The US empire is fighting a war against the rise of multipolarism, because it desperately wants to cling to a supremacy that it’s already lost. If it can’t control the whole world, then it seems to have chosen to burn it all down and hope to be the last man standing. The general assumption is that the US wants the strait of Hormuz open, but everything it’s done suggests the opposite. It had to be known that closure of the strait would be the result of imperial aggression, then the insurance industry shut down passage, and finally a naval blockade was added in the Gulf of Oman. If actions are taken that will obviously have a certain impact, and that impact then occurs, one has to assume the result was intentional. Trump himself may be stupid enough not to realise that, but he’s merely a puppet of big capital, and they’re not that stupid.
The two wars going on are essentially part of the same conflict. The point of both is to weaken key members of the new power structure – a Russia, Iran, China axis at the core of BRICS. These are land powers attempting to create connectiviy corridors that avoid the maritime choke points potentially controlled by naval powers. The empire is now bombing those connectivity corridors as it tries to prevent these countries from gaining control of the heartland, as Halford Mackinder called it.
Energy is the key factor the empire is trying to control. NATO-controlled and NATO-armed Ukraine is methodically destroying Russia’s energy infrastructure with long range drone strikes. It’s hitting refineries, storage tanks, and tankers of the shadow fleet. These cannot reasonably be defended. Russia is returning the favour in Ukraine, but has not targeted the factories in Europe that are producing the missiles and drones given to Ukraine on behalf of the empire. So far it’s focused on power plants, nodes in the power grid, and gas stations in eastern Ukraine. Its caution is allowing its critical infrastructure to be attrited, but the alternative if it attacked NATO directly would be WW3. The Russian population is beginning to demand that their government finish the job. If Putin were somehow removed, his successor would likely do exactly that, with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Iran is the key hinge point connecting Russia and China, and it has control over the strategic asset of Hormuz, hence it was always going to be a target of the empire. The US signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) apparently meant to end the war, but actually just to buy itself some time, and keep the oil price under control for a while longer with a promise of peace. The US never intended to honour the terms it agreed to, just as it never intended to honour the Minsk agreements with Russia. The empire has no honour or integrity, can never be trusted, and no longer cares who knows this.
The day after the MOU was signed, the US violated the first clause requiring Israel to end hostilities in Lebanon by signing a conflicting MOU with the Israel and the Lebanese puppet government allied with Israel. The second MOU allowed for Israel to remain in Lebanon indefinitely. The US has since violated every clause. The original MOU granted control over Hormuz to Iran, with the understanding that no transit fees would be charged during the 60 day negotiation period. Iran made it clear that ships must ask permission and must follow a specific route or there would be consequences. The US immediately started encouraging ships to use a different route outside of Iranian waters, and those ships were fired on. The US then used this as an excuse to begin bombing Iran again, saying that Iran violated the MOU when it had not. The US is now bombing civilian infrastructure and ports in the area around Hormuz, potentially with a view to a future ground incursion, although Trump has indicated that such an incursion would involve proxies rather than American troops. The empire likes to send proxies to their deaths, as it’s been doing in Ukraine for years now.
The empire is attempting to throttle energy supply to Asia with their Iran war, specifically to halt the rise of China, although it’s also gaining leverage over energy-importing countries in the region. It will try to use that leverage to turn these countries against China, and may try to use some of them to fight new proxy wars. The Philippines, South Korea, and Japan have all been vassalised for decades already, and Taiwan is a point of contention, largely due to its monopoly on the production of the most advanced computer chips. The US wants that production to relocate to Arizona, but this is proving problematic. Cutting off Hormuz deprives Taiwan of helium and liquified natural gas (LNG), both of which are essential for chip production, possibly intended to incentivise the move to the US.
The empire knows it cannot control the world as it once did, but it will not decline gracefully. The US appears to believe it’s an energy super power, and that it can deprive its rivals and become a global supplier to those its trying to control. This is, however, delusional. The US is a net importer of oil, specifically it’s dependent on imports of the longer chain hydrocarbons necessary for the production of diesel, aviation fuel and bunker fuel. It’s already reaching tank bottom after selling off its strategic reserve in an attempt to keep fuel prices down before the midterm elections. Fuel prices are about to spike, and the US cannot prevent this.
It’s possible that those on the side of multipolarity are taking the advice of Sun Tzu to never interrupt you enemy when he’s making a mistake. They may be deliberately allowing the US to overreach itself, exploiting its mistaken belief in its own omnipotence. The US is mired in Thucydides Trap, as China pointed out to Trump when he recently visited. The strategy for China, Russia, and Iran may be to simply wait out the empire until it collapses under the weight if its own debt and delusions of grandeur. Russia and Iran are largely self-sufficient, and China has enormous stockpiles of essential commodities. China also controls the rare earths that the US would require to produce more weapons, and it’s banned their export.
The world is in a very precarious position, with nuclear powers each feeling that they find themselves facing an existential threat. The US, or its attack dog Israel, would be the most likely to escalate to the point of using nuclear weapons. Israel refers to this as the Samson option. They’ve said since the time of Golda Meir that if Israel is about to fall, it will take the world with it. The US has a first strike doctrine, and thinks it can win a nuclear war. Russia has the dead hand system, that would fire everything they have if the government were eliminated or they faced strategic defeat. China may have a similar doctrine, although they haven’t said so. The odds of events continuing in a very dangerous direction are growing by the day. No failing empire has ever had the ability to take down the world before.
