While the United States has been hypnotized by our domestic battle of Biden versus Trump, China has made a major move in the Middle East.
It has negotiated an alliance of convenience between those thousand-year enemies, the Saudis and Iranians, whose theological feud goes back to the generation after Mohammed.
China has thereby effectively countered the Abraham Accords negotiated by the US, the Arab states (with Saudis in the background) and Israel.
We are now seeing the Chinese game of Wei-chi (the Japanese call it Go), and you practically need a computer to keep track of the moves.
Let's take this from Israel's viewpoint to simplify things. Since 1979, when the US allowed our the Shah of Iran to be overthrown, a fierce new stream of warlike Jihad has come to world power. Shi'ite Iran has turned into a global spider with hairy legs all over the planet, driven by a murderous hatred of Israel, the United States, and the weakened Christian West.
Donald Trump used the Abraham Accords to forge an historic new alliance between Israel and key Arab states, an unprecedented move for peace. China has now countered the Abraham Accords by enabling what could be called the "Anti-Abraham" Accords, which puts China in the driver's seat in the Middle East, now threatening to topple US influence there.
Since China is smarter, more ruthless and much more strategic than our present policy goofballs, China's "Anti-Abraham Accords" solves some deeply stuck problems, while creating new anti-American threats. (Don't imagine that China is not involved in our domestic politics either.)
Israel has been under Iran's guns since Jimmy Carter gave Iran to the mullahs in 1979. Every single day in the last fifty years Iran's school children have been made to shout "Death to Israel! Death to America!" and our brain-stuck foreign policy establishment has only played the pitiful, helpless giant.
The Iranians are now near 95 percent uranium purification, which puts them within weeks of a usable bomb, putting Israel (and other sane nations) under existential threat. Iran's nuclear technology has advanced with the help of two major powers: Russia and China, and both are in the new four-way accord between China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
For now, Putin has been tied down in the Ukraine, which is rapidly draining his resources, his army, and his world-wide credibility.
Let's look at the costs and benefits.
Israel is now seeing a new way to hold off the fanatical mullahs, using China as the new guarantor of the balance of power in the Middle East. Right now, Russia is no threat, but Iran has become a major arms supplier to Russia in its desperate war in Ukraine.
In the absence of any strategic US vision, China can therefore play an immensely powerful role as the nuclear "peace-maker" in the Middle East.
The Saudis have joined China in the "Anti-Abraham" Accords because the Saudis have performed miserably against Iranian aggression. They are also facing a threat to their very existence from the nuclear fanatics next door.
Iran hates the Saudis for ancient religious reasons. Fifty years ago the Ayatollah Khomeini tried to use Muslim pilgrims to the annual Hajj ceremonies in Mecca to overthrow the Saudi Kingdom.
Meanwhile the Biden regime looks even weaker than Jimmy Carter, the silliest US administration in the 20th century. Biden's own dark history combined with his vile hatred of Trump has now created an historic chance for China to stage a major power-play, not just in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also in the Middle East, with its oil resources and endless strife.
China also wants to dethrone the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, which could severely impact our economy. The US dollar has made the United States the safe refuge for capital around the world in troubled times. When things go badly in Europe or South America, capital flees to safe harbors, and the US has been the safest for almost a hundred years.
What we are seeing is therefore not an Axis of Evil, but a kind of Iron Mace of Evil --- an axis has only two end points, but a medieval mace has as many as you want. This is Wei-chi, not chess.
China could tame the existential threat of Iran using its growing links with Tehran. But China will exact a price for its favors, as it always does. Nobody outside of Iran benefits from fanatical mullahs with nukes, which can destroy cities all over the world in 15 minutes.
We do not yet have a viable defense against ICBMs.
Think of an old-fashioned kaleidoscope that clicks into a colorful new pattern whenever you rotate the tube. The kaleidoscope can organize in many different ways, but the power that turns the tube is in control. China just turned the tube.
Goofy Joe has now alienated Europe (by blowing up their Russian gas pipeline); he has shown lethal weakness against a constantly irritated Latin America by collapsing our southern border, while Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba are either bitter US enemies or rising competitors.
Our fuddy-duddy regime just tried to undermine Israel by whipping up left-wing riots that blocked Netanyahu's eminently fair and sensible judicial reforms.
Every friend you alienate will look for better allies in a lethally dangerous world. Israel may prefer the US, because we have so many values in common. But in the face of a malignant nuclear Iran, now allied with the Saudis, and a desperately confused Europe, with newly ambitious South American countries --- all the players will be sorely tempted to abandon the US when push comes to shove.
The "Russia, Russia, Russia" hoax was bad enough for domestic politics, but the real Wizard of Oz today is "China, China, China."
Photo credit: YouTube screengrab