Jiang Xueqin: Trump Is Fighting Iran to Stay Out of Prison

Chinese-Canadian political commentator Jiang Xueqin has drawn wide attention for his forecasts about U.S.–Iran tensions and Donald Trump's political future, as war in the Middle East escalates under Trump's second term as U.S. president.

Jiang, who studied English literature at Yale University and later worked in China before being expelled over a labour-rights documentary, runs a YouTube channel called "Predictive History" focused on great-power politics, along with an X highlights account,@Pred_History, that reposts clips and excerpts from his lectures.

​In a March 20 video on his YouTube channel "Jiang Xueqin Briefing, titled "Trump Can't End This War — If He Loses Power, He Goes to Prison," Jiang argues that Trump is escalating the war with Iran not to secure oil supplies or counter China, but to stay in power and avoid prosecution if he leaves office. He claims that, like other declining empires, the United States now combines "arrogance and despair" — refusing to accept strategic setbacks while continually raising the stakes. （Related： Exclusive | No Regime Change, No Quick Fix: Ex-U.S. Admiral's Blunt Hormuz Assessment ｜ Latest ）

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Central to Jiang's argument is the personal calculus he attributes to Trump: having survived multiple prosecutions and a raid on Mar-a-Lago during his first term, Trump understands that losing power means legal ruin. Jiang draws a direct parallel to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has remained in office without elections under wartime martial law — and contends that Trump, having taken note, sees a prolonged conflict as his own path to staying in power.

Jiang also warns that a sudden U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East could trigger demands for war reparations from Gulf states, push Japan and South Korea to rearm and reduce their U.S. Treasury holdings, and shake global confidence in the dollar — potentially triggering a financial crisis on top of America's existing $40 trillion debt load.

On the military front, Jiang says the roughly 2,200-strong 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit now sailing from Japan toward the Middle East may be tasked with seizing Iran's Kharg Island oil terminal — which handles around 90% of Iran's crude exports — as leverage in future negotiations. He contends, however, that Tehran retains alternative shipping routes that limit the terminal's value as a decisive pressure point.

More dangerous, in his view, is the escalation logic that follows any landing. Securing the island exposes troops to drone and artillery fire from the Iranian coast, which then requires holding the coastline, which then requires pushing into the Zagros Mountains — precisely the spiral that turned a 3,500-troop deployment into 500,000 men in Vietnam.

His earlier talks, delivered in 2024, outlined scenarios in which Trump would return to the White House with JD Vance as running mate, the U.S. would strike Iran between 2025 and 2026, and the conflict could erode the petrodollar and U.S. global hegemony. With parts of those scenarios now aligning with real-world developments, Jiang's analyses have drawn both a wide following and sharp criticism. His views remain contested and have not been independently verified.

（Related： Exclusive | No Regime Change, No Quick Fix: Ex-U.S. Admiral's Blunt Hormuz Assessment ｜ Latest ）