War with China
- Thread starter Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
- Start date
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی
Democrats are heavily favored to flip the House. Polymarket currently prices this at ~85–86% for a Democratic House majority.
Multiple forecasters (Cook, Sabato's Crystal Ball, Inside Elections, etc.) show a favorable environment for the out-of-power party in midterms, with generic ballot polling and special-election trends leaning Democratic.
If Democrats win the House, they would almost certainly impeach (they did so twice during Trump's first term with a House majority). Betting markets on impeachment by end-2026 are low (~11–13% on Polymarket) because that deadline mostly precedes the new Congress; longer-term odds (by 2027–2028) are much higher once a Democratic House is in place.
A Senate trial is automatic once the House impeaches.
35 seats are up in 2026 (22 currently Republican-held, 13 Democratic-held).
With a supermajority in the Senate, they can remove him from office. The 2026 midterms will seat the 120th Congress (starting January 2027).
What,....you really thought they were looking for waste, fraud and abuse?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی
Is that so? All this time a lot of people were never quite sure what IT was......
Here I always thought it was that old salt sucker from the original star trek series!
Spot on!
Last edited:
There should be no way Democrats could win the Senate, the third of seats up for election are all wrong for Democrats, and yet they have a 50/50 chance of winning.
There is currently appears to be a 20% shift across the board towards Democrats. There is a lot of time for that to turn around, but there is also a lot of time for that to get worse for Republicans.
Into the Night
Contributor
All of Iran.
The US has total air supremacy, Wally.
It can't.
So?
I'm not talking about an occupation, Wally. YOU ARE.
Iran is not Iraq, Wally.
Iran is a nation, just like Iraq is. Iran is currently facing civil war.
What occupation, Wally?
And it has already effectively lost, Wally.
Aircraft invade Iran routinely. Iran can do nothing about it, Wally.
Into the Night
Contributor
Into the Night
Contributor
The blockade has effectively done that already. We also destroy their oil terminals.
Nope. Even further damage could be inflicted, if we so choose.
No, he won't.
We do have the winning hand.
Into the Night
Contributor
Argument from randU fallacy. Random numbers are not data, Wally.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی
How the Iran war made China stronger
The conventional wisdom was that a destabilizing war in the oil-producing heart of the Middle East would badly hurt China, the world's leading oil importer, and its sputtering economy. It hasn’t worked out that way. So far, China is weathering the US-Israeli war with Iran better than many of its neighbors and looks set to emerge relatively stronger.
Unlike Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, who have launched wars against overmatched opponents only to face unwelcome surprises, President Xi Jinping has avoided unnecessary risks to position his country for long-term strength and stability.
We saw Xi’s caution in his responses to both the COVID-19 pandemic and China’s structural economic weaknesses of recent years. We also saw it in Xi’s unwillingness to directly support Russia’s war in Ukraine, or even to recognize Putin’s territorial claims.
Now we see it in Xi’s reluctance to criticize Trump’s bombing campaign against his allies in Tehran, or to come to Iran’s direct aid. The invitation for the US president to visit Beijing next month stands.
It helps that China is less damaged by this war than it would have been even a few years ago. Its oil stockpiles and strong refining capacity limit the risk of near-term fuel shortages.
Pipeline gas imports and domestic gas production now ease its need for liquified natural gas from the Middle East. If the war drags on, Beijing can get more energy from friendly countries, particularly Russia, and can turn to both its vast coal reserves and its renewable power sources.
The war has even provided some advantages. China’s fully-integrated supply chains make it better able than rival exporters to contain production costs. And the continuing disruptions to energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, which have sharply increased both oil prices and the cost of insurance for shipping, will boost demand for China’s clean tech exports, lifting long-term investment in electrification while diversifying away from oil and gas.
These processes were well underway before this war – they’re central to what Eurasia Group identified as 2026’s second-biggest geopolitical risk, the growing divergence between China’s electrostate and America’s petrostate models – but the conflict’s destruction of fossil-fuel infrastructure and fears of more to come will now accelerate them.
Strategically, China also benefits from a war that has weakened American firepower. The conflict has depleted US stockpiles of long-range cruise missiles and interceptors that will take years to rebuild.
Those shortages are already rippling outward: THAAD components have been pulled from South Korea, Patriot batteries are unavailable for Ukraine and US allies in Asia, and the redeployment of US naval and air assets to the Middle East has thinned coverage in the Indo-Pacific.
The cumulative effect is to erode American deterrence in the theaters where Beijing has the most at stake, while allies from Seoul to Tokyo quietly reassess how durable Washington’s security commitments really are.
All of this deepens Washington’s already-acute dependence on Beijing’s exports of the critical minerals needed for the production of new weaponry and ammunition. The US could plausibly find workarounds to China’s restrictions in the next three to five years, but a decade is a more realistic timeframe.
In the meantime, Trump will have a weaker negotiating hand with his Chinese counterpart, with whom he plans to meet in Beijing next month.
China also benefits from ongoing damage to America’s reputation as a reliable international actor as both wealthy and developing countries look to hedge their bets on Washington’s foreign policy future.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی
What is the war on Iran teaching China about the United States’ resilience?
Whether the US-Israeli war on Iran wraps up quickly or drags on, the repercussions will be felt for years, reshaping warfare, geopolitics and energy security as well as how the world sees the United States and its tactical and strategic capabilities. In the second of a three-part series, we examine some of the implications likely to unfold over months and years, affecting the future of conflict in an increasingly unstable world.
As the United States and Israel wage war on Iran, they are also operating a real-time laboratory of military lessons for Beijing, which has been closely taking notes on how Washington exercises power and sustains a costly and politically fraught campaign.
Now in its sixth week, the conflict is a rare window for China to gauge American wartime resilience and holds implications for Beijing’s strategic assessment and decision-making.
Whether the US-Israeli war on Iran wraps up quickly or drags on, the repercussions will be felt for years, reshaping warfare, geopolitics and energy security as well as how the world sees the United States and its tactical and strategic capabilities. In the second of a three-part series, we examine some of the implications likely to unfold over months and years, affecting the future of conflict in an increasingly unstable world.
As the United States and Israel wage war on Iran, they are also operating a real-time laboratory of military lessons for Beijing, which has been closely taking notes on how Washington exercises power and sustains a costly and politically fraught campaign.
Now in its sixth week, the conflict is a rare window for China to gauge American wartime resilience and holds implications for Beijing’s strategic assessment and decision-making.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی
China moves to block entrance to disputed South China Sea
China is employing ships and a barrier to tighten control of the entrance to the South China Sea amid roiling tension, satellite imagery obtained by Reuters shows.
China's defense ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the deployment or its timing.
Diplomats say the drills and broader tensions are being closely watched amid fears that China could take advantage while the U.S. is distracted by the Iran conflict.