It’s tempting to write off America’s confrontational stance with Iran as an exercise in futility—perhaps several ill-advised ventures combined. These include an unsuccessful bid to eliminate the mullahs’ nuclear arsenal, efforts to instigate regime change, or attempts to spark a rebellion among the millions longing for a different future.

While these scenarios have been proposed and certainly hold appeal, the underlying reasons for Trump’s actions are more complex.

As improbable as it might initially appear, the president’s aggressive posture toward Tehran is actually intended to impact a target 3,500 miles away: Beijing.

China consistently occupies a significant place in Trump’s strategic calculations.

Beyond domestic issues like border security and inflation, the rapid ascent of Chinese influence stands out as a major concern during his second term, shaping much of the White House’s foreign policy agenda.

However unlikely it might seem on the face of it, the president is attacking Tehran in order to hit a target 3,500 miles away: Beijing 

Over the years, China and Iran have forged closer ties, a development largely overlooked by Trump’s predecessors. This growing alliance has now prompted Washington to take decisive action.

Which means that, so far from being an impulsive gamble on a quick victory, the president’s actions in taking on the mullahs were a historical inevitability.

The foundation of the current China-Iran relationship was a 2015 memorandum of understanding.

Either ignored or dismissed in the West, this agreement included, among other things, Iran’s integration into China’s satellite system.

Today, after a month of warfare, missiles are falling on Israel and on US bases in the region with alarming levels of precision. And as Pentagon analysts now to their cost, the two things are connected.

It’s been suggested that, together, the US and Israel were taken aback – and that they only acknowledged the surprising potency of Tehran’s missile assaults some 72 hours after their own, deadly opening salvo, when they took out Iran’s defence ministry, its intelligence centre and killed key leaders including Ayatollah Khamanei.

So, the million-dollar question: were China and Iran waiting for this moment?

Before answering this question, it’s worth making a few more points. The man in power back in 2015 when the Iran-China protocol was signed was not Donald Trump but Barack Obama. And it is the 44th US administration, Obama’s, which appears to have dropped the ball.

Not that Obama is the only man to blame. I believe the problems facing America and the West today are the culmination of 30 years of US foreign policy. That’s three decades dominated by four presidents – Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden – who either kicked the can down the road or, worse, took part in the catastrophic movement – perhaps ‘conspiracy’ – to erase national boundaries and create a globalised world.

Looked at in this way, Trump was damned if he took the risk of taking on Iran, and double-damned if he didn’t.

Another question what changed in the nine months between the 12-day bombing exchange between Israel and Iran in June 2025 – when Iranian weapons proved comparatively ineffective – and today’s conflict.

Qatar Energy’s operating facilities in Mesaieed Industrial City, south of Doha, Qatar. Qatar Energy announced a complete shutdown of liquefied natural gas (LNG) production this week, following Iranian attacks

Iranian Red Crescent Society members and others carry a body bag containing the remains of a victim killed in a residential building that was hit by an overnight US-Israeli strike

A thick plume of smoke rises from an oil storage facility hit by a U.S.-Israeli strike in Tehran

A variety of intelligence sources suggest that Iran was not part of the Chinese Beidou satellite system last year – but that it is now, allowing Iran to hit what it wants , precisely and meticulously, ever since.

Sergei Shoigu, defence minister of Russia – a noted ally of Tehran – recently said that Iran has missiles and systems that can hit anything in the Middle East. On the evidence so far, who would doubt him?

Is this the reason no member of the Western alliance answered President Trump’s call to join forces.

At this juncture, with this Beidou system in place and Iran having plenty of missiles to go around, I expect the mullahs will prolong this war until they get what they want.

President Trump will doubtless make the best of it. He can tell the US voters that he’s destroyed a Chinese ally in the Gulf and stopped Iran selling quite so much oil to Beijing.

He can tell them that if Europe wants shipments of Liquefied Natural Gas, it can buy them from America – instead of from the Gulf – at American prices.

Through the expansion of its commercial empire, China is already the dominant force on the continent of Africa. Is it preparing for a takeover in the Gulf?

He can tell them, too, that he’s been tough on the Gulf potentates and will only rebuild American bases in the region – and will only keep the US fifth fleet there – if the oil billionaires pay for them.

The Chinese, meanwhile, might take a different view. At least one US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, is out of commission after a fire on board, potentially for a long time.

The other carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, appears to have been damaged in an Iranian attack. How badly, no one is saying, and its whereabouts are unknown.

Thanks to Iranian missiles, the US has lost some $200 billion-worth of bases in the region, a major handicap for the 5th Fleet and potentially the start of a major shift in geopolitical power.

Through the expansion of its commercial empire, China is already the dominant force on the continent of Africa. Is it preparing for a takeover in the Gulf?

And is all this the very outcome China intended all along?