America and Israel: Decline of the Hegemons

Something is broken and may never be fixed.  US presidents for a quarter-century refused to join Israel’s forever war against Iran; despite enormous pressure from Israel and the Lobby.  In a few cases, they collaborated in operations which sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program. But they refused to do what Trump has done. He has been led by the nose into a war he cannot win, against an enemy that cannot lose, and with allies who refuse to stop.

As the old saying goes, Iran wins as long as it does not lose.  The US loses as long as it does not win.  The US cannot win this war.  All the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put Humpty-Trump’s war back together again.  All the weapons, all the carriers, all the warplanes, all the Tomahawks, all the THAADs, all the JDAMs–all for naught.

As Trita Parsi writes:

In Iran, however, the United States didn’t even win the military phase — despite facing a far weaker conventional force. Iran leveraged geography and asymmetric tactics to blunt American power and inflict a strategic setback. Even more striking, early claims that U.S. airstrikes had significantly degraded Iran’s drone and missile capabilities now appear overstated. The lesson is clear: control of the skies does not guarantee control of outcomes. Without the will to deploy ground forces—and without the ability to translate airpower into decisive results — American primacy begins to look increasingly hollow.

What does Iran have? Drones (lots of them), ballistic missiles, a few speedboats.  That’s pretty much the full inventory.  But it has something that is of incalculable value: it has a spirit of resistance and it has terrain.  It is fighting in and for its own country. It has mountains (to hide missiles and nuclear facilities). It is the 17th largest country in the world (650,000 square miles), the size of Alaska.  It has people (93-million).  Subduing Gaza (4-million) or Lebanon (6-million) is one thing.  But you cannot subdue the Iranian people.  Even if you put boots on the ground and attempted to topple the clerical regime.  It can’t be done.

American supremacy undone

The best the US can hope for is a stalemate. Parsi writes: “The most likely outcome of the current US-Iran stand-off is neither a deal nor a return to war, but a prolonged, uneasy equilibrium.”  From a Hot War it will become a Cold War.  Never out of sight or mind. Always promising to flare up once again.  An unstable dangerous reality.  But behind this reality lurks America’s enemies, rivals and even its allies who’ve witnessed the limits of American power.  They’ve witnessed the vulnerability, the weakness. You cannot put that genie back in the bottle.

In 2001, the US succeeded at overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan. Two decades later, it withdrew and the entire edifice collapsed.  In 2003, it toppled Saddam and the Baath party only to unleash decades of bloody sectarian war, after which US forces withdrew.  You cannot do this in Iran.  It’s impossible.

Trump’s failure is not just his own, not just his MAGA movement. It is the failure of American power. It is the beginning of an incremental decline in US global dominance. This includes not just military power, but economic power as well.  As China’s sun rises in the east, the US sun slowly sets in the west.  It is inexorable.

There is one small opportunity to reverse course.  If, over the next decade or two, US presidents and political leadership can step back from the disaster Trump has wrought; If they can restore the Republic, restore faith of our allies, vigorously oppose our enemies, and generally renew what is best in America–then maybe, just maybe, there is a chance to restore it.

But there is just as much likelihood that a better, smarter version of Trump will come along and sucker the American people.  I fear a fascist like Orban who has half a brain, isn’t addled in mind and spirit, and speaks in full sentences could seal the nation’s fate.  Trump has provided the model. All that’s necessary is someone to replicate and “improve” upon it.

One of the main factors in Trump’s presidency and historic US foreign policy is the reliance on force to attain political objectives:

For decades, U.S. grand strategy has rested on primacy — the belief that America’s unmatched military capabilities enabled it to uphold global stability and shape outcomes across regions.

After the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, many Americans have reached a stark conclusion: the cost of primacy is no longer sustainable — and no longer serves U.S. interests. A strategy that depends on military dominance everywhere, all the time, inevitably means being at war somewhere, all the time. America’s endless wars are not an accident; they are the product of this approach.

As I wrote in my last post, most states maintain a mix of military force and diplomacy to do so.  Trump disdains negotiation.  For him, negotiation is a means, not to an end, but his end. It is bullying others into doing his will.  Talk is meant to obfuscate; to bluff and blunder; to lie.  He isn’t interested in what others have to say. He has no patience to listen or absorb.

You may be able to run a real estate business this way.  But you cannot run a country.  If you try, you will run it into the ground. This is brutalism as governance.  Precisely what Trump is doing.

But when an interlocutor flatters him with fawning praise, promises him glory–then Trump is easily manipulated.  In fact, multiple media reports argue that Netanyahu dragged him into war.

The Israeli prime minister is such a forked-tongue figure. In a 2000 video of a conversation with a settler family, his infamous words of a quarter century ago serve as a precedent for his manipulation of Trump:

“Especially with America. I know how they are.  America is something you can easily maneuver and move in the right direction. And even if they say something…so what?

Though most of the world has tired of his bloviating and lies, the US president is vulnerable to the spell Netanyahu casts.  No one knows what he told Trump in their multiple meetings and phone calls in the run-up to the war.  Whatever it was, the president basked in it. Afterward, he was all-in.  On a heading for disaster.

Israel: hollow hegemon

Israel itself presents many similarities to this American supremacism.  For the past 75 years, it has imposed its will on the region, mostly by force. Though in the first decades after statehood it did make use of diplomacy to defend its interests; now, it resorts to force as first and last resort.  It has no foreign policy to speak of–except fighting back against global denunciation.  It doesn’t advance a program or a policy.  It has no vision.  No patience.  No interest in compromise.  Its foreign policy is entirely reactive.

It is a garrison state fighting forever wars. Yes, it is in the ascendancy. It’s vanquished all of its rivals.  It occupies major portions of Lebanese, Syrian territory and 60% of Gaza. It has eliminated much of Iran’s senior political and military leadership. It stands supreme, a Colossus bestriding the Middle East.

Many of its Arab neighbors, former enemies have recognized it.  This has been a dream of Israeli leaders for the past 75 years.  Netanyahu should be basking in glory of Israeli supremacy. Nevertheless, these victories are brittle.  Unlike the Roman and British empires, there has been no attempt to enlist and co-opt the vanquished. No attempt to absorb them them into an empire.  No attempt at political integration.

Israel’s raison d’etre represents no constructive value: not freedom, not liberty, not humanity.  It exists to fight, to rule over its enemies.  It is Sparta without the intelligence. Alexander without any strategic vision.  As I’ve written here, empires do not last forever. Even the best ones.  They invariably fall prey to hubris and overreach.  Domination only lasts so long.  Eventually, subjects grow stronger and become rivals.  Then they topple the king.

US: Israel’s Achilles Heel

Israel’s Achilles Heel is, ironically, the US.  Every war the former fights depends almost entirely on a steady supply of American weapons.  Biden and Trump opened a pipeline through which nearly $30-billion in weapons flowed.  Just as the US is running out of its own inventory of missiles and other critical weapons in its fight against Iran, so Israel exhausts relatively quickly its own independently-produced weapons.  When that happens, Israel goes to Uncle Joe or Uncle Don and tells him to turn on the tap.  Invariably, the US accedes and so the war continues.

But what happens when a US president finally says no?  When the weapons no longer flow through the pipeline.  At that point, Israel’s ambitions will become immensely constrained. No longer will it be able to bomb an enemy into submission; wage genocide and kill hundreds of thousands.  It will become what it should be: a “middle-power” seeking to find its way in a world filled with states with whom it must compete, rather than dominate.

The Bible recounts the decline of the status of the Israelites in Egypt: “A new king arose who knew not Joseph.”  Some day, a president who isn’t beholden to the Israel Lobby; who’s willing to resist Israel’s blandishments and bullying–will arise.  Some day, a Congress will turn off the funding tap.  Some day, the State Department will declare Israel in violation of US human rights law.  Some day the US will endorse the ICC and ICJ prosecutions of Israel. Some day the president will declare Netanyahu persona non grata and warn him of arrest should he step foot here.  Then what will Israel do?

Netanyahu has told the world that his goal is military self-sufficiency: for Israel to produce all of its weapons.  He claims he wants to cease all US military aid.  He says many things, most of them lies.  But even if this were true–while it certainly can ramp up R&D and increase its level of production–it is doubtful that it can produce everything it needs. Especially if the US turns off not only the supply of the weapons themselves, but of the research and technical expertise that enables their development.  Israel will still be, to some degree, reliant on the US.  And this is its Achilles Heel.