Iran Could END US Hegemony by Owen Jones

 

Click on Owen Jones "The US elite is in a state of panic, outright panic, as they realize that the Iran war is ending US hegemony. The US has been a global superpower for over eight decades and has had unchallenged global hegemony for 35 years now. Now, his power was already in chaotic decline because of other military strategic disasters, for example, like Iraq, like Afghanistan, like Libya, and because of a crisis stricken economic model, as the 2008 financial crash from which we never recovered has underlined. Donald Trump himself is a symptom of US decline, but he is also an accelerant of US decline as the Iran catastrophe underlines. As we'll see, the gravity of the situation is sinking in amongst US elites, the end of US supremacy.

Although that itself comes with an important warning, which we'll discuss. All of this, to be clear,is down to Iran having control of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world economy's main arteries, and its power to destroy the energy infrastructure and water desalination plants of the Gulf States, and thus plunge the world into a global depression. is already causing economic mayhem in the United States. That's why Trump has retreated from his threat to attack Iranian energy infrastructure, its power stations, and is now claiming to be negotiating with Iran, which Iran says is a lie. Indeed, the Iranian regime has become more hardline because of the war. For example, Israel killed Ali Larijani, the country's national security adviser, last week. He was seen as relatively pragmatic and moderate. He's now just being replaced by a general described as being uber hawkish. 

Wow. Impressive. Now, let's talk about this panic. Let's start with Donald Trump's former defense secretary, General Jim Mattis. He says, "Iran right now, if we declared victory, they would say now they own the straits. You'd see attacks for every ship that goes through." That's exactly what's happening, by the way. We'll come on to that. This four-star general who commanded US forces in the Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan, the Iraq war, who was commander of US Central Command, says, "We're in a tough spot, ladies and gentlemen. I can't identify a lot of options." To which he can only say, "Whoops." He notes that Iran's goal in negotiations would include reparations and the end of US military presence and support in the region. He concludes I'm not optimistic about negotiations under the current circumstances. This former top US general and former Trump defense secretary understands the basic reality. The United States of America has suffered strategic defeat. A shattering strategic defeat indeed…..”