American Thought Leaders

“The U.S. went to war in Iran because Iran made itself a Chinese weapon,” argues policy analyst Zineb Riboua, a research fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East.
Riboua is the founder of the “China in MENA Project,” which tracks communist Chinese expansion and influence across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Is there a bigger dimension to the Iran war that people are missing?
“We have this tendency to just look at the countries involved ... but there’s a big player, and the big player here is China,” she says. “China has been investing immensely in the region in the last two decades, in courting, in coordinating, in cooperating with Gulf countries, with Iran itself, and also with its proxies.”
And why, I ask her, has China been so keen on gaining strategic influence over the Middle East?
It’s because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) understands that “China cannot rise without having the United States weakened in one of the most important regions in the world,” she said.
“Iran has been that tool. China has built Iran’s military arsenal. It has collaborated extensively with Iran’s proxies, especially the Houthis.
“And reversing that calculus is what Operation Epic Fury is doing.”
In our interview, we delve deep into the symbiotic relationship between the two countries—why China needs Iran and why Iran needs China:
Which role does Iran play on China’s geopolitical chessboard?
Why did China turn Iran into one of its strategic allies, and how did the Islamic Republic benefit?
How dependent is the Iranian regime on China’s military support and surveillance infrastructure?
How dependent is China on Iran’s oil?

The goal of America’s military operation, Riboua believes, is to dismantle the whole structure of the Islamic Republic. “The United States is destroying ... every single launcher, every single missile facility. Their whole Navy has been absolutely crushed. ... It’s 2,000 targets so far, and they’re hitting even more.”
We also discuss what the Chinese regime will do if the Islamic Republic disappears.
How will its geopolitical strategy be impacted? What will happen to the CCP’s Belt and Road initiative, in which Iran played a central role? And how will China’s economy and its relationships with its Middle Eastern and North African proxies be affected?
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Dozens of Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been killed in U.S.–Israeli joint strikes on Iran.
In this episode, I’m sitting down again with seasoned China analyst Gordon Chang, author of “Plan Red,” to understand how this is changing the global geopolitical landscape—especially for Beijing.
Including the Venezuela raid that captured regime leader Nicolás Maduro, this is the second time President Donald Trump appears to be neutralizing a key ally of Beijing.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessari

For twenty years, I’ve investigated a crime almost too horrific to name—now documented in my new book: “Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America’s Biggest Adversary.”
In America and other free countries, patients wait months or even years for an organ. But in China, transplant wait lists are measured in weeks—or even days.
In this episode, the tables are turned, and I’m in the guest seat this time.
I invited my good friend, actor and comedian Rob Schneider, who has become deeply personally invested in this issue, to be the guest host for this special episode.
This is the dark reality: When someone decides to go to China and pay a hefty sum for a scheduled transplant, then on the other side, an incarcerated prisoner of conscience, who has already been blood-typed and tissue-typed, is likely being killed to order.
China’s transplant industry began its exponential expansion at the exact same time as the state launched its aggressive, nationwide campaign to eradicate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong. There is growing evidence of Uyghurs being targeted as well. There is even an underground global market for what are called “Halal organs,” which means organs from Muslim donors.
And it’s not just wealthy foreigners who travel to China for organ transplants.
China’s super elite have access to a secretive longevity program dubbed “Project 981” with eerie ties to this macabre organ industry. This project entered the spotlight last year after the revealing hot mic exchange between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, where they talked about extending lifespans in part through repeated organ transplants.
American institutions have, wittingly or unwittingly, helped facilitate the rise of China’s transplant system through partnerships with Chinese transplant centers, the training of hundreds of Chinese surgeons, and the supply of China’s organ preservation solutions, surgical instruments, immunosuppressive drugs, and transplant diagnostics.
The stories I share in this episode are disturbing, but we cannot afford to look away.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Dr. Daniel Monti is the founding chair of the first integrative medicine department at an American medical university.
Rather than treating symptoms in isolation, integrative medicine takes a holistic approach to health, combining conventional Western medicine with mind-body therapies, nutritional medicine, and traditional practices such as acupuncture and herbal medicine.
“Integrative medicine,” Monti told me, “has become a subspecialty of medicine with its own board certification. ... To become an integrative medicine doctor, you have to first do your residency in something like internal medicine, neurology, OBGYN, and then do a fellowship in integrative medicine.”
Monti, who holds board certifications in both psychiatry/neurology and holistic/integrative medicine, said that integrative physicians “take a deep dive into whole-person health and understanding who the person is.” They look, for example, at genomics, the patient’s microbiome, and maximal oxygen consumption.
A powerful technique Monti studied in depth is the neuro-emotional technique (NET), developed in the 1980s. It’s a mind-body therapy designed to release emotional stress from within the body. And through advanced brain scans, they can see how the brain changes after applying the technique to alleviate distress.
NET merges principles from conventional medicine with traditional Chinese medicine and psychology, he says. The goal is to “get at what is underneath the issue that’s bothering the person. ... Most of the time I’m experiencing a block in my life in some way. And then we have to kind of figure out what the life experiences were that are contributing to that present-day block.”
During the interview, Monti used me as a test subject to demonstrate the integrative medicine technique.
We also discuss additional integrative medicine therapies, such as vitamin infusions and stress-reduction treatments. We also dive into a recent study into a powerful antioxidant’s power to benefit Parkinson’s patients.
Monti is the founder and CEO of the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health and chair of the Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University. He’s the co-author of “Brain Weaver” and “Tapestry of Health.”
He’s also the host of “House Call with Dr. Dan Monti.”
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

“What’s important for people to know is that the majority of California is actually not to the far left. We’re a very purple state,” says Elaine Culotti, a self-made entrepreneur, star of Discovery’s reality TV series “Undercover Billionaire,” and founder of the Mayors Matter project.
On a mission to understand the root causes of California’s challenges, Culotti recently went on a state-wide tour and talked to 50 out of California’s almost 500 mayors as well as countless regular Californians on the way.
“I’ve talked to people from Humboldt County, which is the very top of California, to Chula Vista, all the way into the Central Valley ... to Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades. ... And it does not matter if you have an R or a D,” Culotti said.
The fifty mayors she spoke to—on both sides of the aisle—have two overarching priorities for their cities: security and economic development, Culotti said.
But no matter how hard they try, they find it difficult to achieve either one. Why? Because of Sacramento, Culotti said.
Most taxpayer money goes to the state government with its over half a million employees, Culotti noted. The cities receive little money but lots of crippling orders from Sacramento, and fraud at the state level is rampant, she said.
When California’s top politicians “are pushing downstream what’s called unfunded mandates onto people, you create war in those city halls. You create war with those mayors because they are saying, ‘No, no, stop oppressing us with your mandates. We don’t want to do it,’” Culotti said.
“We’re all being boiled to death by Sacramento,” she said.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.