In other words, China is already in the Middle East. The Chinese are now contemplating the construction of a naval base nearby, adjacent to the Iranian border. More crucially, the Gulf of Oman has become more than just a waterway for oil that America, with its shale gas revolution, requires less and less of. It is a hinge uniting the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and East Asia in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

While the United States contemplates a war with Iran, the Chinese are engaged in trade and infrastructure building there. Gwadar is central to the maritime aspect of the Belt and Road Initiative, but China’s interest in Iran is about both land and sea. The routes that China has already built across Central Asia link China with Iran — an unbeatable combination in Eurasia, where Iran is a demographic and geographic organizing point.

An American war with Iran will drive the country even further into the hands of China, which already accounts for almost a third of all Iran’s energy trade. While China’s energy ties with Iran may be curtailed as a result of the Trump administration’s sanctions, as well as by the complexities of the Beijing-Washington trade talks, China and Iran will eventually find a way to cooperate and thwart the United States.

The Gulf of Oman remains a focus of the Belt and Road Initiative, as do, to a lesser extent, other energy-rich points along the Indian Ocean. The aim is to get oil and gas transported directly by pipeline north into China, since the Strait of Malacca, which runs between Malaysia and Indonesia and upon which China currently depends for much of its imported oil, is, like the Strait of Hormuz, too narrow for comfort. Again, it is all about geography.

It isn’t only China that is central to the Persian Gulf region. The Indians and Iranians are competing with China and Pakistan to unite the Gulf of Oman with the Eurasian interior, in the hope of linking southeastern Iran with energy-rich Central Asia. It is unclear which effort will succeed — the Chinese-Pakistani one, the Indian-Iranian one, or both. In any case, the United States is simply not in this game.