Opinion

Trump may claim he won the fight with Iran, but there’s a bigger war already underway

Xi Jinping called China-Russia ties 'precious' as a trilateral pact with Iran formalized under American military pressure

By Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, (ret.) Fox News

Published April 20, 2026 5:00am EDT

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China ‘feeling the hurt’ of Iran blockade after profiting ‘handsomely’ from regime’s discount oil: Ex-counterterrorism official

Ambassador-at-large Nathan Sales analyzes President Donald Trump’s maneuvers for a deal with Iran on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’

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The Iran conflict appears to be winding down. If the fragile ceasefire holds, President Donald Trump may stand before the American people in coming days and declare victory — shipping lanes reopened, deterrence restored, the ayatollahs humbled. On its face, that would be a genuine achievement.

The Iran campaign wasn’t wrong. Confronting a nuclear-threshold regime that funded terrorism across three continents and threatened international shipping lanes was a legitimate strategic necessity. Trump acted where others hesitated.

But every consequential action carries second- and third-order effects — and those now unfolding extend well beyond what any victory headline can contain.

While Washington has been grinding down Iran’s military infrastructure, something far more consequential has been hardening in the background: a China-Russia-Iran strategic alignment accelerating the fracture of the post-Cold War world order — and that fracture now runs directly through the transatlantic alliance itself.

AMB GORDON SONDLAND: NATO BLINKED ON IRAN, AND TRUMP HAS EVERY RIGHT TO BE FURIOUS

FILE: In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese and Russian warships take part in joint naval drills in the East China Sea, Dec. 27, 2022. (Xu Wei/Xinhua via AP, File)

Xi’s signal cannot be dismissed

That is not diplomatic boilerplate. That is a geopolitical declaration.

OPERATION EPIC FURY SHATTERED IRAN’S POWER, BUT EXPOSED RISKS AMERICA CAN’T IGNORE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sharpened the message at that same Beijing meeting, declaring that Iran holds an "inalienable" right to enrich uranium — a direct, public rebuke of Trump’s core........

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