In 1990, George HW Bush announced his vision before Congress. “Out of these troubled times a new world order can emerge: a new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace.”
The ‘troubled times’ referred to the crisis in the Persian Gulf following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. In this crisis lay a golden opportunity for US imperialism.
Operation Desert Storm, the blistering US bombardment of Iraq, was a triumphant propaganda success; a chance to flaunt a new class of military systems to friends and foes alike.
State-of-the-art sensors, radars, and precision guidance equipment demolished Iraq’s military forces, paving the way for a short, sharp, and surgical ground invasion.
With next-to-no US prisoners captured or casualties incurred, the ratio of Iraqi to US losses was without historic precedent: roughly a hundred to one.
But this was far more than just a display of military power. The first Gulf War signalled a new era in world politics: the end of the Cold War and the beginning of untrammelled US domination. Bush’s vision was inaugurated.
Recalibration of power
By this time, there was no longer a need to fight the Soviets in the shadows. The collapse of the USSR was the collapse of the US’ sole major rival. This led to a tremendous recalibration in the balance of forces globally, providing new opportunities for US imperialist exploitation.
American dominance hinged on having decisive influence over the states, trade, and resources of the Middle East. The region is perched on the axis of the busiest maritime trade routes, connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia. And it is one of the world’s most important energy-exporting areas.
This explains the US invasion of Iraq in 1991. Far from being a war to free ‘poor little Kuwait’, it was American imperialism’s opening salvo to establish a new uncontested regional order.
The US imperialists cashed in on their demonstrative display of might, signing successive defence contracts with Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Emirates. The Persian Gulf became one giant, monolithic US military base. The world, it seemed, lay at Washington’s feet.
The US ruling class imagined that the Middle East could be remade at gunpoint – confusing the ability to destroy with the ability to control. They congratulated themselves on their ‘new world order’. But they were blinkered from seeing what challenges would come with playing the role of the world’s policemen.
With colossal power came colossal arrogance. As Alan Woods and Ted Grant warned just before the turn of the 21st century: “The insolence of US imperialism in attempting to subordinate the whole of the Middle East to its control will produce an equal and opposite reaction.”
Blowback
The attacks of 9/11 – 11 September 2001 – were the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on US soil.
“They hate our freedoms,” George W. Bush explained in the aftermath of 9/11. “America was targeted because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.”
The ‘they’ in this equation was al-Qaeda – the motley crew of Salafi jihadists that had previously been hailed as ‘freedom fighters’ by the US during the 1980s Soviet-Afghan war.
The CIA, alongside Pakistan’s intelligence services and Saudi Arabia, funnelled billions of dollars, weapons, and logistical support to the mujahideen. The US collected and organised the most violent, zealous Islamists to kill the ‘Godless communists’ in Afghanistan. These rag-tag extremists now struck back against the Empire.
But these inconvenient details were smothered in a fog of propaganda. Washington’s prevailing narrative presented 9/11 as the tragic consequence of a ‘clash of civilisations’, as prophesied in Samuel Huntington’s 1996 book.
Dressing up their imperialist intentions in the language of ‘democracy’ and ‘nation building’, the US establishment used the next two decades to wage their so-called ‘war on terror’.
Retaliation
The warmongers and neoconservatives (‘neocons’) in Washington cast their gaze to the ‘rogue’ regimes of the Middle East, turning ‘regime change’ into a matter of US national security.
The bitter irony is that those who had funded ‘global jihad’ under the Reagan administration were recycled into the Bush Jr administration to tame the monster that they had created.
Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz – key figures behind the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) – crawled out of the woodwork and took centre stage.
PNAC’s mission statement, which hinged on ‘preventive war’, was soon enough the National Security Strategy of Bush II.
By December 2001, the Taliban had been ousted and a US-backed government installed in Afghanistan. It was war waged under the red mist of retaliation; a quick military victory that projected strength.
The neocons had far greater designs in mind than simply capturing al-Qaeda, which had become their latest bogeyman. They turned their wrath to what had become an ideological obsession: bringing down Saddam Hussein, the man who dared to chart his own path in 1990.
‘Shock and awe’
The ‘liberation’ of Iraq was official US state policy since 1998. But only now, drunk off the quick and easy initial success in Afghanistan, did they launch their all-out invasion.
By May 2003, Bush declared ‘mission accomplished’ from atop the USS Abraham Lincoln, following the fall of Baghdad to US forces.
None of the plane hijackers who carried out 9/11 were Iraqi. Nor did al-Qaeda have any presence in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But these trivialities were drowned out by the ‘war on terror’ cacophony.
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The whole world was told that Hussein possessed ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMDs) that posed an ‘imminent threat’ to democracy and all things good. Despite massive worldwide opposition to the war on the streets, the US simply pressed ahead, with Tony Blair following loyally behind.
Iraq’s vast oil fields brought with them a tantalising promise of profit and special access for US contractors. The links between Bush administration officials and companies such as Halliburton and Chevron naturally played a role in the zealousness to invade Iraq.
But there was also a broader strategic goal: the US could not tolerate any independent actor in the Middle East. No doubt the ‘shock and awe’ military campaign in Iraq was a political statement to the rest of the world: get in line, or else we will torture your people, capture your leaders, and take over your country.
Armed missionaries
The neocons tallied up their early successes. But they were unable to recognise that these were Pyrrhic victories – embroiling the US in battles it could not win.
Failing to learn anything from history, these hawks swanned in as great liberators, only to find stiff resistance from the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan. As soon as US forces swaggered in, they became a power from which the masses sought liberation.
As French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre famously quipped: “No one likes armed missionaries.”
In Iraq, the US occupying force dismantled the state that was loyal to Saddam. But in order to do this, it needed to sow sectarian divisions along the lines of what France had done in the previous century in Lebanon.
The result: societal collapse and sectarian bloodletting, in a country that had not previously been divided sharply down religious and ethnic lines.
The violence required to sustain the occupation led to mass detention, murder, and torture camps like Abu Ghraib. As Bush tabled his ‘Freedom Agenda’ in 2005, justifying post hoc the invasion after no WMDs were found, Iraq was drowning in blood.
Blowback 2.0
The shattering of the old regional balance of power provided a massive opening for Iran to break its strategic isolation.
In one fell swoop, the US had used its military might to remove the Ayatollah’s principal adversary. This facilitated the spread of Iran’s influence into Syria and Lebanon, opening up a land corridor to Damascus and Beirut through Iraq.
Due to their stupidity and short-sightedness, the US imperialists invited and welcomed back political dissidents who had been in exile in Tehran during Saddam’s reign.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (2006–2014), for instance, was deeply reverent towards the Islamic Republic. He ended up integrating pro-Iranian militias – who went on to attack US personnel and installations – into the new Iraqi state.
These were the unintended consequences of a very deliberate set of ill-fated policies.
Facing counter-insurgency abroad, and anger at home, US armed forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011 – only to end up back there in 2014.
But the world had to wait until 2021 for the ultimate schadenfreude, when President Biden evacuated American officials and troops from Kabul, in one of the most humiliating defeats in US military history.
In what was billed to be an orderly retreat, we instead saw a Saigon-style evacuation as the Taliban encircled the US embassy. The chickens had, once again, come home to roost for US imperialism.
The Arab street
But it was not just costly military campaigns and counter-insurgency operations that presented serious problems for US hegemony in the region.
What had long been ignored from Washington’s calculations was the ‘Arab street’: the simmering anger of the masses, who were denied the most elementary democratic rights, and who felt they had no future.
Starting with the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia at the end of 2010, the Arab world was soon set alight by revolution. ‘The people want the regime to fall’ was soon ringing out across North Africa and the Middle East.
In less than a month, the entrenched Ben Ali dictatorship had fallen under the power of the Tunisian masses. Next stop: the self-styled pharaoh in Cairo, Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt in the 1970s came fully into the orbit of US domination. It was the first Arab nation to recognise Israel, and to normalise trade and diplomatic relations with the Zionist state. In exchange for upholding this deeply unpopular policy and keeping the peace, the US provided the Egyptian dictator with money and arms.
In 2011, Washington looked on aghast as the revolution rapidly spread from Tunisia to Egypt. They had to rewrite their long-standing foreign policy in a matter of days. After dithering and delay, President Obama finally came out to say that Mubarak had lost America’s support.
The fall of Mubarak showed how brittle were the regimes that the US had subsidised for decades.
In turn, Obama’s decision to abandon Mubarak had a chilling effect on the Gulf monarchies. They began to doubt the US President’s judgement. They feared that if they faced similar movements, they would meet a similar fate. Most of all, they worried that US imperialism was no longer in control.
Quicksand
These fears were borne out in Syria.
In 2012, Obama sternly warned Bashar al-Assad that the use of chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war was a “red line” that, if crossed, would result in regime change.
But then Obama was stumped. After the abject failures of Iraq and Afghanistan, there was no appetite for war on the home front, amongst ordinary Americans. The brewing anger against ‘forever wars’ amongst the US working class acted back on the international situation.
So US imperialism had to find others to do its fighting. To bring down Assad, the CIA, resorting to its old playbook, intervened alongside Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia to back Islamist cut-throats.
By channelling billions of dollars to disaffected jihadis, the situation soon spiralled out of control, leading to the rise of ISIS.
There was no sharp line between where the ‘moderate’ rebels ended and ISIS began. Moreover, poverty, alienation, and hatred towards the West made the spread of these al-Qaeda offshoots into Iraq inevitable.
Both Syria and Iraq were turned into jihadi playgrounds. This led to an internationally coordinated effort to contain the festering rot. In turn, the US suddenly found itself relying on its old enemies, including Iran and Hezbollah.
Fissures emerged within the US establishment itself. While the Pentagon joined this campaign, arming and organising the Kurds in Rojava to destroy ISIS, the CIA continued to back jihadi groups of all shapes and kinds.
The American Empire was caught in quicksand. Every move the US imperialists made sank them deeper into a quagmire.
With the US unable to influence the situation, regional powers became increasingly assertive. This was demonstrated by a 2017 ceasefire agreement, signed between Russia, Iran, and Turkey in Astana, which reflected the real balance of forces on the ground.
Dragged back in
The most graphic illustration of declining US influence is not to be found in the rise of its adversaries, however, but in the actions of its most cherished ally. The nation that most embarrasses, humiliates, and publicly rebukes the US is Israel.
For decades, Israel showed deference to the Mafia Don in Washington. In the postwar period, Israel rendered the US an invaluable service by battling its enemies. But what was once a prized strategic asset for American imperialism has increasingly become a liability.
The last time the US decisively put Israel in its place was during the Oslo Accords of 1993. Though these accords did not bring ‘peace’, nor anything resembling a Palestinian state, the US imperialists forced the Israelis to the table.
They did this because, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Americans believed that they could lessen their dependence on Israel, smooth over tensions between Israel and the Arab states, and rid themselves of the Palestine question.
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Instead, however, Israel systematically undermined the Oslo Accords during the 1990s. Knowing that they ultimately had the backing of the big boss in Washington, the Zionists acted with a sense of impunity.
The ‘peace process’ unravelled as the West Bank became increasingly fragmented, settlements proliferated, apartheid walls were erected, and East Jerusalem was colonised. This made a social explosion in Palestine inevitable.
As a result, US imperialism continues to be repeatedly dragged back into the maelstrom of the Middle East. As Michael Corleone lamented in The Godfather: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
Mutual entrapment
While the Don grumbled, and occasionally tried to assert himself, he ultimately acquiesced. Israel’s all-out warfare against the Palestinians during the Second Intifada (2000–2005), for example, was financially backed by the US.
When George W. Bush called for the ‘disengagement’ of Israeli forces from Gaza and the West Bank in 2002, the Israelis simply ignored him. They parroted back the ‘war on terror’ talking points, arguing that they were on the frontlines of the battle of the ‘free world’. Bush bristled with anger, calling on the IDF to leave the West Bank “without delay” – only to humiliatingly back down.
The more the US scolded uncontrollable Israeli violence, the more Israel’s leaders insisted they would act alone.
Far from US and Israeli interests being one and the same, they have increasingly diverged as American imperialism has undergone a relative decline, and as Israel has become more powerful and assertive.
The Israeli ruling class has grown increasingly confident that it can pursue its own objectives, secure in the knowledge that Washington has no better options to rely upon in the region. And the more Israel escalates, the harder it becomes for the US to distance itself from the consequences.
What began as a relationship of patronage has become a relationship of mutual entrapment: the mafiosa captain still needs the family’s resources, and the aging Don increasingly needs the young capo to prove that he is still a ferocious force.
In other words, the US kingpin still sits at the head of the table. But the question is whether he still calls the shots.
Palestine unresolved
Just over a week before 7 October 2023, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, remarked that “the region is quieter than it has been for decades”.
There were reasons for this optimism, at least from Washington’s point of view. Since the Abraham Accords were signed in 2020, the US had been on a crusade across the Arab world to bribe its leaders into normalising relations with Israel.
In 2023, the US appeared to be on the cusp of a diplomatic breakthrough: a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would see other Arab states follow like a row of falling dominoes. This, they believed, had the potential to nullify the Palestinian question once and for all.
This was all to lead to ‘peace’ under US domination, opening up the possibility of prosperous trade and business across the Middle East.
But history has a habit of returning with a vengeance. 7 October shattered the illusion that a new regional order could be established while leaving the Palestinians in the lurch.
As long as Israel’s powerful ruling class remained committed to denying Palestinians their most basic rights, there could be no meaningful settlement. And as long as there was no just settlement for the Palestinians, there could be no lasting peace in the Middle East.
This is the central contradiction that cannot be solved on the basis of capitalism.
Once again, the US has not been able to control the ensuing spiral of violence. The US response to Hamas’ attack has shown how tightly bound to its protégé it has become.
With Biden pledging full political and military support for Israel, its government seized the opportunity to carry out a genocide in full view of the whole world. This only deepened Washington’s problems.
Saudi Arabia froze the normalisation process, declaring in February 2024 that there could be no diplomatic relations with Israel without recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
Far from drawing the Arab states closer, through greater regional investment, security, and trade, Washington has increasingly come to be identified with Israel’s war and ambitions for dominance in the Middle East.
Bravery or stupidity?
Israel has opened up multiple theatres of conflict, provoking US friends and foes alike, and setting the whole region on fire.
The destruction of Gaza has not been an isolated campaign, but part of a wider war on several fronts – to which the US is repeatedly called upon to defend its ally and sustain its military operations.
The US has been dragged along by the leash, as its Zionist attack dog goes on a rampage of near-permanent warfare and increasing settler violence.
The culmination of this process is the US-Israeli assault on Iran. Earlier this year, on 28 February, as the US coordinated Israeli strikes, taking out the Ayatollah, Donald Trump stated: “No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight.”
Trump was right – but for the wrong reasons. This decision, which was warned against by his own generals, was not a sign of bravery, but of extreme stupidity and myopia.
The world watched Iran – a regional power, constrained for decades by economic sanctions – demonstrate that it could not only survive a confrontation with the US Empire; it could inflict enormous pain through its missiles and, most of all, by its ability to block one of the most important arteries of world trade, the Strait of Hormuz.
The confidence in Washington following the execution of the Ayatollah has since given way to something approaching bewilderment. The US ruling class has been forced into deep soul-searching.
Even neocons from the Reaganite tradition, such as Robert Kagan, have been forced to grapple with the consequences: “It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict; a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored.”
Their stupidity and insolence has now brought history full circle: from inaugurating the ‘new world order’ in Iraq, to ending it just next door.
Colossus with feet of clay
The balance sheet of the so-called ‘war on terror’ is devastating: millions of lives lost and a trail of failed states. And what has Washington to show for it? A region less amenable to US direction than the one it set out to transform.
This has not gone unnoticed. It has given traditional allies more room to manoeuvre. It has also emboldened rivals – Russia, Iran, and now China, through its economic muscle – to begin to fill the space vacated by US imperialism’s relative decline.
The US spent trillions of dollars in its murderous spree, revealing itself to the world as the rogue state par excellence, as well as the foremost terrorist force.
This has also produced an equal and opposite reaction on the home front. Ordinary Americans have had enough of ‘their’ leaders’ imperialist adventures. A foreign war has rarely damned a US president’s political term so thoroughly as Trump’s latest intervention in Iran. The President can do no right, as he stares defeat in the face.
These events are demonstrating to the entire world that US imperialism is a colossus with feet of clay. In turn, one by one, the pillars of the ‘new world order’ are being undermined by the very policies intended to uphold and reinforce them.
Empires rarely collapse in a single, decisive moment. More often, their decline unfolds through a succession of crises – each of which exposes the limits of their power, and makes the next crisis harder to contain.
The Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun, who studied the rise and fall of dynasties, offered a warning: “Exaggerated harshness is harmful to royal authority, and in most cases causes its destruction.”
This task falls to the US working class: to topple this shaky colossus, and bring the American Empire tumbling down.
