In the Middle East and beyond, we are witnessing a strategic defeat of the US empire at the hands of Iran. This must be distinguished from a military defeat. A major power shift is underway in that region. The US had no intention of honoring the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), and it is moving more military hardware and additional manpower into the region, most likely toward the Strait of Hormuz. The MoU was nothing more than a thinly disguised ruse to be time for rearmament.
The strait, currently under the joint control of Iran and Oman, is a major choke point for the flow of the world’s oil supply. Approximately twenty percent of global oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. The strait was open without impedance until the US and its Israeli proxy decided to bomb Iran. By stemming the flow of oil through the strait, Iran is affecting global markets, which are heavily manipulated by Trump and Wall Street, but with an important caveat: the US and global oil reserves are dangerously low, putting the world at risk of a major recession, or worse, a depression. That gives Iran tremendous economic leverage.
It appears that another major attack will occur during the next few days. Some fifty thousand US troops, many of them special forces, have arrived in the area. A ground invasion, in the intense heat of summer in Iran, almost certainly will result in major casualties for the invaders. The empire is desperate. Iran holds the strategic advantage. The US and NATO does not have the manpower or the munitions for a successful ground invasion of Iran.
Similarly, the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine is also a losing proposition for the collective west. Russia has recently intensified its bombing of Ukraine. Ukraine’s greatest weapon is the use of drones against civilian targets and oil storage facilities deep inside Russia. These attacks are a nuisance but they are incapable of turning the tide on the battlefield. Russia holds the strategic and military advantage. As a result, NATO and the collective west are suffering a strategic defeat in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the west is continuing to make threats against Russia, and they are preparing for war. Another strategic loss for the US empire and its European vassals.
The ultimate aim of US aggression is to seize and monopolize the world’s energy supply and to attack China economically and eventually also militarily, most likely using Taiwan as a proxy. China holds the economic cards and it has a significant strategic advantage over the US. The empire is desperate and it is flailing, as the sun sets on its gilded age of exuberance and global domination. Those days are over.
As I see it, a desperate empire may turn to the use of nuclear warheads. The people making the military decisions are not rational or ethical people. They are short-sighted, ignorant to a fault; they are seized by insanity and characterized by extreme hubris. Pete Hegseth, head of the US Department of Defense, is a drunken dimwit. What the Pentagon is planning is insane. No good can come from it. The limitations of empire have been reached and exposed. A new world order is emerging in the form of the BRICS alliance, and it is leaving the collective west behind. The petrodollar is fading into oblivion. Good riddance, I say.
Meanwhile, against this backdrop, tomorrow mark’s America’s 250th birthday, amidst great fanfare and garish celebration. I, for one, will not be celebrating the occasion. Indeed, I never have celebrated the fourth of July or Columbus Day. I do not say this with malice but simply as a factual statement that is deeply rooted in our history. I cannot in good conscience celebrate a legacy of genocide, chattel slavery, oppression of the working class and the poor, and imperial wars without end. I do not celebrate mass murder and ruling class hubris. My allegiance is to the working class, both at home and abroad. These are my people.
If, and when, the US working class achieves emancipation from its capitalist masters, then I would reconsider my moral position, but I do not foresee that happening in my lifetime. As a realist, that is where a class-conscious perspective has led me. We can only start from where we are and proceed from a basis of rational hope derived from the collective action and conscience of the global working class.
It is undeniable that the legacy of the US is death, destruction and conquest, none of which has anything to due with equality, or social and economic justice. Those attributes would be worth celebrating, if we had them. Then, we might also have a real chance for democracy, but for now that remains a pipe dream.
Getting to there from here would require a sustained monumental effort along class lines. That objective may prove to be unachievable, but it should not dissuade us from trying. It all begins with an honest reckoning of history from a working class perspective. We cannot know what is possible until we try. All power to the producers of goods and to those who render public service in the name of the greater good!
This fourth of July, that is who I will be celebrating in my own quiet way. I will ponder the West Virginia coal mine wars of the previous century and the Haymarket Martyrs, the champions of the eight-hour workday, in Chicago. I will contemplate Thoreau taking up residence at Walden Pond on the fourth of July in 1845. I will try to imagine a world without war and its profiteers.