The US-Israel alliance has ignited a war against Iran, throwing global markets into absolute chaos. Oil prices shattered the US$100-per-barrel mark today （March 9） and are hurtling toward US$120, while Asian stocks cascade and economic shockwaves hammer the United States. President Donald Trump projects outward calm, but a swift victory has proven completely elusive.
Evangelical leaders gather at the White House to bless Trump’s "holy war" against Iran—an unsettling spectacle of spiritual rallying.
Cornered by Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump let slip today that he is already discussing an end to military operations with Israel, conceding that he will "make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account."
The reality is, Trump is actively hunting for an escape hatch. In a telling move, Trump recently summoned evangelical pastors to the White House to lay hands on his shoulders and pray for divine guidance. The goal is clear: manufacture religious fervour to shore up his sinking base and pray his way out of a worsening crisis.
Staging this unconventional "spiritual rally" right now serves a calculated political agenda. Make no mistake: the White House is weaponising the evangelical community’s mobilising power to rally believers behind Trump's "holy war." It is a desperate bid to reverse his collapsing approval ratings.
Weaponising Faith for Survival
Evangelicals form the most deeply conservative Christian bloc in America, anchored in the Southern and Midwestern "Bible Belt." They are the Republican Party's ultimate voting machine and Trump's bedrock of support. During the 2024 presidential election, the vast majority of registered white Christian voters threw their weight behind Trump, driven by a deep-seated hostility toward Kamala Harris.
Public blowback against the Iran campaign is intensifying by the day. Latest polls reveal only 27% of American respondents support the offensive, while a staggering 43% oppose it, and 56% conclude Trump is simply "too eager to use military force to solve problems."
Starved of mainstream support, the president is falling back on a familiar playbook. By summoning pastors to bless his war effort and firing up his propaganda machine, he aims to stoke religious fanaticism among conservative Christians. It is a tactical play to re-energise his die-hard loyalists and project an illusion of absolute strength.
Desperate to reverse his collapsing poll numbers, Trump stokes religious fervour to pray his way out of a worsening crisis.
A Dangerous New Crusade
Another core objective behind this carefully choreographed spectacle is to sanctify the bloodshed in Iran. The optics were meticulously staged: Trump seated at the iconic Resolute Desk, surrounded by pastors murmuring prayers with their hands resting on his shoulders. The entire scene dripped with heavy religious ritual. They called upon God to "continue to give our President the strength that he needs to lead our great nation", to ultimate victory. Ultimately, the ceremony played out like a divine blessing bestowed upon a crusading king, draping a brutal military offensive in the sacred robes of holy war.
Experts warn that Trump is deliberately framing the Iran offensive as a righteous crusade to vanquish evil. The narrative draws a direct, unsettling parallel to the Crusades of a millennium ago, when Christian armies marched out to crush the Islamic empire and reclaim the holy city. History shows those ancient Crusaders left behind mass slaughter and rivers of blood in their wake. If Trump is truly modelling today's conflict on that ancient eastward conquest, the implications for global stability are profoundly terrifying.
This aggressive push to "sacralise" himself and the MAGA movement is hardly a new tactic. Trump has long weaponised his alliance with evangelicals, cloaking his post-election agenda in claims of divine mandate.
To cement this bond, Trump took the unprecedented step of establishing a White House Faith Office. He installed Paula White—chair of his Evangelical Advisory Board and the woman in red standing beside him during the recent prayer event—to lead it. Known for her emotionally explosive style, White famously delivered a feverish prayer during the 2020 election. She screamed "strike, strike, strike" while summoning angels to defeat evil, creating a spectacle that bordered on cult-like worship.
Running Out of Miracles
Confronted by a rapidly spiralling crisis, Trump is instinctively reaching back into his old bag of tricks. He is summoning "sacred energy" to project dominance and hoisting the banner of "fighting evil" to salvage his political survival.
Yet, such action simply overlooks the hard truth of the battlefield. The administration is sinking deeper into an unwinnable quagmire every single day. The trap has already snapped shut, and this time, even divine intervention may not be enough to bail him out.
What Say You?
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
The US–Iran war keeps everyone guessing. American forces made a show of force by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, with combat seemingly on the verge of breaking out — yet Trump suddenly shifted to a softer tone, suggesting both sides could return to the negotiating table within days and that extending the two-week ceasefire wasn't necessary. A deal may be within reach. But given his habit of reversing course, everyone would do well to wait and see before celebrating. While the Iranian situation churns with uncertainty, Ukraine's plight has quietly been forgotten — President Zelensky left to wither alone.
In an interview with German broadcaster ZDF, Zelensky made no effort to hide his distress. Since America launched its campaign against Iran, he said, Washington has completely lost interest in Ukraine. Not only have negotiations ground to a halt, but arms and military equipment deliveries have abruptly stopped — precisely as Russian forces are pressing their offensive hard, leaving Ukraine in a dangerously exposed position.
Iran stole America's attention — and Ukraine paid the price. Talks frozen, arms cut off, Zelensky vents to German TV.
For the first time, Zelensky has come to understand that America, for all its self-image as a superpower, simply cannot stretch across multiple fronts without showing its limits. When the "big boss" proves unreliable, the "junior partner" is left to fend for itself.
Washington's Attention Has Shifted
Zelensky has had his fill of being sidelined, and the bitterness has finally spilled over. He told ZDF that after the Iran war began, America's focus visibly shifted. Special Envoy Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Kushner — the two men who had been mediating between Washington and Moscow — are now "constantly in talks with Iran," leaving no bandwidth for Ukraine. As a result, peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have been frozen since late February, with no timeline in sight for their resumption.
What makes matters worse is that Trump, already overwhelmed by the Iran campaign, has quietly shelved the Russia-Ukraine file and stopped pressing Putin. Zelensky warned that without pressure, Russia has nothing to fear and will act with impunity. Putin has clearly read the situation. After a 32-hour Orthodox Easter ceasefire, Russian forces resumed their offensive immediately, seizing the opportunity to push for an advantage.
The Air Defence Crisis
The bigger crisis isn't the stalled talks — it's the weapons shortage. Zelensky pointed out that US military aid deliveries have slowed to a crawl, with air defence systems the most acute problem. Supplies of PAC-3 and PAC-2 interceptor missiles have shown serious gaps, and Ukraine could soon be left effectively "undefended," forced to watch helplessly as Russian missiles and drones fly in unchallenged.
Ukraine's air defences are running on empty. Interceptor missiles are critically short, and Russian strikes keep coming.
The reason Washington cannot deliver comes down to the Iran campaign itself. Since the war began, Iran has fired multiple missiles and drones at US military bases in Gulf states and at Israel. American forces have burned through enormous quantities of interceptor missiles countering these attacks, stockpiles are nearly depleted, and replenishment has no quick fix. The only option has been to rob Peter to pay Paul — redirecting air defence equipment destined for other countries to the Middle East, with Ukraine inevitably caught in the fallout.
Watching this crisis unfold, Zelensky is in a panic. Unless a US–Iran ceasefire materialises, there is little hope of American arms deliveries resuming. Ukraine has been forced to rely on itself, rushing to produce its own "FP-5 Flamingo" air defence missiles as a stopgap — though even that amounts to a distant rainstorm that cannot quench today's fire.
Adding insult to injury, Trump — in a bid to boost global oil supply and hold down rising prices — granted a 30-day sanctions waiver on Russia, allowing countries worldwide to purchase Russian oil and natural gas. The result: Russia pocketed an effortless €6 billion, turning the war into a windfall that helps fund its military campaign against Ukraine.
America Stepping Back From Europe
The "big boss" cooling on Zelensky is not entirely a matter of bandwidth. It also reflects a deliberate intent to distance America from Europe and leave the continent to clean up the Ukrainian mess on its own.
A recent development makes this attitude plain. According to Politico, War Secretary Hegseth will skip Wednesday's meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group — a forum that brings together defence ministers from over 50 pro-Ukraine nations — sending Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby in his place. Hegseth's snub signals clearly that the Trump administration no longer treats Ukraine as a priority.
Zelensky's predicament is a tragedy largely of his own making. He placed too much faith in the American "big boss," believing that with Washington firmly in his corner, he could go all-in against Russia. Today, he has finally learned the hard way: this "big boss" cannot manage multiple wars at once. Bogged down in Iran, America has no capacity left to care whether its "junior partner" sinks or swims.
Lai Ting-yiu
