Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn, and honestly, I am still processing everything that has happened over the last forty-eight hours. It is quiet here in Jerusalem tonight, but it is that heavy kind of quiet, you know? Like the whole world is holding its breath.
Herman Poppleberry here, and yeah, heavy is the word for it. Our housemate Daniel sent us a prompt this morning that really gets to the heart of this silence. He was asking about the massive geopolitical chess game happening behind the scenes of Operation Epic Fury. While the headlines are focusing on the strikes in Tehran and the loss of the Supreme Leader, Daniel wants us to look at the players who are notably quiet right now: Russia and China.
It is a brilliant question because their silence is deafening. We have seen the biggest shift in Middle Eastern power dynamics in our lifetime over the weekend, and yet the two major powers that have spent years building up Iran as a strategic partner seem to be standing on the sidelines. We are going to dive deep into why that is, what it means for the Axis of Resistance, and how this connects to everything from the war in Ukraine to the future of Taiwan.
And just to set the stage for anyone who might be catching up, we are recording this on March first, twenty-twenty-six. The reports coming out of Iran are still fragmented, but it seems clear that the joint United States and Israeli operation on Saturday did not just hit infrastructure. It hit the very top of the Iranian leadership. We discussed the potential for this kind of power vacuum back in episode eight hundred eighty, but seeing it actually unfold is something else entirely.
It really is. So let us start with the network itself, the Axis of Resistance. For years, we have talked about this as a coherent strategic concept. But Herman, with the head of the snake effectively gone, does the body still move? Is this a unified alliance or just a collection of groups that happened to have a common benefactor?
That is the central question for the next few months. Traditionally, the Axis of Resistance functioned on a hub and spoke model. Tehran was the hub, providing the funding, the advanced weaponry, and the ideological glue. But what people often miss is that groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the various militias in Iraq and Syria have become increasingly autonomous over the last five years. They are not just mindless proxies; they have their own local political interests and, crucially, their own internal command structures. This is what they call the Unity of Fronts doctrine. It was designed to survive exactly this kind of decapitation strike.
Right, we saw that with the Houthi campaign in the Red Sea. Even when Tehran was reportedly calling for de-escalation in late twenty-twenty-four, the Houthis kept pushing. It suggested a level of local agency that caught a lot of Western analysts off guard.
Exactly. And the reason they can do that is because of how Iran decentralized the technology. They did not just give these groups missiles; they gave them the factories and the technical know-how to build them locally. So even if the Quds Force leadership is in disarray right now, the actual manufacturing and operational capability is spread out across a dozen different geographic locations. It is less like a traditional army and more like a decentralized autonomous organization, but with ballistic missiles. The question now is whether the Quds Force regional bureaus—the guys on the ground in Beirut and Baghdad—can maintain coordination without a clear mandate from a living Supreme Leader.
So you are saying we might see a fragmentation where these groups start acting entirely on their own initiative? That sounds like it could be even more unpredictable than when Tehran was in control.
It is a huge risk. If there is no one in Tehran to write the checks or set the red lines, you might see a group like the Islamic Resistance in Iraq decide to escalate on their own terms to prove they are still relevant. We are already seeing some of that with the retaliatory strikes on United States bases in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates over the weekend. The question is whether those were coordinated responses or just local commanders lashing out.
That brings us to the big sponsors. Let us talk about China first. Beijing is in a really tight spot here. On one hand, they are Iran's biggest customer. They have been buying eighty to ninety percent of Iranian oil exports for years, mostly through this incredibly sophisticated shadow fleet of tankers that hide their transponders and do ship-to-ship transfers in the middle of the ocean. If Iran collapses into civil war or if its oil infrastructure gets taken out permanently, China has a massive energy security problem.
They really do. People forget that China is the world's largest crude oil importer. They are incredibly vulnerable to any disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, where about twenty percent of the world's oil flows. But here is the flip side, and this is where the chess game gets dark. Every carrier group the United States moves into the Persian Gulf is one less carrier group available in the Pacific. Beijing also spent a lot of diplomatic capital brokering that Saudi-Iran rapprochement back in twenty-twenty-three. They wanted to be the new adult in the room, the peacemaker. Now, that entire legacy is at risk of being incinerated.
You are talking about Taiwan.
I am. If you look at the twenty-twenty-six United States National Defense Strategy that was just released a few weeks ago, there was that shocking omission of any explicit mention of Taiwan. That sent shockwaves through Taipei. Now, if the United States gets bogged down in a massive, protracted conflict in the Middle East, rebuilding a post-war Iran or managing a collapsed state, that is a gift to Beijing. It provides them with a strategic window where the United States simply does not have the bandwidth to fight a two-front war.
So China's calculus might be to let the Middle East burn just enough to keep Washington distracted, but not so much that the oil stops flowing entirely? That is a very narrow tightrope to walk.
It is, and it explains why their response has been so measured. They are calling for restraint, they are asking for emergency sessions at the United Nations, but they are not moving a single ship. They are essentially saying, we will let the Americans and Israelis do the heavy lifting of dismantling the regime, and then we will step in with the Belt and Road Initiative to buy up the pieces and provide the reconstruction loans. It is a predatory kind of patience.
It is fascinating because it contrasts so sharply with Russia. Moscow has been much more active in actually arming Iran recently. We have seen those reports about the delivery of the first batch of sixteen Sukhoi thirty-five fighter jets and the components for the S-four hundred air defense systems. But Russia is also stretched to the breaking point in Ukraine. Herman, what does Putin get out of this right now?
For Putin, Iran is a force multiplier. Remember, Iran was the one providing the Shahed drones when Russia's own domestic production was failing in twenty-twenty-three and twenty-twenty-four. They have a deep technological and military quid pro quo going on. But more importantly, Russia wants to prove that the United States cannot just change regimes at will in the twenty-first century. If Iran falls easily, it sends a message to every other authoritarian state that they are next.
But Russia has not actually intervened to help Iran during these strikes. They have the S-four hundred systems there, but they did not seem to stop the joint strikes on Saturday. Was that an inability to stop them, or a choice?
Probably a bit of both. The S-four hundred is a formidable system, but when you are facing the level of electronic warfare and stealth capability that the United States and Israel brought to bear in Operation Epic Fury, nothing is foolproof. Also, Russia cannot afford to get into a direct kinetic conflict with the United States right now. Their entire strategy is about staying just below the threshold of direct war while making life as difficult as possible for the West. It is not that they are choosing to let Iran suffer; it is that they are physically and economically incapable of doing more while their best units are tied up in the Donbas.
It feels like Russia and China are acting as technological anchors rather than military allies. They will give Iran the tools to fight, but they will not get into the trenches with them. So, is this silence strategic patience, or just a tacit acceptance that the old regime was a liability?
I think for China, it is strategic patience. For Russia, it is inability masked as restraint. Neither of them actually likes the Islamic Republic's ideology; they just liked its utility as a thorn in America's side. If a new, more stable, but still anti-Western leadership emerges from the IRGC, they will be the first to call and offer congratulations.
That brings up a point Daniel mentioned in his prompt about the non-aligned world, the Global South. We have seen some very strong statements from places like South Africa, Brazil, and even India. They are not necessarily pro-Iran, but they are very anti-intervention.
This is where the narrative war is being won or lost. In the Global South, there is a very deep skepticism of what they call the rules-based international order. When they see the United States and Israel launching preemptive strikes, and then they hear about things like the accidental bombing of that primary school in southern Iran where over a hundred children were killed, it reinforces the idea that the rules only apply when the West wants them to. Even Turkey is in a bind. President Erdogan has to balance his NATO membership with a domestic population that is furious about the strikes. Turkey does not want a collapsed Iran on its border—that means millions of refugees and a total disruption of regional trade.
India's position is particularly interesting to me. They have been trying to build this International North-South Transport Corridor through Iran to bypass Pakistan and get to Russia. They have invested heavily in the port of Chabahar. If that corridor is blocked or destroyed, India's strategic ambitions in Central Asia take a massive hit.
India is playing the ultimate balancing act. They are part of the Quad with the United States, but they are also a key member of BRICS. They want to be a bridge, but right now the bridge is on fire. You saw their statement yesterday calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities. It was very carefully worded to avoid blaming either side, but the underlying message was: stop breaking the global economy.
And that economic piece is huge. We have already seen oil prices spiking. If this turns into a full-scale regional war that shuts down the Suez Canal again, we are looking at a global recession that would make twenty-twenty-four look like a golden age.
This is why the African Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are so terrified. They are still recovering from the inflation shocks of the Ukraine war. They cannot afford another energy spike. So there is this growing pressure from the Global South on the United States to finish this quickly and not let it turn into another twenty-year occupation.
But how do you finish it quickly when the central government has collapsed? This is the ghost of Iraq in two thousand three haunting the whole room. You can take out the leadership, but if you do not have a plan for the day after, you just create a giant vacuum that gets filled by the most radical elements.
And that is exactly what China and Russia are counting on. They know the United States is traditionally very bad at the day after. They are waiting for the moment when the West gets exhausted by the chaos, and then they will swoop in with their alternative model of stability through infrastructure and authoritarian control.
It is a grim outlook, Herman. But let us look at the practical takeaways for our listeners. If you are watching this chess game, what are the key indicators to look for in the next week?
First, watch the shadow fleet. If the tankers stop moving or if they start getting seized in large numbers, that tells you China's red line has been crossed. Second, look at the rhetoric coming out of the IRGC in the provinces. If we see local commanders starting to issue their own fatwas or making independent military moves, we know the central command is truly dead. And third, keep a very close eye on the Taiwan Strait. If Beijing starts increasing its naval exercises while the United States is busy in the Gulf, we will know they have decided to take advantage of the distraction.
It really feels like we are at a hinge point in history. The old order is being challenged, and the new one has not quite arrived yet. It is a dangerous time to be in the middle of the transition.
It definitely is. And hey, if you are finding this deep dive helpful and you want more of these analytical looks at the world, please take a moment to leave us a review on your podcast app or on Spotify. It genuinely helps other curious people find the show, and we really appreciate the support.
Yeah, it makes a huge difference for us. Also, a big thank you to Daniel for sending in this prompt. It was exactly what we needed to talk about today to make sense of the noise. If you have a question or a weird prompt of your own, you can always reach out to us through the contact form at myweirdprompts.com.
You can also find our full archive there, including those past episodes we mentioned on the IRGC and the future of AI in warfare. There is a lot of context in the back catalog if you want to go deeper.
Well, I think that is a good place to wrap up for today. This has been My Weird Prompts. I am Corn.
And I am Herman Poppleberry. Stay curious, everyone.
And stay safe. We will talk to you next time.
Thanks for listening. We will catch you on the next one.
Goodbye.
Goodbye everyone.
Seriously though, Herman, do you think China will actually move on Taiwan this year?
I think the temptation is higher than it has ever been. If the United States is still flying missions over Tehran in June, all bets are off.
That is a sobering thought. Alright, let us get some coffee.
Sounds good.
Take care, everyone. This has been My Weird Prompts. You can find us on Spotify and at myweirdprompts.com.
Until next time.
