As with so much of what we know about how the world works, we have Chomsky to thank for drawing our attention to the relevance to the new imperialism of St Augustine’s account of the exchange between Alexander the Great and a captive pirate.
In St. Augustine’s story, Alexander asks the pirate “how he dares molest or infest the seas.”
The pirate’s ‘elegant and excellent’ reply was: “How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an Emperor.”
For Chomsky, the story ‘capture[d] with some accuracy’ relations between the US and ‘various minor actors’ on the international stage up to the turn of the century.
Drawing on the second (2002) edition of Chomsky’s (1986) ‘Pirates and Emperors: Old and New’ , as an imperfect measure of whether and how the power dynamics of the world have changed it is worth re-examining some of the most striking illustrations of the fundamental differences between emperors and pirates then and now.
In re-reading the book, three manifestations of the pirate/emperor dichotomy stood out:1 dehumanisation, selective punishment, and the ‘peace process’.
This essay discusses briefly how the differences between pirates and emperors in these respects have fared since Chomsky first wrote about them, and the implications thereof for the balance of power in the international arena and the rise and fall of empires.
Dehumanisation
In the modern world, the words and deeds of emperors demonstrate unequivocally that they do not regard pirates as human.
There is no better illustration of this than the way in which Palestinians have been regarded and treated by emperors past and present. With US/Western complicity, the language and actions of Zionists today are almost identical to what they were saying and doing more than fifty years ago and have continued to do and say since then. Here are just a few examples:
Twenty years ago, reviewing one of the earlier outbreaks of settler/IDF violence, political scientist Yoram Peri ruefully observed that three-quarters of a million young Israelis have learned from military service “that the task of the army is not only to defend the state in the battlefield against a foreign army, but to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim2 living in territories that God promised to us.” The “two-legged beasts” (Prime Minister Menachem Begin) will then be able only “to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle” (Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan). Eitan’s superior Ariel Sharon, fresh from his invasion of Lebanon and the Sabra-Shatila massacre, advised that the way to deal with demonstrators is to “cut off their testicles.” The mainstream Hebrew press reported “detailed accounts of terrorist acts [by the IDF and settlers] in the conquered territories,” which were presented to Prime Minister Begin by prominent political figures, including leading hawks. These included regular exercises of humiliation, such as forcing Araboushim to urinate and excrete on one another and crawl on the ground while they call out “Long Live the State of Israel” or lick the earth; or on Holocaust Day, to write numbers on their own hands “in memory of Jews in the extermination camps”.
Then as now the reactions in Israel and among their supporters in the West to such dehumanisation and acts of state terrorism reflect their Hegelian convictions regarding the ‘lower orders’, that is, that they are “mere things” whose lives have “no value.” ‘If they try to “raise their heads,” they must be crushed… If they endure in silence, their misery can be ignored.’3
At the very least, the extremes of dehumanisation of pirates by emperors noted by Chomsky forty years ago have been maintained.
Until today, events have reconfirmed repeatedly that ‘history teaches few lessons with such crystal clarity.’
Selective Punishment
The weak in general continue to suffer what they must without respite, but for some it is much worse than others. Towards the top of a long list of countries that have experienced some of the worst excesses of imperial barbarism are Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and Cuba.
As Chomsky made clear at the time, Cuba has been the subject of state terror inflicted on it with considerable enthusiasm by all constituents of the narrow spectrum of US political authority:
Kennedy ordered that the “terrors of the earth” must be visited upon Cuba until Fidel Castro is eliminated. Large-scale terror continued through Kennedy’s years in office; he approved major new terror operations ten days before his assassination. The reasons were clear and explicit. Cubans had raised their heads; and worse, were providing an “example and general stimulus” that might “encourage agitation and radical change” in other parts of Latin America, where “social and economic conditions… invite opposition to ruling authority.” It is not what Castro does that is important; rather, the Kennedy intellectuals recognized that “the very existence of his regime . . . represents a successful defiance of the U.S., a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost half a century,” based on the principle of subordination to the will of the Colossus of the North. The threat posed by Castro, Kennedy’s advisors warned the incoming President, is “the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into one’s own hands,” a grave danger when “The distribution of land and other forms of national wealth greatly favours the propertied classes. . . [and] The poor and underprivileged, stimulated by the example of the Cuban revolution, are now demanding opportunities for a decent living.’
Cuba’s suffering has worsened steadily over time and threatens under the Trump administration to climax in US military aggression and invasion. Actions rationalised in standard doctrinal terms that depict Cuba as ‘a threat to US national security’.
While it is conceivable that the Trump family may have other interests in mind, of course, the principal ‘threat’ that Cuba poses to the US today is precisely the one that exercised the minds of Kennedy’s advisors, namely, the risks of providing the ‘bewildered herd’ in the US and elsewhere with examples that might encourage them to contemplate an existence beyond their allotted station in life. A contagion that strikes at the heart of elite self-interest.
The other three countries – Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine – were and remain of paramount imperial concern because they are the crux of ‘the Middle East problem’. As is well known, though for somewhat different reasons, this is true for both the US and Israel.
Iran’s support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen – in emperor-speak its ‘sponsorship of terrorism’ – and its possession of enriched uranium and the capability to convert this into weapons-grade material thwart Israel’s ambitions for a Greater Israel.
For the US, Iran has long been the centrepiece for control of the Middle East and its vast energy resources. The most recent war against Iran has demonstrated graphically the global economic significance of such control.
To exemplify the chronic suffering of Palestine at the hands of a US-backed Israel, a single excerpt from Chomsky (2002 ibid) encyclopaedic scholarship on the subject will suffice:
The record of Israeli terrorism goes back to the origins of the state – indeed, long before – including the massacre of 250 civilians and brutal expulsion of 70,000 others from Lydda and Ramie in July 1948; the massacre of hundreds of others at the undefended village of Doueimah near Hebron in October 1948 in another of the numerous “land-clearing operations” conducted while the international propaganda apparatus was proclaiming, as it still does, that the Arabs were fleeing at the call of their leaders; the murder of several hundred Palestinians by the IDF after the conquest of the Gaza strip in 1956; the slaughters in Qibya, Kafr Kassem, and a string of other assassinated villages; the expulsion of thousands of Bedouins from the demilitarized zones shortly after the 1948 war and thousands more from northeastern Sinai in the early 1970s, their villages destroyed, to open the region for Jewish settlement; and on, and on. The victims, by definition, are “PLO partisans,” hence terrorists. Thus, the respected editor of Ha’aretz, Gershom Schocken, can write that Ariel Sharon “made a name for himself from the early 1950s as a ruthless fighter against Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) partisans,” referring to the slaughter of civilians he conducted at Al-Bureig and Qibya in 1953 (long before the PLO existed). And the victims in Lebanon and elsewhere are also “terrorists,” as must be the case, or they could not have been killed by a state that is so devoted to “purity of arms” and is held to a “higher law” by the “pro-Arab” American press.
The most recent genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and the more or less incessant attacks on Lebanon show that US/Israeli determination to exterminate the vermin has not diminished.
Iran’s its mortal sin has always been its desire to maintain its sovereignty and to retain control over its own natural resources:
In Iran, the U.S. restored “moderates” to power with a CIA coup in what the New York Times (August 6,1954) described as an “object lesson” to “underdeveloped countries with rich resources,” an “object lesson in the cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism” and tries to take control of their own resources, thus becoming “radical.”
Allegedly to restore ‘human rights’4 and install a more ‘moderate’ (obedient) government, the US and Israel have laboured long and hard since 1979 to bring down the Iranian ‘regime’ of ‘fanatical mullahs’.
To accomplish this, the fomenting of armed insurrection in Iran has been a much-favoured US/Israeli strategy with roots that are deep and well nourished:
Returning to Iran, according to Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Moshe Arens, in October 1982, Israel’s supply of arms to Iran after the fall of the Shah was carried out “in coordination with the U.S. government… at almost the highest of levels.” The objective “was to see if we could not find some areas of contact with the Iranian military, to bring down the Khomeini regime,” or at least “to make contact with some military officers who someday might be in a position of power in Iran.” Yaakov Nimrodi, the Israeli arms salesman and intelligence official who was under cover as military attaché in Iran during the Shah’s reign, described this plan in a BBC broadcast in 1982. Former Israeli de facto Ambassador to Iran Uri Lubrani of the Labor Party added further details, in the same program: I very strongly believe that Tehran can be taken over by a very relatively small force, determined, ruthless, cruel. I mean the men who would lead that force will have to be emotionally geared to the possibility that they’d have to kill ten thousand people.
As with Cuba and others such as Libya, for local consumption and to justify the exercise of its (and Israel’s) divine right to retaliate in self-defence, it was necessary for the US to brand Iran as a prime exponent of international terrorism:
How is it possible to identify Iran, Libya, the PLO, Cuba and other official enemies as the leading practitioners of international terrorism? The answer, as we have seen, is very simple. We must abandon the literal approach and recognize that terrorist acts fall within the canon only when conducted by official enemies. When the U.S. and its clients are the agents of terrorist atrocities, they either disappear from the record or are transmuted to acts of retaliation and self-defence in the service of democracy and human rights. Then all becomes clear.
It of course follows that while imperial state terrorists (the US et al.) can be armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, ‘international terrorists’ (pirates) like Iran are forbidden from contemplating such a possibility or from possessing the raw materials needed to make them.
This has been one of the main pretexts for the latest wars against Iran prosecuted by Israel and the US.
As for other favoured targets like Palestine and Lebanon, from 1979 to the present, the escalating military and economic aggression against Iran has been multifaceted and unrelenting.
But the latest wars have also highlighted strategic failures on the part of the US and Israel, suggesting that this imbalance may be shifting. This is illustrated by their gross underestimation of the effectiveness of Iran’s stranglehold on the carotid artery of the Strait of Hormuz; Iran’s clever use of asymmetrical warfare; its extensive, widely dispersed and almost impregnable subterranean manufacturing and storage capacity; the vulnerability of US bases in the region and of the energy infrastructure of its vassal states in the Gulf;5 the resilience of the Iranian people; and the competence and legitimacy of its leadership.
Moreover, in these wars, the punishments meted out by the emperor have not been one way traffic. In many respects, the emperor and his minions and allies have got as good as they gave and more than they bargained for.
And pirate insolence and misbehaviour are on the increase it would seem. To the extent, as we shall see below, that terms such as the ‘peace process’, which heretofore had been defined for all parties by the emperor, have been subject shall we say to increasing tensions.
The ‘peace process’ in Iran is clearly not going as the emperor would wish and his mounting displeasure is on full display with its customary kaleidoscopic mix of incoherence, tantrums, and bluster.
In the Trumpian vernacular, these are ‘peace process’ tensions the like of which ‘the (imperial) world has never seen before.’
The ‘Peace Process’
This feature of Chomsky’s book is particularly worthy of re-examination because so much of the resolution of what is happening now in Iran and Ukraine, and could happen, is dependent on this duality and made more comprehensible by it.
So how should the imperial ‘peace process’ normally work and what are the tensions of which we speak?
To establish an accepted form of Newspeak regarding such crucial matters as the ‘peace process’ one needs to be able to distinguish the technical sense of the terms from their normal meanings. Accordingly, ‘in its technical sense, as used in the mass media and scholarship generally in the US, [the peace process] refers to peace proposals advanced by the US government.’
So, for example, ‘are the Palestinians [and now the Iranians] ready to accept U.S. terms for peace? These terms happen to deny them the right of national self-determination, but unwillingness to accept this consequence demonstrates that the Palestinians [and Iranians] do not seek peace, in the technical sense.’
Likewise, ‘Arab peace proposals, including PLO proposals, … are not part of the “peace process.” They are not allowed to talk back.
The ‘technical’ definition is ‘so extreme that the Palestinians are not even to be permitted to select their own representatives in eventual negotiations about their fate.’
At the turn of the century, the emperor’s (US’s) position was pretty much unassailable with to-be-expected implications for who got to decide what about such things as the ‘peace process’.
But, as suggested above, of late the natives in Iran have been showing increasing signs of unrest. Even on the basis of the mainstream media’s depiction of the current peace process, things have not been going according to the well-rehearsed imperial script. And try as he might, the US emperor has been unable to bring Iran to heel.
Hedges’s (2026) view, that the US and Israel have experienced a humiliating defeat in their war against Iran, helps to explain this. So too does Iran’s enhanced standing in the Muslim world and in the global south.
Iran’s stance in negotiations, and its mature diplomacy generally, reflect this. It shows no signs of relinquishing its control of the Strait of Hormuz, not least because it provides a means of ensuring some form of reparations for war damages. Neither will it surrender its sovereign rights to make use of uranium for peaceful purposes. It seems more than likely also to persist with its demands for the unfreezing of Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions, the removal of the US blockade, and the complete cessation of hostilities against Lebanon.
Under normal ‘peace process’ circumstances, few or none of these things would be permissible matters for discussion. As noted above, in the good old days, pirate counterproposals were verboten.
The emperor’s fury at his inability to enforce his preferences explains his erratic negotiating behaviour, which has exceeded even his own lofty standards of derangement.
According to Hedges (2026, ibid), Trump resembles ‘a dog being pushed unwillingly into a crate. When it appears a deal with Iran is close, he snarls and barks, sabotaging the proposed 30-to-60-day ceasefire agreement.’
On the other hand, Iran’s growing confidence in its negotiating position, and its resolve, have been demonstrated in several ways. For example, first, by its preparedness to retaliate militarily against Israel for its continuing attacks on Lebanon, which threatened the fragile ceasefire agreed in late April 2026. And second, by its most recent missile strikes on the ‘beat cop’ Arab Gulf states in response to US attacks on Iranian military installations in the Strait of Hormuz.
At the time of writing, tit for tat exchanges between Iran and the US, and sorties made by Israel on Lebanon continued along with threats of escalation by the US.
Iran’s confidence will have been boosted further by the very public and acrimonious spat between Trump and Netanyahu in early June 2026. In his profanity-laden outburst, Trump reportedly told Netanyahu over the phone that he was ‘f… ing crazy’, that he and Israel were ‘hated by everyone’, and that if it wasn’t for him (Trump) Netanyahu would be in prison.
Netanyahu later retorted by saying that an Israeli prime minister had to be willing and able to say ‘no’ to the US, suggesting that his recalcitrance may not be short-lived.
Unsurprisingly, mainstream media like the BBC regard all of this as evidence of ‘how dangerously destabilised the region remains’ (italics not in the original), meaning how Iran continues to disobey orders and to persist (unhelpfully) in its refusal to submit to the emperor’s demands.
The war in Ukraine also shows how far the peace process goals posts have moved from their erstwhile fixed (imperial) location. There, sensing that the emperor is losing interest in and patience (always in limited supply with the current emperor) with his European allies, and that he is close to the limit of his short attention span, Russia has adopted a much more authoritative stance and is performing a role normally associated with (real) emperors. The latest evidence of this is President Putin’s refusal to accept a written invitation to hold face-to-face talks with President Zelensky about ending the war.
As with Iran, in any peace negotiations, an increasingly assertive Russia seems highly unlikely to concede on its main demands.
Clearly, the ‘technical’ meaning of the ‘peace process’ is not what it was and has begun to unravel alarmingly.
Conclusion
At the beginning of this essay, we noted Chomsky’s view that the pirate and emperor story recounted by St Augustin ‘capture[d] with some accuracy’ relations between the US and ‘various minor actors’ on the international stage.
Certainly, for the peace process of old, the wars in Iran and Ukraine suggest that this is no longer the case.
On the other hand, imperial barbarism and racism has been continuous for the last half century and is much the same as or worse today than it was when Chomsky published the first edition of his book in 1986. This is epitomised by the fanatically vicious hate speech directed against Palestinians by Israelis; their torture and humiliation of prisoners; the genocide in Gaza; many other acts of state terrorism carried out with the knowledge and support of the US and its Western allies; and the escalating military and economic aggression by the US against Cuba and Iran (and other countries).
These behaviours comprise the increasingly desperate and brutal death throes of empire.
The changing roles of pirates and emperors in the peace process, which we have depicted briefly here, are also evidence of this.
Together, the spread and intensification of US-led or supported lethal violence combined with loss of control are the bellwethers of terminal imperial decline.
The significance of this tectonic shift will not have gone unnoticed by the emperor himself and his vassal states, by ‘minor actors’ on the international stage (pirates), or by the emperor in waiting (China).
Perhaps it is not too much to hope, as Hedges (2026, ibid) suggests, that ‘the end of the U.S. Empire, led by an impetuous and clueless Donald Trump, is irreversible’ after all.
ENDNOTES:
1 Unless indicated otherwise, quotations are from Chomsky (2002, ibid).
2 “Araboushim” (Hebrew: ערבושים) is a highly offensive and derogatory slang term used to refer to Arabs or Palestinians.
3 In rereading Chomsky’s book, I found that it is one thing to have known, and to know, some of these things to be the case intellectually, but it is quite another to be reminded of them in all their sordid detail. The extent, chronicity, and repetitiveness of the imperial barbarism and unconcern for the other that Chomsky discussed forty years ago evoked a visceral reaction in me.
4 Clearly, a cudgel used selectively by the US/Israel et al. and one which, by definition, the US would never apply to itself or its allies no matter how deserving they all might be.
5 Countries that continued until recently to perform the functions assigned to them half a century ago: ‘local “cops on the beat” (as Defence Secretary Melvin Laird put it), local proxies that would carry out their “regional responsibilities” within the “overall framework of order” maintained by the United States, in Henry Kissinger’s phrase at the time.’