In 2016, a Chinese man had already predicted that Trump would win, then the United States would attack Iran, and eventually the U.S. would be defeated. That man is Professor Jiang. Since 1984, he has made predictions about U.S. presidents, and they turned out to be correct. Today I listened to him again, and he was making another prediction—this time about a civil war in America.
I listened and started wondering: is this really possible? Then I thought about the foundation of U.S. policy—fight, dominate, and seize. This policy worked as long as the world was unipolar, meaning there was only one global “boss”: the United States. After 9/11, America shifted its full focus to the Middle East and Afghanistan to crush Muslim resistance movements. Twenty years passed, and during that time, two new powers emerged in the world: China and Russia.
At the same time, social media spread awareness globally. As long as media was centralized, it was controlled. But with the rise of social media, it became decentralized—beyond control. As a result, both the American public and the global community began to see the U.S. as a dominant power that imposes wars on others.
Now the U.S. faces two major challenges. The first is the growing awareness of its own people. If the American establishment becomes frustrated with this awareness, it may try to suppress it through internal agencies—but it will fail. Internal fractures will begin. The second challenge is China and Russia, which, through allies like Iran, are following a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy. China aims to weaken the U.S. economy through many small blows, while Russia sharpens the blade.
China and Russia are not only doing this—they also want to end the dominance of the U.S. dollar. At present, all major global economies are directly or indirectly tied to the United States. In my opinion, a war with Iran would entangle the U.S. so deeply that its economy would begin to collapse—and with it, the world’s major economies.
Just as you cannot fight a crocodile while living in the river, similarly you cannot fight Iran and Yemen while keeping 20% of the world’s economy concentrated in chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb. Yet the U.S. is doing exactly that—fighting both Yemen and Iran. It has reached a crossroads where every path leads to problems: a rock ahead and a hard place behind.
What do you think—if the U.S. fights Iran for 42 days and then retreats, will it still retain its superpower status? Allies will question: what kind of superpower is this, that fought for just 42 days and then stopped? That too against Iran, whose economy and military are not comparable to America’s. And if the U.S. continues the war, the world’s economy will keep shaking. With each shock, America may be forced to step back. Then what?
If civil unrest begins within the U.S., or if people, fed up with inflation, come out into the streets—won’t the situation worsen? Wherever a state uses force against its own people, it ultimately loses.
In Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah, the signs of the rise and fall of nations are described. Many of those signs seem to apply to the United States today. In the past, whenever such signs appeared in nations, their empires eventually collapsed. It’s just a matter of time—perhaps 10 to 20 years. But in the next 20 years, America will not be what it is today.
Global leadership may shift into the hands of either China or Russia. Do not underestimate Iran—according to me, it has already pushed the United States onto a path from which returning seems nearly impossible.
