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Dr. Joseph Dillard is a psychotherapist with over forty year's clinical experience treating individual, couple, and family issues. Dr. Dillard also has extensive experience with pain management and meditation training. The creator of Integral Deep Listening (IDL), Dr. Dillard is the author of over ten books on IDL, dreaming, nightmares, and meditation. He lives in Berlin, Germany. See: integraldeeplistening.com and his YouTube channel. He can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Iran: A major geopolitical shift

Joseph Dillard / ChatGPT

While events regarding the war move so fast it is difficult to make any assessment that is not immediately outdated, there are trend lines that predict events. The events that are currently unfolding in the Middle East are indeed momentous

The movement away from support of the petrodollar

Japan has now declared it is willing to buy Gulf oil in yuans, the Chinese currency, a basic demand of Iran for any passage through the Straits of Hormuz. This basically means that the US is in the process of losing petrodollar dominance, as Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, with approximately $1.22 trillion in holdings. South Korea and Indonesia appear to be negotiating similar terms with Iran. Trading in dollars has supported the ability to maintain debt that otherwise would be unsustainable. It is becoming much more difficult to continue to do that.

Food vulnerability

The Gulf states import almost all their food. They will run out in two weeks, as of the third week in March, 2026. To save the collapse of their economies they will have enormous pressure to regain import ability through the Straits. To do that they will have to meet Iranian demands. Those include not only denominating their purchases in yuan but, according to Iran, evict US bases and embassies.

The ability of Iran to repel attack

Multiple well-connected sources have concluded that air bombardment, naval shelling, amphibious landings, or insertion of paratrooping forces into Iran are ineffective or disastrous strategies. The conclusion is that Iran is too well defended by a military structure that is decentralized. It cannot be decapitated. Even multiple nuclear strikes would be unlikely to destroy the capability of Iran to continue the war.

Continuing decline of support for Israel

According to multiple polls, US support for Israel and the war is rapidly declining. Without US support, Israel's continued existence becomes highly doubtful.

Depletion of US and Israeli defenses

As of this date, both the US and Israel have almost run out of missile and drone interceptors, which means that they are increasingly vulnerable to bombardment.

Deadly bombardments by Iran continue

Iran, by contrast, continues to bomb US bases in the Gulf states and also Israel at a rate of three volleys a day, with a total of 30-60 missiles. There is no indication that Iran is running out of missiles.

The sophistication and effectiveness of Iranian missiles

At least some Iranian missiles are maneuverable and move at several times the speed of sound. They have multiple independent warheads, meaning one missile can generate a huge amount of damage. They are very rarely shot down. This implies that Iran does not need nukes to destroy US bases or Israel. While Iran is the size of western Europe and decentralized, the Israeli population is centralized in only a few cities and US power in the Gulf is centralized in only a few bases. Iran has announced to its adversaries by launching missiles toward Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean that it can attack opponent military assets over two thousand miles away.

Iran continues to possess significant air defenses

Despite the fact that Iran continues to be bombed by long range glide bombs and cruise missiles, the US and Israel cannot fly over Iran without risking getting shot down. Iran probably shot down a US F-35 stealth bomber that was supposed to be invisible. It is the most advanced plane in the US arsenal. This means that Iran continues to have at least some degree of air superiority over its own territory.

The non-traditional nature of Iranian defenses

The US says it has destroyed the Iranian air force and navy. The problem with that is that Iran's military is focused on three things: 1) its missile forces, which are formidable and clearly still functional, 2) its non-traditional naval force of underwater drones, torpedoes, etc. that cannot be easily interdicted, 3) its long-range artillery, far back from the coast, which can destroy any ship in the Straits, 4) its large and highly motivated army. There is no indication the US and Israel have significantly degraded any of these. The US possesses no minesweepers to clear mines from the Strait. The EU refuses to send theirs.

The inability of nuclear attack to stop the ongoing demise of the petrodollar

While Israel could indeed launch nukes on Iran from its submarines, with devastating effects, it is highly unlikely that this would either destroy Iran or open the Straits of Hormuz. If neither of those are likely results while Iran continues to force a global move from the dollar to the yuan, Iran will have accomplished a major global shift in economic power.

Logistical incapacity

The US lacks the logistics to sustain an attack on Iran, while Iran is receiving considerable military and economic support from both Russia and China. This will sustain Iran and there is little to nothing the US and Israel can do about that.

Greater motivation to fight

For Iran this is an existential threat. Iranians are willing to die in this war. Americans and Israelis? Not so much.

Fundamentally different strategies

The US and Iran planned for a short war, which played to their strengths: decapitation and sowing internal chaos with Mossad agents and paid insurrectionists on the ground. What they got instead is a long war that they did not plan for with no end in sight.

Absence of military proxies

The US and Israel have no proxies to do their fighting for them. Israel has relied on the US to be their proxy, sacrificing itself for reasons of greed , hubris, or religious zealotry. But US support for the war is low and declining. The US had hoped to bribe the Kurds into being their proxy, but the Kurds, having been betrayed by the US previously on multiple occasions and understanding the capabilities of Iran, have said no.

The negative impact of the war on US civilians

The war is coming home to average Americans, not only in higher gas prices but in the eventual inflation of the costs of food and everything else that relies on petrol for delivery or fertilizer to grow. That the US is energy self-reliant does not shield it from the steadily escalating cost of a barrel of oil on the international markets.

The incapabilities of Europe

Europe has expended its military on Ukraine; it is highly dependent on the Gulf states for oil. The US is already making noises of stopping the export of gas. LNG, in order to stabilize its own markets. If it does that, Europe will not simply go into recession. It will go into depression. That will possibly be the end of both NATO and the EU.

Logistic issues

Sustaining a war requires logistics, the ability to supply forces with the means to continue to fight. Both the US and Israel have severe logistic constraints.

The threat of no water

While Iran gets about 2% of its water from desalination, that percentage is north of 50% for Israel and around 80% for the gulf monarchies. Iran is basically holding a gun to the resulting in a combination of mass emigration and/or civilian deaths.

Collapse of the basic contract

The basic contract of the US and the Gulf monarchies since the end of WWII has been, “You support the petrodollar and buy our weapons and we will defend you.” However, the US has run out of missile and drone defense missiles, demonstrating its real limitations in its ability to defend the Gulf states.

Unwillingness of Iran to agree to a truce

Iran views a truce as an opportunity for the US and Israel to rearm and attack again. Therefore, it has stated that it is not willing to stop the war until its demands are met. Those demands are completely unacceptable to the US and Israel.

Potential for massive global blowback on Israel

If Israel did use one or more nuclear weapon on Iran the consequences for Israel are highly unpredictable, but generally on a scale from terrible to disastrous. While the possibility of “The Sampson Doctrine,” in which Israel, out of a recognition it is defeated, attempts to destroy others with it, remains a possibility, it is becoming less so. Even a nuclear strike would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, eliminate dispersed military capacity, restore economic systems like dollar dominance, or produce clean, decisive victory.

The collapse of US, Israeli, and European narratives on the weight of their own internal contradictions.

While those of Trump are obvious enough, as he contradicts his claims on a daily basis, first saying Iran is “obliterated” then saying that he needs 200 billion to continue the war, supportive logical fallacies by UK defense secretary Healy, Merz of Germany, and Macron of France can easily fortify the consistency of fundamentally false narratives, below the cognitive radar. However, the above patterns, combined with the rules of logic that undergird basic sense-making, penetrate the fog of war.

It is now widely understood that Israel, the Zionists, and the US have profoundly underestimated the capabilities and persistence of Iran. Increasingly, due to the cutoff from Gulf energy, the world will be pressuring the US and Israel to stop. It seems that both the US and Israel now want a cease-fire but that they are unlikely to get one until they agree to Iran's terms. No one sees how it is politically possible for the US and Israel to agree to Iran's demands. The US and Israel appear to have gotten themselves into a war they now cannot get out of. This continues to be a very dangerous situation.

Likely destinations

While no individual or nation lasts forever, multiple factors predict longevity. While national collapse is rarely a sudden occurrence, we can look at trend lines to make predictions about what nations are on the ascent and which are on the descent. Based on the information I have seen, China, Russia, and Iran are on the ascent. Israel, Europe, and even the United States are on the descent. These trends are likely to continue regardless of the outcome of the Iranian war.

Conclusion

A common response to prediction based on patterns is to nit-pick with counterfactuals. One can always distract from pre-eminent conditions by focusing on limitations or alternative possibilities. At some point, generally in the future, it is understood that such arguments boil down to the equivalent of “But the world could have been created in seven days.”

The wild card regarding any predictions regarding the outcome of the war is what Professor John Mearsheimer calls the “escalation ladder,” in which every aggressive act is met by a reciprocal one by the other side. At this point in time, while there are signs both the US and Israel are looking for a way to stop the war, escalation continues. While the above patterns point clearly to a likely eventual outcome of Iran continuing to be the dominant power in the middle east and global power shifting to Eurasia, all indications are that things are going to get worse before they get better. How much worse is unknown.

Nuking Iran, as horrible as that would be, is not going to change the inertia behind all of the above factors, but it could still happen, for a number of reasons. Launching nuclear weapons could be a last desperate attempt to stop Iranian attacks. True Believers might believe that a nuclear war would hasten the coming of the Messiah and the building of the Third Temple, and their ideology could win out over cooler military heads in Israel and the US.

NOTES

1. The Strait of Hormuz closure has removed approximately 21 million barrels per day from global markets�about 31% of seaborne crude . For Japan, the world's largest holder of U.S. Treasuries at $1.22 trillion, the calculus is brutal: the yen has plunged to 159.69 per dollar because Japan imports nearly all its energy . South Korea and Indonesia are indeed facing similar pressures. As the forex analysis notes, energy-dependent Asian nations face a "negative Terms of Trade shock" that forces "structural currency weakness" . Japan's willingness to consider yuan-denominated Gulf oil is not ideological; it is economic survival. The petrodollar system's vulnerability has shifted from theoretical to operational.
2. According to Reuters reporting, Gulf states are 80-90% dependent on food imports, with over 70% of GCC foodstuffs passing through the Strait of Hormuz . Analyst Neil Quilliam of Chatham House warns: "With over 70% of GCC foodstuffs being imported through the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf states face shortages if the war persists. While GCC countries have taken steps to diversify suppliers and ensure sufficient stores to withstand disruption, this can only last several months. At this point, price increases and longer lead times will start to hit the markets" The Gulf states' dilemma is acute. Their strategic grain silos�including Fujairah's 300,000-metric-ton facility built specifically to bypass Hormuz�provide a buffer for staples like wheat and rice, but perishables are already feeling the pressure . The Iranian demand to evict US bases is not hypothetical; it is a concrete condition for reopening the strait, and the Gulf states' food security hangs in the balance.
3. The doctrine, formally called "Mosaic Defense," was developed over two decades specifically to counter US decapitation strategies learned from Iraq and Afghanistan . Michael Connell, an expert on Iran's armed forces at CNA, explains: "[Iran] realized that when the U.S. goes to war, the first thing it targets is command and control. The Iranians, thinking defensively, wanted to make sure that if they ever got in a war with the U.S., the Americans wouldn't be able to eliminate their military capabilities by taking out their central command and control" . The system restructures command into 31 separate commands�one for Tehran and 30 for Iran's provinces. Each provincial unit has sufficient autonomy to wage its own "guerilla defense against the invaders, rather than waiting for top-down direction" . The evidence that this doctrine is working is substantial. As Nicholas Carl of the American Enterprise Institute observes: "That the Iranian missile forces have sustained their strikes every day since the war began may be itself a testament to the effectiveness of the mosaic defense" . Heather Williams of RAND, former deputy national intelligence officer for Iran, adds: "Iran was able to launch retaliatory strikes with missiles immediately after the strike on Feb. 28 that killed the supreme leader because the local IRGC commanders have a lot of authority and resources to directly respond. They don't have to wait for directions" .
4. John Mearsheimer articulated this directly on March 3, stating: "The Trump administration was dragged into this war by Israel and its enormously powerful lobby in the US". "It is almost impossible for me to see how Israel and the US win this war. Victory requires not only regime change in Iran, but replacing the regime with new leaders who are subservient to Israeli and American wishes. The likelihood of this war producing an Iranian regime that is subservient to Israel and the US is close to zero"
5. According to Middle East Eye, Israel has warned the United States that its supply of ballistic missile interceptors is "running dangerously low" as the war enters its third week . A US official confirmed: "It's something we expected and anticipated" . The numbers are stark: during the 12-day conflict with Iran in June 2025, the US fired over 150 THAAD interceptors�roughly a quarter of the US inventory at the time. In the opening days of the current war, Washington expended approximately $2.4 billion worth of Patriot interceptors . US officials maintain that America is not facing similar shortages, but the strain on Israel's air defense network is severe, particularly as Iran has equipped some missiles with cluster munitions that complicate interception.
6. According to CBC News, while the operation has degraded Iran's ability to launch large salvos simultaneously, "the Iranians are still managing to launch strikes periodically" . Michael Connell notes: "They're not huge salvos, so it suggests their capabilities are being degraded, but it also suggests that we haven't eliminated their ability to conduct those strikes by taking out command and control. So my guess is they're probably delegating, based on the operations I've seen, command and control to lower-echelon commanders to conduct those strikes"
7. On March 19, 2026, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced it had struck a US F-35 stealth fighter�the first time a fifth-generation US fighter has been hit in combat . The US Central Command confirmed that an F-35A "was forced to make an emergency landing" after being hit . The achievement is remarkable given the F-35's reputation as "impossible to detect, impossible to hit.” The mechanism is instructive. Iran used infrared search and tracking (IRST) systems rather than radar. As one analysis explains: "F-35's design core is evading electromagnetic waves, but the laws of thermodynamics dictate it remains a 'flaming boiler' racing through cold, high-altitude skies. Stealth materials can absorb radar waves but cannot hide the engine's heat plume" . The weapon reportedly was the "358" missile�a slow, cheap, loitering munition previously dismissed by military analysts as a "flying trash can" . Its passive infrared seeker does not trigger the F-35's radar warning receivers, and its ability to loiter for extended periods makes it ideal for ambushing aircraft when they descend to lower altitudes for bombing runs . As one analyst put it: "In the contest between blind confidence and physical laws, the laws of physics always win"
8. As Mearsheimer notes, the concept of the "escalation ladder" means each aggressive act is met by a reciprocal response . Even a nuclear strike would not: Reopen the Strait of Hormuz (the blockade is enforced by dispersed naval forces, mines, and shore-based missiles) Eliminate Iran's decentralized missile forces (distributed across 31 provincial commands) Restore the petrodollar system (the economic shift is driven by structural necessity, not military coercion) Produce clean, decisive victory As Mearsheimer emphasizes: "For Iran to win, all it has to do is survive and not end up as a pawn of Israel and the US. Even if its missile inventory is greatly diminished, its nuclear enrichment capability is crippled, and its infrastructure is badly damaged, it matters little if the regime survives or is replaced by a regime that refuses to kowtow to the tag team. Remember that in the Vietnam War, the US won virtually every battle and lost the war"
9. According to Breaking Defense, the Air Force's mobility fleet is under severe strain. Maj. Claire Randolph, chief of weapons and tactics at Air Forces Central, told an audience in January: "Tankers and airlift are a big gap. If I were writing our request list, probably the first 100 things on there would be tankers" . Tim Walton of the Hudson Institute notes: "Aerial refueling capacity has historically been a major constraint on the tempo of operations, and it's likely the case today" . There are only 119 task-ready tanker crews available for sustained operations, a number that can be surged to 169 for limited periods�but crucially, 56% of tanker units belong to the reserves or National Guard, requiring mobilization of civilians who must leave their jobs . As Heather Penney of the Mitchell Institute explains, while sealift can move bulk equipment, "your urgent needs and time-critical supplies to feed the fight rely on airlift�not sealift"
10. The asymmetry in motivation is fundamental. For Iran, this is a regime survival conflict. The "mosaic defense" doctrine was explicitly designed to exploit this asymmetry, forcing a prolonged conflict that plays to Iran's strengths�geographic depth, decentralized command, and willingness to absorb casualties�against the US/Israel's weakness: limited tolerance for sustained casualties and economic pain.
11. The US strategy was "shooting the archer instead of the arrows"�targeting launchers and command nodes . But Iran's strategy has been to preserve its archers by decentralizing them. Danny Citrinowicz, former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence, told the New York Times: "I don't think we've scratched the surface in the ability of Iran to find replacements that can take over for the people that have been decapitated. It's not that I don't think decapitation is an important tool. But we can't build a strategy only on that" .
12. The Kurds have been betrayed by the US repeatedly�Iraq 1991, Syria 2019�and understand that serving as a US proxy means absorbing punishment without guarantee of reward. Iran's deterrent capability also plays a role.
13. This is already happening. Brent crude has risen sharply, and as the Barchart analysis notes: "The US economy will benefit from rising LNG and oil exports at higher prices, but it creates a double-edged sword, as US consumers will pay more for their energy requirements, pushing inflationary pressures higher" . Critically, "energy independence does not shield the US from rising prices" . Oil is a globally priced commodity; when the global price rises, American consumers pay more regardless of domestic production.
14. Europe's position is indeed precarious. The continent depends on Gulf oil, and the Strait of Hormuz closure directly threatens that supply. As the forex analysis notes, the euro is in a "difficult spot" because "Europe's natural gas storage refill season is about to begin and the EU is heading into it with record-low gas in storage, implying it will need to buy a large chunk of energy right as prices potentially shoot higher" . If the US follows through on threats to restrict LNG exports to stabilize domestic prices�a move that is already being discussed�Europe will face severe energy shortages .
15. Regarding the US, it is reducing its role as the primary enforcer of international security commitments while sharpening its edge in the Western Hemisphere. Regarding China, it is the leading industrial power in the world, with its importance in the energy sector, in particular, likely to increase as the world is forced to move away from dependence on petrochemicals. Regarding Russia, it is the greatest economic beneficiary of the increasing price of oil while it has diversified its economy and strengthened its military, largely as a result of the Ukraine war. Regarding Iran, it will benefit economically from taxation of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the close cooperation it is now experiencing with Russia and China. Regarding Israel, its association with both Zionism and apartheid leave it increasingly isolated on the world stage.