A Dying Empire

Its main usefulness is that it is one way in which Israel creates distractions and distortions in order that it can proceed with its coveted process of possessing all the land within Eretz Israel. For Israel, forever the victim, never the perpetrator, the Palestinian situation is pretty much completely obscured by Iran and all the other events surrounding the region. The western media gives little or no coverage to the ongoing process of land confiscation, and the abuses, denials, and contortions of international laws and conventions concerning occupation and basic human rights.

It provides the U.S. with the needed enemy adversary, the evil ‘other’, someone requiring extensive militarization in order to control them. As with other geopolitical situations it has been in, the manner in which they wish to resolve it, in spite of rhetoric about “all other options”, this one is definitely not off the table, and is quite likely biding its time near the head of the table.

Iran represents an evil other, but only to the U.S. and its NATO allies. China has maintained strong ties with Iran for the obvious energy necessities of their huge population as well as for the strategic benefits of helping maintain control of regional events, keeping the U.S. away from its boundaries and areas of direct influence. India, ostensibly a U.S. ally, plays its own geopolitical game, desiring energy from Iran, but also considering its regional interests and influences vis a vis Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China.

Outcomes

There are far too many parameters and convolutions and possibilities concerning the outcome of the focus on Iran—too many unexpected unknowns that no one can truly deal with. The one constant is the violent nature of the U.S. empire, and its extensive use of creating the ‘other’ in its empirical adventures. Its allies in NATO and in Israel follow the same pattern.

There are far too many other associated regions and disassociated regions that all tie together into the web of imperial hegemony that the U.S. has created for its needs. These needs are mainly economic, requiring the easy energy of oil, the easy access to cheap labor, the access to the mineral resources and labor resources of the Third World. At home, the U.S. elites have created a system where a select few hold the power and the wealth to the detriment of many others. The economy for the rich is based mainly on pure financial speculation, with the big banks and financial institutions receiving huge bailouts that may have prevented a greater economic collapse, but still leave it teetering on the brink of an abyss.

I cannot say how the empire will pass, but it appears to be in process already. Still, it may last another many decades, backed by overt military force. The problems that beset it are numerous: economic, military, environmental, and resources. Its decline may or may not be gradual, and similarly it may or may not be fast. It may have a punctuated decline where different actions and events create sudden turmoil that is stabilized at a lower level. Distinct events may set off serious declines: war on Iran, nuclear reactor disasters (there are over 400 in the world, over 100 in the U.S. —Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima indicate that something catastrophic can and will happen), nuclear wars, financial collapse of the EU and the euro, collapse of the dollar as the reserve oil currency, perhaps at China’s instigation if pushed too hard by the U.S. in other areas.

This is an entirely skeptical and pessimistic outlook for the future—at least for those of us living in the first world on the riches and abuses of the Third World. For the billions of people subject to the imperial hegemony of the U.S in one form or another, it may be a blessing.

On the positive side, for future generations, their lives will be the new normal, a world to be accommodated to in order to live and survive as humanity has always done. Perhaps for many of the currently dispossessed it will be better and brighter as new paradigms come into play and old powers lose influence around the world. Hopefully, the future will be in societies with time and energy to put into the care and compassion that humanity so desperately needs, that the world as a whole so desperately needs, with concerns for each other and for the environment in which we live overcoming the power and greed of elitist politics.