The Man Who Predicted The Iran War: The Next 9/11 Will Target Your Bank Account! | Professor Jiang
The Diary Of A CEO
A Framework Built on Predictions 0:00
Professor Chang opens by saying he studies patterns of history and global supply chains to predict the future, and he lays out several predictions tied to the idea of another 9/11. His first is that a future attack on the United States will target financial infrastructure rather than physical buildings, wiping out people's bank accounts with no clear way to recover the money. He also predicts, more lightheartedly, that Lionel Messi will become president of Argentina, and he bets Stephen one hundred dollars that if Trump gets a third term there will be a siege of New York City.
How the petrodollar system began 2:32
Chang traces today's global economy back to 1945, when the United States, dominant after World War II, agreed to lend dollars to Europe and Japan so they could buy American goods, on the promise those dollars would be backed by gold. Overspending turned America from a creditor into a debtor, and in 1971 Nixon severed the dollar's link to gold. To keep the dollar valuable, three deals followed: Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern producers agreed to sell oil only in dollars, China agreed to sell its cheap manufactured goods only in dollars, and under the mid-1980s Plaza Accord Japan agreed to put its savings into US Treasury bonds. Chang describes the whole arrangement as a system of promises, with China promising goods and Saudi Arabia promising oil in exchange for dollars.
Semiconductors as a global convergence 5:00
Chang uses the semiconductor chip to show how interconnected the world has become, pointing to silicon, gallium, and germanium as the three critical elements involved, with China supplying roughly 60 to 70 percent of the world's silicon, 70 percent of its gallium, and 90 percent of its germanium. Chip design happens mainly in California by companies like Nvidia and Apple, manufacturing happens in Taiwan and Malaysia using lithography machines built by the Dutch company ASML at about 400 million dollars each, and finished chips are shipped to China to be placed into appliances. From this he draws a formula: technological progress equals specialization multiplied by globalization, made possible by the US dollar and by US military control of the seas, which he calls hegemony.
Why civilization is collapsing 9:00
Because technological progress depends on specialization and globalization, Chang argues that the war expanding out of Iran is forcing nations to become more self-sufficient and nationalistic, which will reverse both trends and therefore reverse technological progress. He insists the right word is collapse, not decline, and says the world is entering not a shift in global order but the collapse of civilization itself over the next twenty years, as the era of American-led order, which he calls Pax Americana, comes to an end without an obvious successor stepping in peacefully.
The Bronze Age collapse as precedent 11:30
Chang compares the present to the Bronze Age collapse, a period when globalized trade in copper and tin created interdependence but also inequality, debt, and polarization, until the system broke down entirely. In that collapse, climate change caused famine in Europe, driving migration into Anatolia and Egypt; these migrants, known as the sea peoples, overwhelmed local systems and destroyed traditional authority, causing the fundamental elements of civilization to disappear within about fifty years.
Iran's proxies and the widening war 13:20
Applying that pattern to today, Chang describes how Iran's proxies, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shia militias in Iraq, have all been drawn into the current Middle East war, each reporting back to Iran's IRGC. He explains the Houthis are a Shia minority who live in mountains, fight fanatically, and control the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a critical Red Sea chokepoint, making them nearly impossible to dislodge even after Saudi Arabia tried for five years. Unlike earlier conflicts such as the 2003 Iraq war, these four groups are decentralized yet actively coordinated, and backed by China through Belt and Road routes and Russia through the Caspian Sea, meaning Iran could sustain the fight indefinitely. Saudi Arabia has responded by signing the Mecca Accords with Turkey and Pakistan, a mutual defense pact that could pull those nations into war against the Houthis, who could retaliate by striking Saudi energy infrastructure with ballistic missiles and drones.
Petrodollar strain and personal disillusionment 21:00
Chang explains that the Middle East sits at the heart of the petrodollar system, since oil sold there in dollars flows to countries like Japan, China, and India, which turn it into manufactured goods and recycle their dollar earnings into US Treasuries, funding American innovation. If oil stops flowing, he says, that whole cycle could collapse within months, since Japan, China, and Gulf states are the biggest financiers of the US economy. He also shares that he was not always this pessimistic, tracing his shift to Brexit and Donald Trump's election, which shattered his belief, formed after rising from poverty to a full scholarship at Yale, that the world rewarded merit, reason, and truth.
Water, not oil, drives future wars 1:48:01
America has its own supply chain leverage in a place called Spruce Pine, North Carolina, which controls about 90 percent of the world's high quality quartz needed for making semiconductors. Beyond technology, the world's food supply also depends on global trade, since the north, meaning Canada, the United States, Europe, China and Russia, produces most of the world's fertilizer while the global south, especially Africa, the Middle East and South America, must import it. If supply chains break down during a war, the north might lose access to gadgets, but the south could face outright famine. Looking ahead twenty years, the professor argues the defining resource conflict will not be oil but water, and a map of water scarcity effectively predicts where future wars will erupt, including tension over the Colorado River among Arizona, California and Colorado, mounting conflict in the Middle East, and water disputes between India and China.
Migration, aging, and a coming clash 1:48:01
A map of fertility rates shows Africa and the Middle East having the most children per couple, and since these regions overlap with the areas facing the worst water scarcity and conflict, young people there will have strong incentive to migrate, likely toward Europe. Europe, however, is simultaneously facing the fastest aging population among developed nations, which means it needs immigrants to provide cheap healthcare and labor even as it faces pressure to wall itself off. This tension raises the risk of domestic conflict between migrants and native populations, potentially leading to civil unrest or political violence. The host notes this may explain the rise of right-wing parties like Reform in the UK, the AFD in Germany, and MAGA in the US, all campaigning to block immigration, but the professor counters that robots cannot easily replace immigrant labor because robotics depends on copper, lithium, silicon and rare earths sourced from distant, unstable supply chains, making immigration the cheaper solution to labor shortages than automation.
Iran's best move is chaos 1:48:01
If the United States won the Iran war and achieved regime change, oil would flow freely again to Asia, fueling manufacturing profits that could be reinvested into AI development. But the professor says this outcome has lost momentum. Instead, from a game theory standpoint, Iran's best strategy is to disrupt global trade entirely, using the Houthis to threaten the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, Hezbollah to threaten the Suez Canal, and Shia militias to threaten the Mediterranean, creating enough chaos that insurance companies can no longer underwrite global shipping. He predicts the conflict will keep escalating, though he won't forecast exactly how, since he does not know Iran's internal politics or whether the world might unite against it if it goes too far.
A civilization-destroying endgame 1:48:01
The professor argues the US response to Iranian disruption would likely be striking Iran's desalination and power plants, an act he says would be worse than a nuclear strike because Tehran, a city of about ten million people, depends on refrigerated food and could face starvation. He argues that the more power a state or leader holds, the less imagination and empathy they exercise, making such a devastating choice seem acceptable if it preserves the empire. This would trigger new migration crises from Iran and from Africa, adding to strain that has been building since 2014, when the destruction of Libya and civil war in Syria sent millions of migrants into Europe, straining its social fabric ever since.
Prediction one, a siege of New York 1:48:01
The professor's first prediction is a siege of New York City, built on the premise that Donald Trump secures a third term, either by suspending the Constitution during a national emergency or by running as vice president in 2028 with his son Don Jr. at the top of the ticket before resigning to hand back the presidency. He notes the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, explicitly bars more than two elected terms, but argues that historical precedent, such as Lincoln suspending habeas corpus or Roosevelt interning Japanese Americans, shows presidents can defy convention with little the Supreme Court can do. He predicts that Democratic-leaning cities, particularly New York under its mayor Zohran Mamdani, would refuse to pay federal taxes or admit ICE agents, prompting federal and possibly militia forces to besiege the city by cutting off food and water for years. He and the host place a personal one hundred dollar bet on whether Trump will still be in the White House on January 21, 2029.
Prediction two, an attack on your bank account 1:48:01
The second prediction centers on the idea that the next 9/11-style attack would target US financial infrastructure rather than physical landmarks. The professor frames the original 9/11 as an attempt to traumatize Americans into self-destructive violence, pointing to the twenty years of costly wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya that followed and drained US finances and military prestige. Since people have grown numb to attacks on physical symbols, he suggests a more effective shock now would be wiping out access to bank accounts, describing a scenario where your phone fails to pay for coffee and hours of frantic calls reveal that financial data servers have been destroyed, erasing savings with no clear timeline for recovery. He says he would not rule out this kind of attack, calling it comparably difficult to execute as the original 9/11 but potentially even more effective at provoking mass anger and frenzy.
Detained trying to re-enter America 1:48:01
The professor describes becoming one of the most polarizing figures in the world after his prediction about the Iran war in March came true, which made him fear returning to the United States might result in detention or deportation by customs. After the war's intensity faded over the summer, he flew to Toronto to visit family and attempted to enter the US from Pearson Airport on August 5th for a planned appearance on the Theo Von show, telling immigration officers he would be in the country for two weeks. During questioning, an officer asked whether he had a travel letter for his eight-year-old son, who was traveling with him.
Trouble at the US border 1:48:01
Professor Jiang describes being pulled into secondary screening at US immigration, first over confusion about a travel letter for his son Chris, and then again on a later trip despite having all his paperwork in order. He believes the second stop was retaliation for naming names connected to the Clean Break memo during recent podcast appearances, including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, who he says helped architect the Iraq war using that same 1996 blueprint. He points to journalist Max Blumenthal, a US citizen whose devices were confiscated after covering a funeral in Iran, as a parallel case, and suggests an official hinted his US entry permit might not be renewed once it expires in six months. He frames this as the behavior of a declining empire trying to silence critics rather than accept criticism, while still expressing admiration for the American people.
Messi as Argentina's president 1:48:01
Jiang's third new prediction is that Lionel Messi will become president of Argentina. He links this to Argentina's growing closeness with Israel and the United States, its renewed demand for the return of the Falkland Islands with Trump's backing, and Javier Milei's warm relationship with Netanyahu. He notes Argentina is reportedly offering Israeli citizens access to healthcare and pensions, which he sees as part of a plan to resettle secular Jews who oppose messianic factions pushing for an end-times war in Israel. Since Israel is unpopular in Argentina, he argues Messi's popularity would be the easiest way to make mass Israeli immigration politically acceptable, alongside reclaiming the Falklands as a nationalist counterweight.
Why China and Japan may clash 1:48:01
Jiang argues that inside China, unlike in the West, almost nobody expects an invasion of Taiwan, but nearly everyone expects eventual conflict with Japan. He explains this through geography: China is a self-sufficient land power historically built on agriculture, while Japan is a resource-poor sea power historically sustained by trade and, at times, piracy, with a population made cohesive by living amid earthquakes and tsunamis. Japan's aging population and dependence on imported energy mean that without secure access to Southeast Asia as a resource base, it risks decline within decades, especially once US protection recedes and China is forced to deindustrialize by the fallout from the Iran war.
Taiwan as the flashpoint 1:48:01
He explains that if China and Taiwan were to reunify, China would gain the option to blockade Japan's shipping lanes, which Japan sees as an existential threat, echoing the US oil embargo that pushed Japan into World War Two. Japan is responding by building alliances with the Philippines, Australia, and India to counterbalance China, while China avoids direct confrontation to prevent looking like an aggressor that unites Southeast Asia against it. Instead, both sides lean on proxies, China using North Korea to threaten Seoul and rattle Japan with missile tests, and Japan pressing China's naval position through the Philippines. Jiang adds that the United States benefits from this rising tension since it pushes Taiwan's semiconductor giant TSMC to relocate production, such as its new factory in Arizona.
Russia's calculated escalation in Europe 1:48:01
Turning to Europe, Jiang describes Ukraine's drone strikes on Russian oil refineries as a shift that has brought the war's economic pain home to ordinary Russians and made Putin more unpopular. Since Ukraine's drones are manufactured in Germany and the UK and financed indefinitely by Europe, he argues Russia cannot win a war of attrition against Ukraine alone and must instead provoke NATO countries directly, citing a drone attack on Leipzig airport and the closing of Russian and German consulates as early signs. He notes Russia's foreign minister compared the moment to 1941, and argues Russia's only path to victory is forcing European mass mobilization, which requires Russia itself to declare total war and call up its roughly three million reservists, likely triggering matching mobilization across Europe. He also argues the United States prefers continued war since it forces Europe to depend on American energy.
The Clean Break memo's lasting shadow 1:48:01
Jiang traces the alternative path not taken back to 1995, when the Oslo peace process and Bill Clinton's Washington Consensus assumed trade and prosperity would eventually pacify Israel and Palestine the way it had pacified postwar Japan and Germany. Netanyahu's rise in 1996 brought the Clean Break memo instead, a plan by neoconservative strategists urging Israel to abandon land for peace, pursue regional dominance by weakening Iraq, Syria, and Hezbollah, and adopt preemptive offensive strategy rather than containment. Jiang says all three pillars have now been achieved, and argues the only way to have avoided today's cascading conflicts would have been for the United States to pressure Israel toward peace with Arab nations, leveraging its role as Israel's main source of arms, financing, and technology. He believes it is now too late to reverse the structural damage already done to global trade and stability.
His advice for ordinary people 1:48:01
Asked what advice he has for people outside politics, Jiang says the most important thing is to believe in God. He describes his elite education teaching him the world is purely materialistic, which left him angry and depressed through his twenties, thirties, and forties, until marrying his wife and having three children helped him see order and purpose rather than chaos. Only in the past two years has he developed genuine religious belief, and he says that belief, combined with focusing on family, brings a sense that things will be alright. He adds that real belief in God also compels action, which is why he has spent the past month speaking on podcasts, driven by a simple commitment to telling the truth.
Faith demands action, not withdrawal 1:48:01
Believing in God, the professor says, is not an excuse to hide away and disengage from the world. If you know something true, you have a moral responsibility to speak it and act on it, because that is why God created you in the first place.
Crisis as the path to wisdom
Asked why God allows wars in Russia, Ukraine, and the Middle East, he answers that wisdom comes only through struggle, pain, and failure, not around them. He argues humans are here to be truly human, living with love, empathy, and imagination, not to chase money or fast cars. Too much wealth, fame, or power makes that kind of imagination and love impossible, so a world in crisis forces everyone to ask what truly matters, and the answer, he believes, is love for the people around us, a realization that could amount to a spiritual awakening for humanity.
AI as control grid, not liberator 1:48:01
He predicts that broken global supply chains during wartime will stop AI from advancing into true general intelligence, so instead of solving scarcity or disease, it gets repurposed into a surveillance and control system, with companies like Palantir developing autonomous drone warfare during crises such as a siege of New York City. His deeper worry isn't surveillance but that AI cheapens human experience, distracting people from what he sees as humanity's real mission of spiritual growth through love and kindness.
Family, hope, and his son Chris 1:48:01
His hope comes from his children, especially his son Chris, whom he credits for giving his life purpose and keeping him from being corrupted by fame or money. He isn't worried about Chris's future despite his bleak predictions, because he and his wife have loved him fully, and he recounts Chris at age two saying he was an alien from another world visiting to experience humanity, which he now describes as love built on trust and liberation rather than control.
His own biggest fear 1:48:01
Closing out, he admits his biggest challenge is his own fear, doubt, and paralysis, including worry that his blunt criticism of China, Canada, and the United States could get him banned from all three countries, so he keeps working to hold onto his faith in God, his family, and his purpose.