The ceasefire is excellent news. However, whatever the outcome, the consequences of this war are unavoidable. Some say Trump bows to Netanyahu, that he has neither strategy nor objectives, but that is not quite right; it is a simplistic — incomplete — view. Tel Aviv may have precipitated the attack — Epic Fury — perhaps even the military tactics and the messianic narrative; but Washington is hostage to its own Administration: messianic and bellicose.
The Holy War proclaimed by Pete Hegseth, Secretary for War, barely disguises the voracious appetite directed at the greater prey: China, the empire of the new world. Kidnapping Maduro, bombing Iran, threatening Cuba… these are shots in a global battle without borders. Existential in its terms, because the old empire is in decline.
Beijing’s spheres of influence are now so numerous that alarm has truly gripped the Atlantic leader. China’s military power cannot withstand a direct confrontation with the United States; clearly, the latter has the greater might and is the only one with truly global reach. But that is not necessary; there are other weapons in which China is formidable — and growing ever more so.
The multiplication of geostrategic alliances, technological acceleration, economic growth… and the political stability of the one-party regime explain well what is coming. And, behind the curtain, the real reason why Trump is throwing himself headlong into war.
Whatever the outcome in the Middle East, Trump has already lost so much that he has little or nothing left
Neoliberalism, frightened by the historical cyclone blowing from the East, dons a neo-fascist skin, disguises itself as a religious crusade, and attacks under the illusion of brute force. It does indeed possess that force, but it is not enough.
The more evident this becomes today, on both sides of the barrel, the more awareness grows across the four corners of the world that, whatever the outcome in the Middle East, Trump has already lost so much that he has little or nothing left.
For better or worse, the West had one advantage: liberal democracies sell what authoritarian regimes lack. This is not the place to debate whether that is propaganda or a greater good — which it is. The central issue is that Trump tears down the appeal of the most affirmative value he had to wield amid the disorientation of arms, reverting instead to the negative discourse that the West buried long ago.
The result: politically, he has already lost. However many missiles he continues to launch, he will never bring down China and Russia that way — unless he plunges into collective nuclear suicide. At that point there is nothing left to discuss. What is beyond dispute is that, wherever it comes from, the response will come in the same terms.
Trump listened to Benjamin — the evil angel — and had a dream: to arrive in Beijing with Maduro’s head on one platter, Khamenei’s on the other, Europe at his feet, and the American people subdued. Instead, it backfired; he now wakes to the nightmare: Iran does not fall, China behaves like the only adult in the room and accumulates international respect; Europe turns its back on Trumpist neo-fascism, the Vatican is already denouncing him… and domestic opposition is growing.
The “No Kings” movement shows that, as always in the history of empires, the collapse brought about by exporting war is the trigger that causes dictators to implode at the hands of their own people. It is not so in Russia, or in the Iranian theocracy, but it is so in liberal democracies.
That is, in fact, the advantage they have over other regimes: people know what they lose when they elect those who pull the rug from under their freedom, their rights, and their pride in telling the rest of the world that they represent the worst system of all, except for all the others. Trump has taken that from them — he is the great betrayer of the American dream and, in that sense, the most unexpected ally of China and Russia.
