Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Impact of War on Iran to the United States

In the short term I believe this will make President Trump a lame duck long before the mid-term elections. The reason is the unpopularity of the war and the economic fallout from it are going to make the Democrats a virtual lock to take back both houses of the the US Congress. That will probably cause the Republicans to finally attempt to rein him in to try to staunch the bleeding. It probably will not happen soon but I suspect we will see it happen after most of the primaries are complete. It will be after that time when incumbent Republican politicians will no longer be in danger of being replaced for the November election and when they will need to do something to increase their chances during that election. 

As well, the US can pretty much kiss all of the alliances in the Middle East goodbye, except for Israel. The Gulf States will probably not cut ties completely, because they do not currently have viable alternatives, but I would bet a sizable chunk of money that they will begin to look to China to assist them. Their alliance with the US was to serve as a deterrent to Iran from doing exactly what it has been doing for the last nine days but that deterrent only works if the US does not attack Iran first. China will have no problem in turning the Persian Gulf into a Chinese lake and I suspect, after the war ends, the people of the United States would say "Let them have it."

In the longer term the US will be weakened by the war diplomatically. However, that has been happening for quite some time and it predates the election of Donald Trump in 2016. His election then and again in 2024 has accelerated that trend but we need to be careful not to overstate it. As well, there could be a case made that this war could hasten the time when the US Dollar ceases to be the reserve currency but if so that is a long time away and many things could happen before then so we can safely dismiss such arguments for now. It is not going to happen before the end of the decade and speculating on what will happen on a longer timeline is like trying to figure out what the weather is going to be like a year from now. 

The two main rivals to the US are Russia and China. 

One thing that everybody has to remember about Russia is it is a country with an economy the size of Italy's and it is shrinking. The once great Russian (Soviet) armed forces, which everybody thought would be able to roll through Western Europe with ease back in the 80s, has made absolutely no progress in four years of war with Ukraine. Indeed, there is some evidence that they have suffered some very substantial setbacks on the battlefield in recent weeks and many credible analysts have indicated that they have blown through all of their reserves of tanks and armoured vehicles. As well, the same analysts are indicating that they have lost around 1 million men during that four years and are suffering a recruiting crisis. In other words, they have pretty much "bled themselves white" since the war started. This all bodes ill for Vladimir Putin's ambitions for the rest of Europe. If they have a hard time against Ukraine, they will have an even harder time against NATO. Yes, they are in a bit of disarray because of Donald Trump but that really is not relevant. The Russians are going to take years, if not a decade or so, to rebuild their strength enough for any more adventures in Europe, those same Europeans are taking steps to rearm and will reach their targets before the end of the decade and Donald Trump will be gone, replaced by a President that will probably try to rebuild the alliances and trust that Donald Trump as squandered in the last few months. (And Putin will probably be gone and Russia may do what it has done for centuries, replace a leader who turned away from the West with one who turns toward it.)

Considering this, if the Russians did not have nuclear weapons, their threat to Western Europe would not be taken as seriously as it is currently. But they will be of no help because if they try to "nuke" any part of Western Europe they will have to deal with a potential nuclear retaliation from the US, Britain and France.

Some are saying the the war has weakened the US enough to allow China to take Taiwan. (I even heard one fool say they could take Japan *headshake*). The problem with that is even after this war the US will have the most powerful military in the world. That is not going to change anytime soon. Any attack on Taiwan will be different from what we are seeing in the Middle East. The Taiwan Strait is not wide but it is wide enough that any invasion force would be at the end of a very tenuous supply line, which could easily be cut for a time by the Taiwanese themselves and permanently cut with the assistance of the US. They still have 11 carrier groups that would pay merry hell with the amphibious ships that China would have to use to invade Taiwan. If they successfully cut that supply line then the invasion of Taiwan fails and the Chinese know it. That fact has not been changed by the events of the last 10 days.

Economically China's progression towards replacing the US as the largest economy has slowed to a crawl. It could speed up again, particularly if they gain more influence in the Middle East, but we probably will not see that happen for the foreseeable future and there are just too many variables at play to conclude it will happen at this point. I personally believe it will but that is just my gut talking. I have no solid evidence to back it up and at any rate I also do not believe it will happen soon. 

So the US is going to come out of this war more diminished than it already was when it started the war. We are going to see some shifting of influence and alliances away from the US in the Middle East but they will not come out so diminished that either Russia or China will be in a position to take real advantage of that. The great power struggle that we have been seeing for the last few years will continue without any resolution, one way or another, for the foreseeable future.


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