Leo Hohmann – Leo’s Newsletter Feb 9, 2026

The heightening rumors of a military clash between the U.S./Israel and Iran did not appear overnight. It has been years in the making, starting right after the Islamic revolution and the Iranian Hostage Crisis, when then-President Jimmy Carter hit Iran with the first economic sanctions.

Washington then used Iraq as a proxy in the 1980s to fight the Iranians in the bloody Iran-Iraq War, when Saddam Hussein, then a U.S. ally, used mustard gas to wipe out tens of thousands of Iranians.

Since Israel is seen by many in the region as a hostile U.S./British outpost in the Middle East, Iran fought back by engaging Israel through its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon and Syria.

The Israelis responded after the October 7 massacre, which they blame on Iran, by helping engineer a coup in Syria, then taking out Hezbollah commanders through military and intelligence operations, including exploding pagers. Israel also assassinated Iranian commanders in the June 2024 12-day war. Trump himself ordered the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani near Baghdad International Airport on Jan. 3, 2020.

But now the whole dynamic appears to be coming to a head with what could be all-out war between the U.S. and Iran.

The important thing to know is that this is not so much a war against Iran as it is an attempt to further tighten the screws on China and Russia.

As was the case with Venezuela before the U.S. attacked that country and kidnapped its leader, Iran represents a key source of oil for China.

But whereas China only received about 5 percent of its total oil supply from Venezuela, it receives 19.8 percent from Iran.

China could stand to lose its Venezuelan oil source.

China cannot afford to lose both Venezuelan and Iranian oil.

By cutting off China’s access to cheap oil from its allies, Washington hopes to force China to purchase oil from Washington and/or Washington-allied countries, at a much higher rate. For example, Chinese refiners save about $8 to $10 a barrel if they buy Iranian light crude over non-sanctioned Oman crude, according to calculations by a trader cited by Reuters.

China has the world’s largest industrial base, making it very needy of vast amounts of energy to power that industry. Take away 25 percent and suddenly China’s industrial economy is in real danger.

We know that most wars are fought over resources and this one is no different. All the talk about Iran funding terrorism and killing its own people is just window dressing meant to whip up war hysteria among the ignorant masses in America and the West. Washington loves terrorism when it’s carried out on its behalf. That’s why the Ukrainians can get away with assassinating Russian generals without a peep from Washington and the Israelis can go into whatever country they want and assassinate the top leaders of their enemies. If Russia, China or Iran did that, it would be called terrorism.

International geopolitics is ruthless and cunning and is carried out with zero regard for human life or basic morals. It’s all about projecting power and grabbing resources.

If China sees Washington’s actions against Iran as a backdoor method of starving it’s fuel-dependent industrial base of needed energy resources, that’s likely to be interpreted by Beijing as a U.S. declaration of war.

Washington is risking the very real prospect that China may no longer see it in its interests to continue standing down in the face of increased U.S. aggression against its allies. It could afford to walk away from Venezuela, but can it afford to cut ties with Iran?

The question in Trump’s mind has to be churning: Do we really want to choke off oil supplies to China and drive the dragon further into the arms of the Russian bear?

Russia already has its hands full with Ukraine, a war that would have been over in a few weeks if not for all the weapons and money funneled to Ukraine by the U.S. and NATO. The U.S. has been sanctioning countries that buy Russian oil and now it appears ready to make a play for the oil that goes from Iran to China.

Washington has already backed Russia into a corner. Is China next?

It’s not like China lacks leverage over the U.S. It has non-military options to counter the West and will likely play those cards before doing anything militarily. China could cut off rare-earth supplies to the U.S. It could cut off the processing of vital medications like antibiotics, the majority of which come into the U.S. from China.

China can up its game in the realm of economic warfare and there are signs that’s exactly what it is doing.

In the latest shock move, Xi has ordered Chinese banks to dump U.S. treasuries. Major Chinese banks have already been dumping treasuries quietly but now they are going to officially and massively de-dollarize. This is also why China has been buying gold at an unprecedented rate.

The U.S., meanwhile, in an attempt to compensate for the loss of China’s appetite to fund U.S. debt, has been printing money to buy its own debt. This is akin to printing your own dollars on an inkjet printer to pay off your own credit card debt.

The outcome of this insane monetary policy will be increased inflation. So, Americans already struggling to pay for groceries, car repairs, rising insurance rates and much more, are going to experience even more intense inflationary economic pressures thanks to Donald Trump’s reckless foreign policy. This phenomenon could not be worse timed by the Trump administration, as we head toward the November midterm elections.

The bottom line is this: There’s a big fight going on for global currency supremacy and a race to see who can control the most gold, minerals and oil resources.

The U.S. has achieved great wealth since the end of World War II by having its dollar serve as the world’s reserve currency. But the U.S. has abused that privilege by weaponizing its currency, slapping sanctions on countries that don’t play ball with Washington’s policy in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. As a result, after decades of seeing how the U.S. punishes countries for simply wanting to carry on business and trade relations with the world, as sovereign nations are entitled to do, many countries are now running for the door. They’re ditching their dollars and no longer buying U.S. treasury bills. They’ve seen what’s happened to Russia and now China and fear they could be next.

The years of bad blood between Iran and the U.S./Israel is the context that is typically not covered by the mainstream media. They want you to believe this war, if it happens, is all about freeing the oppressed people of Iran, when in reality it’s about redrawing maps and forcing a realignment of nations in a way that’s more advantageous to the U.S. and Israel with the risk being that China and Russia get drawn into a regional or even global military showdown.

Some would suggest that the U.S. is due for a reckoning, that its influence in the Middle East and the world is no longer in proportion to its economic and military strength, that its power is based more on perception than reality.

Could there be a comeuppance in 2026 with Iran serving as the place where the U.S. pushed the envelope too far, not just against Iran but China?

Only time will tell.

Unlike the 12-day war last June, the goal of this next military attack has been stated in the wide open to be “regime change.”

But therein lies the problem.

Iran’s regime is not going to just pack up and leave at the first sign of bombs falling on Tehran.

They will hunker down and wait the bombing raids out.

The only way to accomplish a regime change quickly would be to put massive numbers of boots on the ground, something Trump seems reluctant to do, given the likelihood of unacceptable U.S. casualties right before an election.

To force a regime change by bombing Iran without boots on the ground would take months of continuous aerial assaults.

Military strategists such as Col. Douglas MacGregor have been warning that the U.S. does not have the stockpiles or the industrial capacity to engage in a months-long bombing campaign against Iran.

Trump has really backed himself into a corner. He has assembled a massive naval armada in the Persian Gulf region for the sole purpose of attacking Iran and changing out their regime.

He may prefer a negotiated “deal” that allows Iran’s regime to stay in place in exchange for certain concessions with regard to Iran’s support for anti-Israeli proxies and its crackdown on the protests in its own country. But then he has the Israelis to contend with. They are dead set on regime change and counting on Trump to carry it out for them. The neocons at home in Washington also are pressuring Trump to pull the trigger on a full-scale invasion of Iran, if that’s what it takes to remove the Islamic government from power.

The world is changing and not in a way that’s favorable to U.S. interests, and these are changes that, sadly, Washington has brought on itself.

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