The question of whether America is fighting Israel’s war is perhaps the least interesting one. Strip away the noise, and a more consequential picture emerges. The United States has used overwhelming force to dismantle what had quietly become the most significant Chinese forward position outside East Asia.
Over the past half-decade, Tehran transformed itself from a regional irritant into a structural component of Chinese strategic architecture. Roughly 90 per cent of Iran’s crude exports flowed to Chinese refineries operating beyond the reach of American sanctions enforcement. That revenue funded approximately a quarter of the Iranian state budget, including the military forces that Washington now considers a direct threat. China, for its part, was not being philanthropic. Cheap Iranian crude helped Beijing accumulate a strategic petroleum reserve reportedly exceeding a billion barrels – enough to sustain the Chinese economy for roughly a hundred days in the event of a Pacific naval blockade. Iran was a hedge against American sea power, and a lucrative one at that.
