Containing China: The endgame in Iran war?

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on March 6, 2026. [AFP] 

Many of us read George Orwell’s The Animal Farm. His other, more famous, but I guess less-read book is 1984. In the title of the forward-looking book, written in 1984, he just reversed 48. Orwell foresaw the internet age and its surveillance.

Remember, “Big Brother is watching you.”  Is that not CCTV? Cameras on the road?  Satellite images?

The other famous quote from 1984 is “war is peace.” Is that what’s being implemented through the Iran war?

Will there be peace once the Iran war is over? We have had wars before, including world wars. The Middle East has had its share, including two Gulf wars, the Iran-Iraq war, and the invasion of Lebanon and Gaza, among many others. Never mind, it’s home to two holy cities, Mecca and Jerusalem.

George Orwell might have been satirical in declaring war as peace. But the proponents of the Iranian war are convinced that peace will come through war.

Defeating Iran will bring peace in the Middle East and beyond.

Iran proxies will be silenced in Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere. In peace through war, we must not forget the emotional consequences of losing a war. Germany rearmed after its defeat in World War I.

How will Iran, a country with a deep sense of identity, react to defeat or near-defeat? Could it become more united, more belligerent? Who are her sympathisers, and how will they react?

What of her neighbours, Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Let’s add the neighbours across the Persian Gulf, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and UAE.

The purpose of invading Iran is to ensure that it will not be a threat to anyone in the Middle East and beyond; there will be peace through war.

Lasting peace

If history is reliable and has manners, peace through war is contestable unless the world is “shocked” like in WWII to sue for peace. And that seems to be the strategy, to shock Iran into suing for peace. But will it be a lasting peace?

If the Iranian regime falls as other regimes fell in Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, Syria or Afghanistan, who will take over? Will he or she ensure peace prevails? Will Iran’s war, like others, prove George Orwell right?

My views on wars are shaped by living experience. I have listened keenly to those who went through the trauma of the Mau Mau war and post-election violence. I interviewed veterans of WW II, and one man whose father was a member of the SS.  War is only peace to those away from the front lines and to survivors after the war is over. 

Most veterans die with secrets, denying us the reality of war.  Many only talk about the war experiencers towards the end of their lives.

The reality of war is further diluted by the romanticisation of war through movies.  On whether peace will come to Iran through war, we can only wait till the war is over.  

The Iran war is also seen through another angle - containment of China by the United States (US). It’s argued silently that one way to contain China is to cut off its economic life, oil from Venezuela and Iran. In 2025, a fifth of Chinese oil came from Venezuela and Iran, says Carnegie Endowment.

That is not enough to contain China on the energy front. Other major sources of Chinese oil include Russia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Iraq, and Brazil, says the Columbia Energy Policy Centre. More oil can be imported from the countries unaffected by the Iran war.

The most immediate beneficiary is Russia, which shares a long border with China and already has oil pipelines connected.  China has also stockpiled oil for such a crisis. It is also unlikely that China was taken by surprise in the Iran war. Looking at the networks China has built through the One Belt, One Road initiative, it’s unlikely that it will run out of oil or energy.  Her saving grace is that a third of all cars in China are now electric, hence less demand for oil. Coal and renewables account for about 80 per cent of China’s energy.

That makes the containment of China through energy unlikely. The emerging reality is that the rise of China as an economic power is inevitable. Any geo-economics to contest that?  That leaves weakening Iran and neutralising any threat to Israel and US Gulf allies as the raison d’etre for the Iran war.

Add the American projection of power and distraction from domestic politics. Containing China is further falsified by rising oil prices in the US and their political consequences.

Oil producers

Trying to contain China through oil would be counterproductive: she will fall into the arms of Russia, hungry for an energy market after years of sanctions.

A China-Russia axis would further mute any containment. Will China help African oil producers produce more? Is Kenya one of the candidates? 

 But China has a secret weapon if any race tries to contain it: rare earth metals. It can leverage on that in any contest with the West. What we can’t contest is that from the US president’s speeches, controlling oil is an objective. Remember drill, drill? 

Where do we go from here?  When elephants fight, the grass suffers. We are the grass in the US-Israel-Iran war.

Beyond rising oil prices and hopefully no shortage to warrant working from home, there is the spectre of global economic slowdown and hopefully no recession.

In satire and movies, war can be peace. In reality, both on the battlefields and in our pockets, there can be peace.

The Iran war will end soon, my crystal ball says, and our hypothesis will be tested.

The economic cost of war and unintended consequences will end it soon. The echoes of that war will reverberate into the future, just like the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.