The U.S.-Israel collaboration against Iran this summer, coupled with long-standing economic sanctions, has crushed the Iranian economy, with the inflation rate rising to an astonishing 49%. Widespread protests and strikes by merchants in Iran’s Bazari class erupted in December. The Bazaris represent a significant part of the country’s social and economic fabric, including small businesses firmly rooted in the Islamic culture of the bazaar. They played an essential role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran has now declared that it will rebuild its nuclear capabilities, as evidenced by recent U.S. intelligence. America couldn’t stand idly by as Iran continued to destabilize the Middle East while engaging in nuclear proliferation, a direct threat to the civilized world. Indeed, since then, Iran’s dictatorial regime has never been in more peril because of U.S. action. A simple push could finish it off. Mr. Trump is signaling that unless Iran relinquishes its nuclear program and ends the slaughter of its people in the streets, the U.S. will provide that final shove. It needs to happen. In 2009, during the populist Green Revolution in Iran, President Obama did nothing. Seventeen years later, this abject failure must not be repeated. America must make clear that it desires only to assist Iran, not to occupy it. The U.S. intervention in Venezuela exemplifies a nation placed on a path of liberation without occupation. Liberating Iran does not require a long-term U.S. occupation, It does require surgical strikes to destroy Iran’s threats and tormentors. In destroying these bad actors, America must send a clear message that its goal is Iranian liberation, not intervention.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this: “The old world is gone.” He was speaking much more diplomatically and making the case for more conversations with U.S. allies about the new realities of the geopolitical situation. But no doubt he also meant that it’s a different White House, different list of priorities. The old style of globalist governance is gone. Out with the New World Order, in with the MAGA. Out with the One World Order, in with the America First. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “In the era of great power rivalry, even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone,” He called for a strengthening of NATO, a collaboration of European countries to stand against America, and a “new transatlantic partnership.” Another new world order. “The battle of cultures, of MAGA in there U.S., is not ours,” Merz said. “Freedom of speech here ends where the words spoken are directed against human dignity and our basic law.” Government must control speech. “We do not believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade. We stick to climate agreements and the World Health Organization because we’re convinced that global challenges can only be solved together,” Merz said. Sovereignty must not get in the way of the plans of the global elites. But foreign heads of state must realize that America was forged in fights for freedom ― and not the globalist kind of freedom where select chosen bureaucrats can pick who receives and who not. The globalists have never understood this. At last year’s Munich conference, Vice President J.D. Vance shocked European elites by condemning their attacks on free speech, on freedom of religion.

While China grapples with economic setbacks such as colossal real estate collapses, plummeting stock markets and diminishing foreign trade, the U.S. economy has continued to prosper. The U.S. has overtaken China as the top trade partner of several key global players, including Japan, Germany, South Korea, the ASEAN nations and Taiwan, a trend that continues to grow. Blind optimism about China’s future is misguided and ultimately suicidal. Fourth, neutrality endangers national security and sovereignty. China’s aggressive behavior, including its incursions into the South China Sea and coercive tactics toward Taiwan, highlights its blatant disregard for the sovereignty of other nations. Neutral countries, especially those close to China, such as Southeast Asian ones, risk becoming pawns in Beijing’s expansionist agenda. These nations inadvertently signal vulnerability by failing to choose a side, potentially inviting further aggression or even territorial encroachment. Finally, there is a moral imperative to choosing sides beyond strategic and economic considerations. The United States, despite its historical shortcomings, promotes ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights. In contrast, China’s record is a litany of systemic oppression, from the abuse of Uyghur Muslims to the suppression of free speech and the imposition of authoritarian control over its citizens. Remaining neutral in this ideological struggle is morally indefensible, suggesting indifference to the fundamental values that undergird free societies. All in all, the world must abandon the illusion of neutrality. We must galvanize global support against the Chinese Communist Party.

However, this argument neglects the dangers of overdependence on China. Many countries that once embraced neutrality have now realigned themselves with the United States for their self-interest. Far from remaining indifferent, these nations have recognized the long-term risks of kowtowing to Chinese demands. Third, neutrality proponents often cite the irresistible allure of Chinese markets for foreign goods and investment. This is a dangerous myth. While China’s market has long been portrayed as an untapped gold mine of opportunity, the reality is far more sobering. The Chinese market is heavily regulated and rife with barriers to entry, such as stringent licensing requirements, forced technology transfers, and opaque legal systems that disadvantage foreign companies. Consumer spending in China has significantly decreased, and when Chinese consumers do make purchases, they increasingly favor domestic products, especially technology and consumer goods, thus eroding the competitive edge of foreign firms. Moreover, government policies often favor domestic industries through subsidies and protectionist measures, undermining the profitability of foreign investments. Intellectual property theft continues unabated, further undermining the long-term viability of foreign enterprises. These factors paint a grim picture of China’s market as far less accommodating and profitable than its promoters have claimed. In stark contrast, the United States economy has experienced a robust rebound, largely because of such institutional strengths as private entrepreneurship, property rights and free market competition.

Acrucial aspect of victory plan over the CCP is ending the world’s misguided illusion of neutrality ― particularly the notion that nations can remain impartial between the United States and China. Fortunately, we have already witnessed President Trump’s determination to challenge geopolitical opportunism, as evidenced by his bold demands for Panama to return control of the Panama Canal (now under Chinese interests) and his desire to acquire Greenland, a strategic chokepoint coveted by Beijing. The rationale behind ending global neutrality between the U.S. and China is profound, vital and indispensable for free nations’ future. First, neutrality is, in essence, a form of complicity. The claim that a nation can remain “neutral” overlooks the fundamental reality that neutrality inherently aligns with one of the competing sides ― often the wrong one. In this context, failing to stand with the United States ― a nation that, despite its flaws, represents liberal democratic values ― only strengthens China’s authoritarian ambitions. Beijing thrives on ambiguity, exploiting divisions among smaller states to exert influence, particularly in regions like Southeast Asia and Africa. A neutral stance effectively emboldens China, signaling tacit approval for its actions, including human rights abuses, military expansion in the South China Sea and efforts to undermine international norms. Second, neutrality is often disguised as pragmatism. Advocates argue that nonalignment allows countries to extract benefits from both sides of a geopolitical divide.

If Islamic rule in Tehran is violent and dictatorial, however, it doesn’t begin to compare in cruelty with the ruthless repression of the slightest opposition to Kim dynasty rule in Pyongyang. The thought of anyone demonstrating on the streets of a North Korean city is a fantasy. If Islam is the state religion in Iran, then worship of the Kim dynasty is the central faith in North Korea. Criticism is grounds for torture and imprisonment if not death. More than 100,000 people are in political prison camps, with new prisoners replacing those who die after years of forced labor. A small elite of the ruling Workers’ Party, live comfortably in Pyongyang while millions go hungry in the countryside. The difference in the harshness of the dictatorships in charge of North Korea and Iran is one of degree. Both are ruled by one man at the center. Mr. Trump attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities as Iran was about to develop its first nuclear weapon. North Korea is thought to have fabricated at least 100 nuclear warheads. Rather than plead to see Mr. Kim for another summit, Mr. Trump should consider wiping out the North’s nuclear complex north of Pyongyang, plus its test sites. Just as Iran has long threatened Israel, arming and advising Hamas and Hezbollah, among others, so North Korea threatens South Korea, Japan and the U.S. with long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. It takes more than diplomatic overtures and sanctions to eliminate the threat from either end of the “axis of evil.” If Mr. Trump is willing to order a strike against Iran, then he should consider no less for North Korea.

North Korea and Iran are members of “the axis of evil.” President George W. Bush called them as such in his State of the Union address in 2022. The term “axis of evil,” coined by Bush speechwriter David Frum, author of books on the presidency, endures as a prescient commentary on the bond between North Korea and Iran, which have aided and abetted each other’s nuclear and missile programs. North Korea is said to have shipped missiles to Iran, as well as vital know-how and components for the nukes Iran was on its way to producing before President Trump ordered the destruction of its nuclear sites in June. North Korean experts have gone to Iran to advise and assist in its nuclear program, just as they aided the Syrians in building a nuclear facility that the Israelis bombed to oblivion in 2007. Now, North Korea and Iran lead the list of America’s adversaries, along with the two great powers they can always count on for support, China and Russia. Mr. Kim thinks he has nothing to fear as long as he keeps sending North Korean men and arms to Russia’s war against Ukraine. Russia, in return, proffers much-needed food and technology for North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles. For Iran, oil is the lure. China is the biggest market for Iranian oil. Russia also buys oil from Iran while providing weapons that Iran has forwarded to terrorists, including Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Comparisons between Iran and North Korea break down when looking at each one’s ways of stifling dissent. While tens of thousands have filled the streets and squares of Tehran, no one has lifted a finger in North Korea.

Economically, Latin America supplies Beijing with what it wants: resources, capital investment opportunities and terrain for infrastructure development that can bind states to China through debt, dependency and political leverage. The deeper strategic value lies in Beijing’s primary objective: using the region to diminish and ultimately displace American influence in its own hemisphere. It wages political and propaganda warfare by backing anti-U.S. rogue regimes, above all Cuba and Venezuela, turning them into ideological and operational outposts. Cuba is a frontline base in a long-running intelligence war. For nearly three decades, China has used Cuba for eavesdropping and military training, with U.S. intelligence reportedly aware of Chinese operations there as early as 2001. After the Soviet collapse, the Castro regime lost its patron. Beijing seized the opening, transforming Cuba into a frontline anti-American station. Cuba is no relic of Cold War nostalgia. It is a Chinese listening post and staging ground 90 miles from the U.S. mainland, aimed directly at America’s capacity to operate globally. Venezuela played a more openly aggressive role: an anti-American political spearhead and potential flash point designed to consume U.S. attention. Taken together, Cuba and Venezuela formed two pillars of a single design: Cuba as the spy and military node, Venezuela as the political-military destabilizer. China’s Latin America strategy is a frontline component of the CCP’s global contest: to use rogue regimes as platforms for propaganda and crisis manipulation.

Nor are Beijing’s ambitions confined within its borders. The Belt and Road Initiative is not development but leverage. Loans create dependence; dependence breeds obedience. Ports, power plants and railways are not neutral assets but instruments of control. Simultaneously, China militarizes the South China Sea, threatens Taiwan and bankrolls Russia’s war in Ukraine. These are not the behaviors of a state seeking stability. They are the actions of a power bent on rewriting the global order. The clash is unavoidable. The West rests on openness, reciprocity and the rule of law. The CCP rests on secrecy, coercion and party supremacy. These are not policy differnence that need to be managed. These are contradictions of principle, and contradictions cannot be reconciled. To believe otherwise is to risk repeating Munich or the delusions of detente. That is why nations across the Indo-Pacific ? Japan, India, Australia, the Philippines ? are rallying through the Quad, AUKUS and other alliances. They understand that coexistence with the CCP is a fantasy, and fantasies cannot defend freedom. America has faced this before. In 1900, the McKinley administration’s Open Door Policy insisted that China’s markets be open and rules fair. That principle was not only economic but also moral. It rejected monopoly and coercion. President Trump’s insistence on “opening up China” was no break from tradition; it was the reaffirmation of America’s century-old refusal to accept exploitation as the price of engagement. The time for illusions is over. China is not a partner waiting for persuasion. It is a closed society, a non-market economy, a communist dictatorship with global ambitions. Its system makes coexistence not difficult but impossible.

Behind the Great Firewall, Chinese citizens live in a sealed world where propaganda dominates. Hundreds of millions believe COVID-19 began not in Wuhan but in a U.S. Army lab in Maryland. This is not a misunderstanding; it is indoctrination. A regime built on lies at home will not deal honestly abroad. Commerce reveals the same futility. Chinese firms buy American assets freely, while U.S. firms can’t do the same and face endless barriers in China. Reciprocity, the bedrock of fair exchange, is absent. Beijing’s aim is not mutual prosperity but asymmetric gain. Hoping patience will change this is as naive as trusting Hitler’s pledges or Leonid Brezhnev’s promises. China’s economy is equally irreconcilable with the liberal order. The CCP demands recognition as a market economy while practicing the opposite. It manipulates currency, channels subsidies to state-backed sectors and directs capital by political decree. State-owned enterprises dominate, while non-state firms survive only at the party’s mercy. Jack Ma’s rise and fall proved that wealth in China is provisional, not protected. Abroad, Chinese companies do not compete. They distort, undercut and weaponize commerce for Beijing’s strategic ends. This is not capitalism. It is authoritarian mercantilism designed to hollow out competitors while insulating the regime. To pretend such a system can coexist with global markets is to indulge the same fantasy that underpinned detente: that authoritarian powers can be integrated into a liberal order without undermining it. They cannot. Engagement under such conditions is not partnership; it is extortion that cannot sustain coexistence.