China Has Set Up Iran's Next War in the Middle East

by Gordon G. Chang • March 23, 2025 at 5:00 am

Iran, in short, has a nuclear weapons program because of China. For a long time, the international community looked the other way as the "atomic ayatollahs," in violation of their treaty obligations, worked on building these fearsome devices. President Donald Trump, to his credit, is taking the issue head on.
Tehran almost certainly has [a nuclear bomb] by now. The Iranians themselves have made that clear. There is only a "one-week gap from the issuance of the order to the first test" of a nuclear bomb, according to an April 2024 public statement of a senior Iran lawmaker.
Diplomats from Russia, Iran, and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran's nuclear weapons program. Tehran, bolstered by Beijing and Moscow, publicly said it had no desire to talk to Trump.
There are in fact conversations behind the scenes, but Iran nonetheless would not be as brazen if Beijing were not fully supporting it.
If Waltz is as good as his word -- that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon -- then China, by arming the ayatollahs with nukes, has made sure that the world's next confrontation will be historic.

Diplomats from Russia, Iran and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran's nuclear weapons program. Iran has a nuclear weapons program because of China. China helped Iran possess both missiles and uranium enrichment capability. Pictured: Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi (R), China's Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov hold a press conference in Beijing on March 14, 2025. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

"Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told ABC News's Martha Raddatz on March 16^th.

Waltz's demand was in fact more comprehensive. He said that Iran must also hand over, among other things, missiles and uranium enrichment capability.

China helped Iran possess both. Beijing has set the stage for the next war in the Middle East.

On missiles, there is no doubt where Tehran got its delivery systems. "Most of Iran's liquid-fueled ballistic missiles, including all its longest-range ones, are North Korean missiles with new paint," Bruce Bechtol, author of North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa: Enabling Violence and Instability, told Gatestone.

"The missiles are probably why Trump is now dealing with Iran's nukes."

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Elon Musk as Public Accountant

by Amir Taheri • March 23, 2025 at 4:00 am

In South Sudan, not to mention Gaza, the gunmen in control of what poses as a government need not worry about such basic needs as food, health care, basic schooling and even art and entertainment, because NGOs or UN agencies funded by the US and other Western democracies foot the bill. That leaves the gunmen in control, free to spend whatever resources they can mobilize on buying arms, recruiting fighters and continuing their war.
In Houthi-controlled Yemen, which now says it is at war against the US, more than 60 percent of the food needed to keep the population under control alive and able to fire missiles at US ships comes from foreign aid largely funded by Washington.
Musk is also right to question the wisdom of financing almost 40 percent of such bodies as the Organization of American States, which has just chosen a noted anti-American as its new secretary-general.
As for the United Nations itself, under Secretary General António Guterres, it has become a forum for virtue-signaling anti-American propaganda.
The Trump-Musk cost-cutting campaign may provide an opportunity for a thorough review of the usefulness of numerous international organizations that may have gone past their sell-by date or even become threats to peace and stability.
One casualty of the 88% cut in the USAID budget may be part of the Iranian opposition to the Islamic regime in Tehran.
Musk could keep Voice of America and Radio Liberty, though not as a propaganda tool for this or that faction in Tehran. They could offer Iranians inside Iran a window to the US, along with professional nonpartisan journalism with what is left of high American standards.

As Elon Musk pursues his "draining the swamp" in Washington, D.C., his plan to reduce the size of the US federal government may have a number of unintended consequences. In some cases, a notable one being UNRWA, which has kept Palestinian militant groups alive for decades, US aid may be one reason why people face endless wars. One casualty of the 88% cut in the USAID budget may be part of the Iranian opposition to the Islamic regime in Tehran. Pictured: A worker removes the U.S. Agency for International Development sign on its then headquarters on February 7, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

As Elon Musk pursues his "draining the swamp" in Washington, D.C., his plan to reduce the size of the US federal government may have a number of unintended consequences.

To be sure, few people might disagree with ending payments to millions of people who continue drawing their Social Security benefits years after having died and been buried.

Even fewer might approve of channeling millions of dollars in aid to NGOs in such emerging economic giants like India and Indonesia, not to mention sinkholes such as Afghanistan or active anti-American states like South Africa.

In some cases, a notable one being UNRWA, which has kept Palestinian militant groups alive for decades, US aid may be one reason why people face endless wars.

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