Podbit · Up First from NPR
Yemeni Houthi rebels closed the Bab el-Mandeb shipping lane near the Red Sea, joining the Strait of Hormuz blockade and pushing oil prices to a 2-month high above $100 a barrel before dropping to $92. Iran is also demanding a Lebanon ceasefire as a condition for any deal with the U.S.
China told Trump directly: strike Iran's power plants or bridges and China enters the war. This wasn't a bluff — it came with the knowledge that the US had already depleted a significant portion of its precision interceptor stockpile, leaving the military dangerously exposed.
The US burned through roughly 80% of some of its precision interceptor missiles during the Iran campaign. Top military commander Brad Cooper quietly recommended stopping the bombing near the Strait of Hormuz because returning to large-scale operations with depleted stocks was simply too risky.
The US-centric security umbrella over the Middle East is gone. China — working through Pakistan as regional facilitator — is building a new framework that Gulf states are already gravitating toward. Trump's weakness accelerated a transition that will take decades to reverse.
China policy expert Victor Gao offered a stark comparison: when China brokered Iran-Saudi relations, they shook hands. When the US and Israel intervened, they fired shots. His message to Gulf states was blunt: the choice between China and America is obvious.
General Mike Flynn — about as MAGA as it gets — broke with Fox News warmongers to warn Trump that an all-out war against Iran, China, Russia, Pakistan, and North Korea would be monumentally challenging. Flynn's message: your own base doesn't want this war.
After back-to-back meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Rubio emerged looking like a deer in headlights. Both counterparts delivered the same message: the US is out of munitions and China is running the show now.
An analyst cited on the show argued that America's failure to subordinate Iran accelerates BRICS realignment and cements China as the primary development partner across Southwest Asia. If the US can't subordinate Iran, it can't subordinate Russia or China either.
After being blocked by Xi Jinping, Trump flooded social media with AI-generated images of himself commanding fighter jets over Iran and declaring 'guardians of the world.' It was digital bravado designed to paper over the fact that he had just destroyed the US security umbrella in the Middle East.
Trump flew to China, let Xi Jinping lecture him about the Thucydides trap while nodding along, and came back claiming a Boeing jet victory. Xi only agreed to 25% of the jets previously promised — and even that deal is now reportedly falling apart over export restriction concerns.
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