Why We Must Get Out of Iran: Peace is Good For your Business; War Is Good For Their Business

How the Iran war became China and Russia's live-fire laboratory, and why Americans should demand it stop.

In November 2024, Americans decisively voted for the anti-war ticket. Our nation elected the guys who spent years warning us that a war with Iran would be the dumbest thing a president could do. And they were right. Here's the proof, in Donald Trump's own words, November 29, 2011:

In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2011

He said what he said. He said it again in 2012 and 2013.¹ He built an entire critique around the idea that only a desperate, incompetent president would start a war with Iran to save face.

And his running mate agreed. JD Vance sat down with Tim Dillon in October 2024 and said it plainly: "Our interest, I think, very much is in not going to war with Iran. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country."²

They were right then. Both of them. So what changed? Because the situation in Iran didn't change. The Islamic Republic didn't suddenly become more dangerous in February 2026 than it was in October 2024. What changed is that a president who promised restraint surrounded himself with people who wanted a war, and then launched one without consulting the very institutions designed to prevent catastrophic miscalculations. The State Department wasn't consulted. The Pentagon wasn't consulted. The NSC, the DIA, the NSA were all sidelined. According to the White House's own spokesperson, the President acted on "a feeling."³

A feeling. Thirteen Americans are dead because of a feeling.⁴

The country is never just the country

Every American war since Korea has been a proxy war. Not a war between two nations, but a collision between worldviews using those nations as the stage. Vietnam wasn't about Vietnam. It was about containing Soviet influence. Afghanistan wasn't about Afghanistan. It was about bleeding the Soviets dry, and then twenty years later, it was about... well, nobody ever did figure out what it was about, but there's compelling evidence that it was about control of raw materials used in narcotics... Iraq wasn't about weapons of mass destruction. It was about reshaping the Middle East into a region that would continue pricing its oil in US dollars and hosting American military bases.

Iran isn't about Iran either.

The country on the receiving end of American bombs is never the actual target. The real actors in this war are the US dollar system on one side and the emerging BRICS financial order on the other. Iran is just the ground they're fighting over.

And the people who understand this best are in Beijing and Moscow.

China didn't stumble into this conflict by accident. China built Iran's military technology stack from the ground up. Iran's GPS capability runs on China's BeiDou satellite network.⁵ Iran's electronic warfare systems are Chinese. Iran's offensive cyber capability, the same capability currently being used to attack American financial institutions, medical systems, and telecom networks, was built by Chinese engineers. China supports Iran's ballistic missile program, both conventional and nuclear. And just before the shooting started, China delivered a confirmed $5 billion weapons package to Iran that included CM-302 anti-ship missiles, Sunflower-200 kamikaze drones, and YLC-8B anti-stealth radar systems.⁶

Every Chinese system deployed against US forces in Iran is a live test. Every American intercept teaches Beijing exactly what its own weapons' weaknesses are. Every failed Iranian missile launch tells China what to fix before a confrontation over Taiwan.⁷ Iran is China's live-fire laboratory, and we are paying $5 billion a week in ammunition costs to run their experiments for them.⁸

Russia plays a different but equally strategic role. Washington Post, NBC, and CNN all confirmed on March 6 that Russia is providing Iran with the precise locations of US warships and aircraft, including facilities whose coordinates don't appear on any public map.⁹ Russian satellite intelligence helps Iran choose targets and identify the gaps in American coverage. Russian tactical support flows to the IRGC, which passes it downstream to Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. Russia deployed S-400 air defense systems and Su-35 fighters with electronic warfare pods. When the S-400 failed against the American strike package, Russia got priceless real-world performance data that no amount of simulation could replicate.¹⁰

This is the reciprocal relationship nobody in Washington wants to talk about. Iran taught Russia how to build Shahed drones during the Ukraine war. Iran didn't just ship drones to Moscow. They showed Russia how to build manufacturing plants and produce them domestically. Iran taught Russia how to evade international sanctions and generate revenue without the US dollar. Now Russia returns the favor with intelligence, weapons, ammunition, and targeting data.¹¹

As long as Iran can degrade the United States militarily and economically, Russia and China win by watching. They see our capabilities. They see our limitations. They watch how their systems perform against ours. And they do it all without putting a single Russian or Chinese soldier in the line of fire.¹²

The Taliban survived twenty years of American military power and walked back into Kabul the day we left. Iran's theocracy is built on the theology of martyrdom against "the great Satan." We are giving them exactly the narrative they need to sustain their regime for a generation. A new Ayatollah was installed within hours of the old one's assassination, and the Islamic Republic sent the world a message: we are not going anywhere. We have survived worse than this, and we have powerful friends who want to see America bleed.

The math doesn't work

Set aside the geopolitics for a moment and look at the numbers, because the numbers are devastating.

Iran's Shahed drones cost roughly $35,000 to build. It takes two Patriot missiles to intercept one, at $3.3 million each.¹³ That is a 188-to-1 cost ratio in Iran's favor. By day six, the Pentagon reported to Congress that the United States had spent $11.3 billion in munitions.¹⁴ The US produces approximately 700 Patriot missiles per year. THAAD production runs at about 10 per week. We burned through 92 THAAD interceptors, which is 14% of the total American stockpile, and we physically relocated THAAD launchers from South Korea to the Middle East to do it.¹⁵

Think about what that means for Taiwan. A 2023 CSIS war game found that the United States runs out of critical munitions within one week of a conflict over Taiwan.¹⁶ We are currently burning through those exact munitions in Iran at a rate that production cannot replace. Every interceptor we fire at a Shahed drone is one fewer interceptor available if China moves on Taipei. Beijing is watching this math very carefully.¹⁷

The war costs more than $5 billion per week.⁸ The US national debt sits at 101% of GDP.¹⁸ Oil is above $100 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is closed, and when Trump declared victory on March 6 and then spent the following days begging other nations to help reopen it, every single one of them declined.³

Twenty percent of the world's oil moves through that strait. Only 7% of American oil imports depend on it. But 50% of China's oil, 40% of India's, and 70% of Japan's oil comes through those waters.¹⁸ A prolonged closure risks unwinding the Japanese yen carry trade, which would send shockwaves through American financial markets.

But the real threat isn't the Strait itself. The real threat is what Gulf oil producers do next. Multiple Gulf states are actively reconsidering whether to continue pricing their oil in US dollars.¹³ If they start selling oil in yuan, rubles, or a basket of currencies, the structural demand for US dollars collapses. Read that last line again and REALLY commit it to memory, because if that happens, the mechanism by which the American standard of living is based upon gets cut in half within a decade. The US dollar's value is not based on American GDP. It is based on the fact that the world's most important commodity is priced in dollars. Remove that, and every American pays the price at the gas pump, the grocery store, and the mortgage office.

To learn more about why, watch my video on the creation of the petro-dollar.

Peace keeps the dollar alive. War accelerates its replacement.

A feeling

The decision-making process that produced this disaster would be comic if people weren't dying. Trump launched a major war without consulting his own Secretary of State, his own Pentagon leadership, his own National Security Council, or any of the intelligence agencies whose entire purpose is to prevent exactly this kind of miscalculation.³ The two people who did advise him, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, are not career diplomats or military strategists. Arms control experts who reviewed their briefings say they "fatally misunderstood basic technical and historical matters" regarding Iran's nuclear program.³

Congress, as usual, was nowhere to be found. No declaration of war. No debate. No vote. No constitutional process whatsoever. The branch of government specifically empowered by the Constitution to decide when Americans fight and die simply sat on its hands, "seemingly uninterested in performing its Constitutional duty," as Ron Paul put it.¹⁹

The Result:

1. Loss of confidence Only 25% of Americans support this war.⁴
2. Loss of Life Thirteen Americans are dead.
3. Loss of Confidence in US Power The regime is still standing, and the Strait is still closed.
4. Loss of Credibility with US Allies The President who declared victory two weeks ago is now begging for help from countries that have no interest in bailing him out.

This is not decisive leadership. This is improvisation with American lives.

Peace is your business; war is theirs

If you run a business, you need stable oil prices. You need a stable dollar. You need open trade routes and predictable regulation. You need your customers to have disposable income and your supply chains to function. Every single one of those things is under direct threat right now because of a war that didn't need to happen against a country that posed no imminent threat to the American homeland.

Your business needs peace. Your family needs peace. Your retirement account needs peace.

Their business needs war. The defense contractors who burn through $5 billion a week in munitions need war. The intelligence agencies whose budgets expand with every new conflict need war. The financial establishment that gains leverage during every crisis needs war. The people who profit from chaos, dependency, and emergency powers need war, and they need your compliance to get it.

We are blessed by geography. The United States sits thousands of miles from Iran across an ocean. There is no practical reason to engage militarily with a country that cannot project force to the American mainland. We have no treaty obligation. We have no vital national interest at stake that couldn't be served by diplomacy and commerce. The only people who benefit from this war are the brokers of power who sit inside the defense and intelligence establishments, and the foreign adversaries in Beijing and Moscow who are using Iran as a proving ground for the weapons they'll eventually turn on us.

A prayer for wisdom

I'm speaking now to the people who voted for Donald Trump. You didn't vote for this. You voted for the man who warned us about exactly this, back when he was still thinking clearly about foreign policy. You voted for the ticket that said war with Iran was a distraction and a waste. Seventy-five percent of Americans agree with that vote right now, and this isn't a partisan observation. Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie are working together on a War Powers Resolution because they both see the same thing: an unconstitutional war that is bleeding this country dry while our actual adversaries take notes.²⁰

I have written before about the Christian's role in political discourse, and I believe that role demands honesty even when honesty is uncomfortable. It demands that we tell the truth to the people we elected; not just the people you want to treat as "other" because they voted differently.

Mr. President, you were right in 2011. You were right in 2012 and 2013. Vice President Vance was right in October 2024, and a ton of Americans voted for you as a non-interventionist, America-First, peace candidate! The wisdom of those convictions hasn't expired. If anything, the last three weeks have proven just how right you were. I am asking you to remember what you knew before the advisors and the momentum and the fog of war convinced you otherwise.

Put this down. Bring the troops home. Reopen the Strait. Stop burning through the munitions we'll need if China actually does move on Taiwan. Stop giving Beijing and Moscow a free education in American military capabilities and limitations. Stop handing Iran's theocracy the martyrdom narrative they need to survive another generation. Stop debasing the dollar for a conflict that serves no American interest.

Lord, grant wisdom to the men who hold power over the lives of our sons and daughters. Grant them the humility to recognize a mistake and the courage to correct it. Grant peace to the families who have already lost someone in this war, and spare the families who will lose someone if it continues. And grant us all the clarity to see that peace is not weakness. Peace is the foundation of prosperity, and prosperity is the foundation of a nation worth defending. Christ has dominion over everything, including the affairs of nations and the hearts of presidents.

Be good to each other. And be loud about demanding peace. Our future depends on it.

Footnotes

¹ Trump posted multiple tweets warning against an Iran war between 2011 and 2013, including October 22, 2012: "Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected," and November 10, 2013: "Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly."

² JD Vance on The Tim Dillon Show, Episode 414, recorded October 26, 2024. Full transcript at Singju Post. Reported by Times of Israel and NBC News.

³ Ron Paul, "Just Get Out! Now!", LewRockwell.com, March 2026.

⁴ Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), NBC Bay Area and multiple national media appearances, March 2026. See NBC News full interview and KQED.

⁵ Al Jazeera, "The war of signals", March 12, 2026.

⁶ Global Defense Corp, March 7, 2026.

⁷ Bloomberg, March 18, 2026. Also Jerusalem Post.

⁸ CSIS and European Business Magazine.

⁹ Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, March 6, 2026.

¹⁰ Global Defense Corp, March 2, 2026.

¹¹ Defense Security Monitor, February 27, 2026.

¹² Al Jazeera and Defence Security Asia.

¹³ Thierry Meyssan, "The Unforeseen Consequences of Iranian Resistance", LewRockwell.com, March 2026.

¹⁴ Pentagon report to Congress, cited by CSIS. $11.3 billion by March 10, 2026.

¹⁵ TIME and Stars and Stripes, March 12, 2026.

¹⁶ CSIS 2023 war game cited by TIME and Asia Times.

¹⁷ Foreign Policy, March 5, 2026.

¹⁸ Brandon Smith, "War, Oil and Debt", LewRockwell.com, March 2026.

¹⁹ Ron Paul, "Just Get Out! Now!" (see fn. 3).

²⁰ KQED and Khanna's Fox News op-ed.