Israel’s ‘War to the Root’ May Unravel America

Alastair Crooke, 14 May 2026

Both Trump’s Iran war and the closely connected Israeli war for Jewish hegemony across the Middle East (termed ‘Permanent Security’ in Israeli military vernacular) are unravelling fast.

Iran is standing defiant in the face of Trump and Israel’s threats, leaving Trump gambling the entire US economy and its global strategic standing on conjuring up a decisive ‘win’ over Iran — however deceitful and Pyrrhic that ‘win’ might prove to be.

Trump has now arrived for the summit in China (reportedly with little groundwork preparation ahead of the visit). Possibly he relies on his usual hubristic notion — that China needs the US more than the US needs China — and he will tell Beijing that ‘you (Xi) have to instruct Iran’ that time is moving on, and that it should capitulate to the US.

Well that’s not going to happen. China supports Iran’s fight for sovereignty and shares with Russia Iran’s objective of seeing the US gone from the Middle East. They want instead a Gulf-led security architecture to replace the American one. Moscow concurs.

Maybe Xi — in politest of language, of course — will tell Trump, rather, that it is Washington that should concede to Iran. The longer he delays, the harder any US course correction will prove to be.