The U.S. and Israel’s unchecked aggression has plunged the world into a lawless state of imperial violence—yet their latest attacks on Iran have only exposed the limits of colonial power. As Western leaders cling to delusions of dominance, Iran’s defiance reveals a shifting global order where imperial wars are becoming wars against imperialism itself.
“When U.S. and Western imperialists had to pretend that they were the ontologically civilized, humane, reasonable and innocent, it imposed some civilizing constraints on the range of their uncivilized actions. But in this era of lawless global fascism led by the U.S. and Israel those self-imposed constraints no longer exist.
“U.S. and Israeli Gangsterism Has Created a Hobbesian International State of Nature”
A day after the Israeli settler-colonial apartheid state launched a sneak attack on Iran, an Iran that thought it was involved in a serious negotiation with Israel’s main benefactor, the United States, the Black Alliance for Peace declared that “the Middle East is on fire because Israeli and U.S. imperialism lit the match.” Twelve days later after a fierce response from Iran that saw major Israeli cities hit by Iranian missiles and an attack by the U.S. on Iranian nuclear facilities, Israel gladly accepted a ceasefire imposed on them by the Trump administration. What happened?
There was never any ambiguity regarding the U.S. strategic objective to effect “regime change” in Iran. And the mechanism for the execution of the policy was always clear - the deployment of the assets from Fort Israel, or the unsinkable U.S. aircraft carrier that is Israel, as some refer to it.
War with Iran was always on the horizon and was passionately advocated for by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister for more than two decades.
Yet, just twelve days into the long-awaited and inevitable war, the Israeli’s learned a painful lesson that they should have learned by observing the historical disasters suffered by the U.S. The U.S. mistakenly believed that the winning strategy for a quick military victory in the Global South was the application of overwhelming military power. Remember “shock and awe” in Iraq?
It is evident that when quick victories do not occur and conflicts turn into prolonged wars of attrition, such as ones that occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan, the limitations of military power become apparent, particularly when used in an aggressive war of choice against a population prepared to defend themselves.
The unprovoked war launched by Israel and subsequently directly joined by the U.S. once again revealed the limitations of military power and the disastrous consequences of colonial arrogance. An arrogance that resulted in successive military defeats of the U.S. and has now stripped away the veneer of invincibility associated with the Israeli military.
After Israel’s attack on Iran, Democratic Party senate leader Chuck Schumer did not condemn the illegality of the attack on a sovereign state, or question the constitutionality of the strike, he said instead, “The United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad as they prepare for Iran’s response.”
As other members of Congress issued statements it appears that the language reflected in those statements were copied and pasted directly from the American Israel Political Action Committee, AIPAC, repeating all the Israeli talking points with the most prominent being the imminent danger posed by Iran’s nuclear weapons project. A project that the intelligence agencies of the U.S. government declared non-existent just a few months ago.
However, with doubts about the success of the U.S. attack, the democrats are now playing another cynical game pretending to be concerned about the constitutionality of Trump’s use of military force.
It is a pathetic and transparently opportunistic move since just about every president since 1945 has found some creative way to commit the U.S. to military aggression with a specific declaration of war or authorization from Congress. And most democrats have consistently provided justifications for Israeli aggression against Iran, including reaffirming Israel’s supposed right to self-defense as a justification for its criminal attack on Iran.
And even with this game around the issue of the constitutionality of the attack, it is still clear that there is bipartisan support for intrusive measures to undermine the Iranian government under the pretext of concern for its nuclear project. The democrats just want to be consulted before they give consent to the violation of international law and the violation of the ultimate human right, which is the right to life, with the attack on Iran and the subsequent deaths of thousands of Iranians.
Another Strategic Defeat for the U.S. is Inevitable:
For the people of Iran and all of the peoples and nations involved in the ongoing struggle against Western imperialism, we all have one decisive weapon that will inevitably serve our interests at some point – the psychopathology of white supremacy. This affliction, representing a non-material conceptual frame has had a material impact on the lives, societies, cultures of millions of since the first significant contacts between the peoples later to become “Europeans” or white, and the non-European world.
This phenomenon is:
A racialized narcissistic cognitive disorder that centers so-called white people’s and European civilization and renders the afflicted with an inability to perceive objective reality in the same way as others. This affliction is not reducible to the race of so-called whites but can affect all those who have come in counter with the ideological and cultural mechanisms of the Pan-European colonial project.
This malady ensures that the disconnect with the objective world on the part of Europeans will inevitably result in European decision-makers constructing policies and a politics that will be counterproductive to their own interests in their dealings with non-European people.
An example of this is the inability of policymakers in the West to recognize the developments and power shifts in the world that make it impossible for Western nations to impose their will on other peoples and nations in ways that they could just a few years ago.
The proxy war between NATO and the Russian Federation engineered by the Biden administration and the U.S./Israeli attack on Iran are perfect examples of this phenomenon.
The Biden administration deluded itself into believing that after baiting the Russians into crossing the Ukrainian borders that it could impose economic sanctions, compel other nations in the world to support those sanctions, destroy the Russian currency and bring about “regime change.”
With Iran, it was thought that a two-tiered military assault from Israel and the U.S. would see the government splinter with the emergence of new social forces ready to step in and govern and cooperate with Israel and the U.S.
In both cases, the disconnect from the realities of a new global multipolarity and relative decline of the U.S. and Europe meant that it was inevitable that both projects would result in strategic failure.
Yet, because of this psychological affiliation, the strategic failure of Ukraine and the coming failure of Iran are beyond the scope of awareness. For Ursula von deer Leyen, the President of the European Commission, the lesson of Ukraine is European rearmament a clearer commitment to war leading Yanis Varoufakis to state that “The EU is now a fully-fledged War Project – a project that will either land us in permanent war, or it will bankrupt us further, or probably both.”
Iran will not be allowed to be defeated. As a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union and BRICS+ group, the legitimacy and viability of all of these projects would be called into question if Iran was allowed to be destroyed by the U.S. and Israel. How could these formations present themselves as alternative models of peaceful development and prosperity if they were unable to defend their members from aggressive and illegal attacks on their national sovereignty by the U.S. and Europe? How can there be greater economic cooperation, trade exchanges, and investments when security and the national defense of their members are not secured?
So, the Iranians are celebrating a tactical victory. The people of Iran and of the world understand even more clearly than before that it is only when you develop the means for collective self-defense that you can defend yourself from the threats and violence of rogue states like the U.S. and Israel.
The confusion and inconsistency of narratives emanating from the Trump white house reflects that Iran and Israel are not the only ones who do not know as Trump says, “what the F..k they are doing.” After the sneak attack by Israel on Iran the U.S. Secretary of State claimed the U.S. had nothing to do with it but very soon afterward the President undermined that statement. The Vice President said the target of the direct U.S. attack of a few days ago was only limited to Iran’s nuclear facilities and has nothing to do with “regime change,” Trump then tweeted that regime change might be a legitimate goal to “make Iran great again.”
“Imperialism can be defeated. It is on the defensive everywhere, and that is its weakness.” For the peoples of this planet, it is time to throw off all hesitation in our resistance to Western imperialism. The victory of Iran, even if only temporary, confirms that we can indeed turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism.
Ajamu Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. He is the Director of the North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights and serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S.-based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC).
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