Mike Lyons
28.1K posts
@MAJMikeLyons
@WestPoint_USMA; @NYUStern; @USArmy; @NHL: @ArmyWP_MLax: @CNN. Views all mine. Life is difficult, endure the hardship.
BREAKING: CNN reported exclusively on April 11, citing three people familiar with recent US intelligence assessments, that China is preparing to deliver shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile systems known as MANPADs to Iran within the next few weeks. This would constitute the most significant direct military transfer from Beijing to Tehran since the war began on February 28. China brokered the ceasefire. China nudged Iran toward the two-week pause that began April 8. China’s diplomatic pressure helped create the conditions for the Islamabad talks happening today. And US intelligence now assesses that the same China is preparing to arm the country it helped bring to the negotiating table with weapons designed to shoot down American aircraft. The likely system is the FN-6, a Chinese shoulder-fired missile weighing 16 kilograms with an infrared and ultraviolet dual-band seeker, a range of six kilometers, and a maximum altitude of 3,800 meters. It is optimized for exactly the kind of targets the US has been losing in this war. At least 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones have been destroyed since February 28, each one a $30 million platform flying low and slow through Iranian airspace that Chinese MANPADs are specifically designed to reach. Iran already reinforced Kharg Island with MANPADs in recent weeks. Russia signed a 500-launcher, 2,500-missile Verba MANPAD deal worth 495 million euros in December 2025. Now China enters the same supply chain. But the MANPADs are not the full picture. At least five sanctioned Iranian-flagged vessels have departed China’s Gaolan Port since February 28 carrying sodium perchlorate, a chemical precursor that converts to ammonium perchlorate through a simple metathesis reaction yielding 98 percent efficiency. Ammonium perchlorate constitutes 70 to 75 percent by weight of the solid propellant in Iranian ballistic missiles like the Kheibar Shekan. The Telegraph, Washington Post, and the Institute for the Study of War have independently confirmed these shipments contain enough material for hundreds of new missiles. The vessels are part of Iran’s IRISL shadow fleet, the same dark-fleet network that carries Iranian crude to Chinese teapot refineries settled in yuan via CIPS. The same ships. The same ghost fleet. The same yuan payment rails. Oil goes east. Missile chemicals go west. The bilateral trade is denominated in a currency that bypasses every US sanction, transits routes that avoid every Western chokepoint, and sustains a war machine that the country brokering peace is simultaneously resupplying. China vetoed the UN Hormuz resolution on April 7. China nudged Iran toward the ceasefire on April 8. China met Taiwan’s KMT opposition leader at the Great Hall of the People on April 10. And on April 11, CNN reports that China is preparing to deliver anti-aircraft missiles to Iran during the ceasefire China helped create, using the ghost fleet that carries Iranian oil to China, funded by the yuan toll system that China’s CIPS infrastructure enables. Every action is consistent. Every action serves Beijing. The ceasefire protects Chinese oil imports. The MANPADs protect Iran’s ability to close Hormuz again if the ceasefire fails. The sodium perchlorate restocks the missiles that make the threat credible. And the KMT meeting exploits the strategic window that the war China is fueling opened over Taiwan. This is not hedging. This is architecture. And the talks in Islamabad tonight are happening inside a building that China helped construct and is simultaneously undermining from the foundations. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…
US intelligence indicates that China is preparing to provide Iran with air defense systems in a matter of weeks, CNN reported. Beijing is expected to ship shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles known as Man-Portable Air Defense Systems. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
🚨“WE GOT HIM! My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History, for one of our incredible Crew Office Members, who also happens to be a highly respected Colonel, and who I am thrilled to let you know is SAFE and SOUND!” - President Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸
Next time, let’s wait until Iran has nuclear-armed ICBMs, 10,000 ballistic missiles, a Chinese- and Russian-built military, a million attack drones, a fully operational terror network, and hundreds of billions to harden its economy. Then we’ll fight to reopen Hormuz.
