acceleration of its militarist program, while the so-called Japanese Self-Defense Forces are already at the top of the basket of conventional armies (without nuclear weapons), effectively emptying the constitution of its substance.
In 1976, under prime minister Takeo Miki, the sale of arms was banned. In 2014, prime minister Shinzo Abe opened a first breach in this embargo policy. On 21 April, all the previously stated principles of the country’s foreign policy were annulled. Japan can now export weapons, including “lethal” weapons, to the 17 countries with which it has a defence agreement. One of the largest military export contracts since 1945 was signed with Australia, for Mogami-class frigates produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (these frigates have multiple functions and can operate with a short-crewed, high-quality frigate). Similarly, 1,400 soldiers are taking full part in the Balikatan (“shoulder to shoulder” in Tagalog) exercises in the Philippines, together with the United States and six other countries (China has invited itself into this area, also carrying out its own competing manoeuvres).
What does Donald Trump really want? If he allowed Beijing to conquer Taiwan in some form, the credibility of the United States in Asia would collapse, leaving the field open for China. He declared that he did not want to fight a war “9,500 miles away”. The problem is that the largest US military bases abroad are located precisely in this region: in South Korea and Japan (above all on the island of Okinawa). In the front row. Would he like to negotiate zones of influence: the south of the East Asian Seas to China, the north to the United States? It’s hard to believe. Perhaps he is simply trying to buy time given the mess he got himself into in Iran. He uses and abuses his military means and risks finding part of his armada out of service, while the refurbishment of an aircraft carrier, for example, requires a lot of time. Xi Jinping knows this perfectly well. However, the Chinese army is not operational today. Its staff has been the victim of successive purges, in all sectors. Xi’s paranoia is wreaking havoc. He also needs time. The icing on the cake is that we are dealing with two psychopaths, one cold and calculating, the other explosive, and this is not reassuring.
Speculation does not accomplish much, especially when one is not privy to the secrets of the Gods. However, we are living in a dangerous moment of uncertainty. In the face of militarism and great power rivalries, people-to-people solidarity remains our political compass, both in the region and internationally. For the right to self-determination (including for Taiwan), for demilitarization (especially of maritime spaces), for the seas and oceans to be freed from state borders in order to become once again common goods of humanity.
Towards a Sino-American duopoly?
What is confirmed, however, is that we are (temporarily?) moving towards a Sino-US global duopoly (necessarily very confrontational) and not towards a military confrontation between great powers in the short term. This was the hypothesis that seemed to me to have been favoured for a long time. Today, China is strengthening its hand in this duopoly in Asia, but we must not forget its impotence when Trump “co-opted” a wing of the Venezuelan regime and while he threatens Cuba, two countries that had or have Chinese support.
Beijing is certainly strengthening its global military presence thanks to its policy of purchasing ports with a dual function, economic and military. Considerable funds have been allocated for this purpose. Between 2000 and 2025, China acquired 168 ports in 90 countries, on all continents. Moreover, in Chinese companies established abroad, it is the army that ensures “security” (without displaying it). It is developing its naval base. The launch in November 2025 of its third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, represents a major step forward in modernization with its electromagnetic catapult system. However, its army has never been tested in a real contemporary military conflict (reliability of armaments, capacity of the chain of command, combined arms coordination and so on). Its deployment primarily concerns Asia-Pacific.
The Indo-Pacific has become a region of major strategic importance where global balances are (also) at stake. Joe Biden understood this and one of his main successes was to have prepared, at the time of the Afghan debacle that he had inherited from Donald Trump, a deployment of politico-military, economic and diplomatic means in this region. Back in power, Trump hastened to undo this Asian “pivot”. It was a bad thing for him. It has given China the opportunity to further weave its own cooperation in this part of the world (in rivalry with India). This strengthened its hand vis-à-vis Washington. From a geopolitical point of view, beyond the seas of East Asia, it is here that the Sino-American rivalry will be most alive.
More generally, the functionality of the Sino-US duopoly will be tested in the coming months, with Trump and Xi due to meet on multiple occasions, either face-to-face (Xi’s visit to Washington at the end of September, before the US mid-term elections), or during meetings: in November, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen (China); in December, the G20 meeting in Miami (United States). If Beijing and Washington have common interests, they will rule the roost, as has been the case in the past. The areas of confrontation, on the other hand, should express themselves.
Despite Donald Trump’s cries of victory, no significant progress seems to have been made at the recent summit concerning the standards for the deployment of artificial intelligence and very high technology (superconductors), rare earths, trade deficits and so on. A truce in the tariff war had been decided until October (to the advantage of China). Its extension has not (yet) been announced. But the main if not the only tangible economic outcome of the summit may be the continuation of the fragile trade truce previously agreed in Busan, South Korea, when Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods, while Xi Jinping gave up strangling U.S. supplies of critical rare earths.
Can a Sino-American duopoly last? Who lives will see. The United States is griped by a major regime crisis and this is probably also the case with China if we are to believe the extent of the purges, the disaffection of the population who no longer hope for an improvement in their standard of living, the ageing population, corruption, the environmental crisis, the growing dependence on exports and so on. In addition, the boomerang effects of the climate-ecological crisis are increasingly being felt. This increases the number of uncertainties.
An unimportant summit?
Many analysts seem to consider this summit to be of little importance. It is true that it will not have the same historical significance as the meeting in Beijing in 1972 between US President Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong, or that of Deng Xiaoping to the United States in 1979. However, this is the first visit to China by a US president since 2017, almost a decade ago – and that was during Trump’s previous term!
Xi Jinping probably aims to take advantage of the “Trump-Iran” moment to set a balance of power more to China’s advantage in view of the post-Trump era, as an established fact. This is a step in the rise of Chinese imperialism (except in the not insignificant field of finance, as Xi does not dare to make the Yuan a truly international currency) and in its desire to assert an alternative hegemony to that of the “West”.
The popular classes, inflation and ecological disaster
The inflation fuelled by the Iranian war is affecting the popular classes in Asia as elsewhere, with one particularity. In many Asian countries, the money sent by migrants allows families to survive. The Middle East is a major destination for this immigration, as far as Muslim countries are concerned. According to the International Labour Organization, the region is home to 24 million migrant workers. It is proving to be the world’s leading destination for foreign labour. Most of this comes from Asia: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines (Mindanao), Sri Lanka. Many of these workers are in low-paying or precarious jobs and have little access to services such as health care.
The repatriation of emigrants is large scale. In the past two months, the Philippine government has secured the return of more than 9,500 of its nationals who were working in the Middle East. Many people remain blocked in unbearable conditions.
Finally, the wars in the Middle East are fuelling the climate and ecological crisis, the global crisis. A real disaster. This “polycrisis” is the greatest challenge we face. It is what makes the difference with all past periods. The number of “climate victims” is increasing exponentially in Asia, in particular.
In Asia, poverty and precariousness are spreading. However, once you have entered extreme poverty, you can no longer get out of it without long-term aid that states do not provide, but that movements try to ensure (with our help, sometimes).
The climate-ecological crisis
It’s the elephant in the china shop that no one (or almost) talks about. Debates follow one another on the economic consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, without saying a word about the climate crisis or the major attacks on biodiversity. Unfortunately, the international activist press does not always escape this syndrome. Articles appear that completely obscure the subject. Others mention it, but without concluding on the campaigns to be carried out in this area. A strange self-censorship.
While Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average, the health and social consequences are particularly severe in Asia, where societies are very vulnerable. Much of Bangladesh will disappear under water, but also densely populated areas in Indonesia. When the humidity level in the air becomes too high, even a “normal” temperature can become deadly, as the body can no longer cool itself by sweating. The violence of typhoons is increasing. Massive floods follow exceptional droughts...
19 May 2026
Translated by International Viewpoint from ESSF.
Pierre Rousset
Pierre Rousset is a longtime activist of the Fourth International and a founding member of Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF). He specialised in Asian revolutionary movements, particularly in China and the Philippines. He was co-director of the International Institute for Research and Education (IIRE) in Amsterdam from 1981 to 1993.
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