There are pivotal historical moments, defining the rise and fall of nations and civilizations. America's war against Iran is almost certainly one such historical moment, a turning point where a dominant power experiences the harsh realities of weakness and the profound decay that gnaws at its core, threatening the collapse of the state and the fall of the empire.

America’s war against Iran is akin to the Soviet Union’s war against Afghanistan, a war that reveals the complete collapse of the state, the limitations of its inflated material power, and the shattering of its tools of control, domination, and subjugation.

Today, America is grappling with its own suffocating geostrategic and historical predicament. The war with Iran, with its counterproductive results and disastrous repercussions for American influence and hegemony, has exposed the limitations of America’s military power and the depth of its strategic dilemma. Neither Iran has been subdued nor China stifled; on the contrary, the war with Iran has become America’s own suffocating predicament.

In this toxic strategic climate and at this critical juncture, amidst America’s entanglement in a war of attrition against Iran, its president, Trump, decided to visit China with an army of American capitalist cronies. In his complete strategic blindness, hollow arrogance, and lack of political foresight, he turned a blind eye to the magnitude of his strategic predicament, and ignored the fact that he was in a very precarious position. China was not about to let this exceptional strategic opportunity pass without seizing it, and reaping some of its benefits, as Chinese President Xi Jinping did with Trump.

Had America possessed any remaining strategic sense, the visit to China would not have taken place at this critical and disastrous time for America. But it was Trump’s strategic blindness and hollow arrogance that made the visit, and the two-day summit, a sign of the erosion of American hegemony, and a shattering of the arrogance of its leadership and its president, Trump.

The summit began with Chinese President Xi Jinping defining and focusing in his opening speech on the nature of the exceptional strategic moment, that it is China's historic moment as a global power to discuss world issues with America, not to discuss America's interests. Xi Jinping's statement on 14 May 2026 was noteworthy, “Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major-country relations? Can we meet global challenges together and provide greater stability for the world? Can we build a bright future together for our bilateral relations in the interest of the well-being of the two peoples and the future of humanity? These are the questions vital to history, to the world and to the people... They are the questions of our times that the leaders of major countries need to answer together.”

As for America's interests, for which Trump assembled an army of American capitalist giants, from Elon Musk of Tesla and Jensen Huang of Nvidia to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Trump declared in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, “We have the greatest businessmen, the biggest and I guess the best in the world. We have amazing people and they’re all with me.” Yet China ignored them, leaving them on the sidelines. The most they achieved was attending a formal dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing!

Furthermore, the issue of Iran and the Hormuz crisis, which is troubling America, was met with complete indifference from China, masking its disregard for Trump’s demands. There was no public commitment from China to help America resolve its war with Iran, and lift the blockade imposed on the Strait of Hormuz.

There is no strategic mind in China that would not push for the continuation of the war. The Iran war is America’s predicament, its suffocating trap, and its destructive geostrategic dilemma. China sees in the war and America’s predicament an element that serves its long-term strategic interests, in addition to the existence of the Caspian Sea, as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, for China’s imports of Iranian oil.

The most that emerged from Trump’s visit to China was a Chinese promise, not a finalized deal, to purchase 200 Boeing aircraft. This falls far short of Trump’s expectations of 500 planes and is even less than the 300-plane deal Beijing agreed to during Trump’s first visit in 2017. This failure was reflected in the drop in Boeing’s stock price following the summit.

Furthermore, the summit only briefly touched upon the sensitive and critical issue of semiconductor chips and their role in artificial intelligence systems. This issue lies at the heart of the US-China technological conflict, as China has made technology a non-negotiable matter of sovereignty.

As for the agricultural agreement concerning soybeans, what was agreed upon represents half of what China imported from the US during the Biden administration before Trump announced the tariff increases that disrupted supply chains. In other words, Trump’s tariffs backfired, as the agreement only restored half of what was already in place, which wouldn't have been considered an achievement.

What China did achieve, however, was Trump’s acknowledgment of the benefits of Chinese companies and investors acquiring agricultural land and farms within the US. Trump stated during the China summit that banning the sale of these lands to foreigners would lead to lower land prices and losses for farmers. What was permitted and legally enforced under Obama and Biden was now endorsed by Trump at the summit, even though the ban was a key campaign promise. Furthermore, Trump announced his explicit support for accepting Chinese students into American universities, a notable retreat from the strict restrictions previously imposed by his administration. These Chinese students in American universities are the future leaders of China, benefiting from American knowledge, expertise, and laboratories funded by US debt to develop China!

The summit was decidedly Chinese. All major strategic issues, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Taiwan issue, technology, and artificial intelligence; all these burning issues that trouble America, were closed to Trump, leaving him with nothing but soybeans and a vague, non-binding promise to buy 200 Boeing aircraft.

The stark strategic irony is that the Chinese president, who met with two American presidents in the US, a summit with Obama in Washington in 2014 and another with Biden in San Francisco in 2023, seeking to secure China’s interests, is now the one Trump is visiting in Beijing to secure America's interests. This is a sign of the erosion of American hegemony and the beginning of the countdown to the empire’s collapse.

Indeed, Putin’s visit to Beijing, and its timing immediately following Trump’s summit there, was no mere coincidence. The invitation to the visit came from Xi Jinping to his Russian counterpart, a message from China to America that the Sino-Russian alliance, which America seeks to break, is growing stronger and more resilient. Beyond that, strategically, it sends a message that the American era is over and the era of Eurasia is upon us!

However, for Islam and its Ummah, there is another strategic reality, a decisive truth: time has turned its wheel, and this is certainly not the era of America, nor Eurasia, nor China. It is undoubtedly the era of the great Islam and the Khilafah (Caliphate) on the Method of the Prophethood, to dispel the darkness of all forms of ignorance and bring humanity out of its darkness into its light, guidance, and mercy.