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America is Pakistan’s enemy, not its friend

by Mirrors For The PrinceAugust 24, 2025August 24, 2025UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On the surface, the world’s geopolitical sands always appear to be shifting, leading states to constantly realign their policies and alliances. However, due to the unchanging nature of geography and the slow, cumulative effects of cultural, idealogical, technological, and economic developments on political systems, states have core interests that rarely change. As a result, many geopolitical “shifts” are often more illusion than reality.

Pakistan’s fluctuating relationship with the United States exemplifies these dynamics perfectly. During the Cold War, the US was one of Pakistan’s closest allies and leading arms suppliers. Cracks in the relationship began to emerge during the late 1970s following General Zia-ul-Haq’s rise to power. These tensions did not result in a complete break, as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 forced a reconciliation that deepened bilateral ties for the next decade. The withdrawal of the Soviet Union and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program soon led to another rupture that persisted until Pakistan became relevant again during America’s post 9/11 assault on the Muslim world.

This rapprochement was characterized by glaring contradictions from the start due to the conflicting core interests guiding America’s and Pakistan’s policies. America’s plan for Afghanistan involved empowering Pakistan’s enemies from the Northern Alliance while marginalizing its traditional allies among the Pashtun tribes and allowing India to establish a presence on its western border. Faced with these developments, Pakistan had little choice but to clandestinely support the Taliban despite realigning itself with America.

U.S.-Pakistan relations cooled again after the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. They remained tepid until recently when Pakistan’s leaders reminded America of their ability to hunt down its enemies while simultaneously enticing it with access to potentially valuable oil reserves and mineral deposits. This led to a flurry of high level meetings, including a visit by Pakistan’s Field Marshal Munir to the White House and talk of a “strategic reset.”

Much like their past realignments, this latest rapprochement is mostly illusory. The enduring mismatch between American and Pakistani core interests makes a true convergence unlikely.

To understand why, one need only look to America’s relationship with India. Recent tensions aside, the United States is committed to building a strategic partnership with India, with the goal of transforming it into a major regional military power. This effort began in earnest with the 2008 U.S.-India Nuclear Agreement. Since then, the U.S. has sold India over $20 billion in weapons and is currently investing billions more into its military-industrial base.

India’s military actions against Pakistan in 2016, 2019, and May of this year are a direct result of these weapons sales, which have empowered India’s fanatical rulers to pursue their dreams of establishing Indian hegemony over the entire Subcontinent. Despite the growing extremism within its ruling elite, America remains committed to arming New Delhi and has no regard for the danger this poses to Pakistan.

U.S. support for India is part of a broader strategic agenda aimed at ensuring American military dominance across key regions. This includes maintaining a form of neo-imperial military control over substantial portions of the Middle East and supporting apartheid Israel in its quest to destabilize and weaken Iran’s government.

America’s policies against Iran have been particularly harmful to Pakistan. Its sanctions have prevented the completion of critical infrastructure projects and hindered the development of broader trade relations between the two neighbors, limiting Pakistan’s ability to enhance its energy security and regional connectivity. Attempts to topple Iran’s government also endanger Pakistan’s future by creating the potential for violence to spill over the border and further destabilize its restive western provinces.

America’s malign activities throughout the Muslim world have had a similarly negative impact. Violence in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, or Libya may not impact Pakistan directly. But these countries represent Pakistan’s natural allies and trading partners. By destabilizing them, America is effectively depriving Pakistan of the regional partners it needs to develop its own economic networks and power, impoverishing and weakening it over the long run.

America’s pattern of military interventions and coercive policies in the Muslim world is driven by an underlying strategy: to prevent the emergence of a Muslim state capable of challenging its regional dominance. This strategic calculus helps explain Washington’s persistent unease towards Pakistan. Despite their history of cooperation, the United States imposed sanctions targeting Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programs – clear signs of mistrust that reflect broader concerns about Pakistan’s strategic potential. With its large population, strategic geographic position, and powerful military, Pakistan is well-positioned to emerge as a leading power in the Muslim world – making it a long-term threat rather than a reliable partner in the eyes of American policy makers.

Pakistan’s leadership should carefully assess the historical record of U.S. foreign policy toward states it perceives as threats. Between its weapons sales, sanctions and direct military actions, America has killed millions. Its sanctions against Iraq killed an estimated 1.5 million people, including 576,000 children. The so called “war on terror” killed 4.5 million more and its wide ranging military support for Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen killed another 377,000. Added together that’s almost 6.4 million people. America’s support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign, which has already led to the slaughter of 60,000 Palestinians including 18,500 children, shows it learned nothing from these crimes and is perfectly capable of committing similar atrocities in the future.

Pakistan’s leaders have responded to the danger with appeasement. Successive governments have acquiesced to American demands by curtailing large scale trade with Iran, avoiding public criticism of U.S. regional policies, and failing to impose even symbolic diplomatic costs for Washington’s violent policies.

Things recently took a sycophantic turn when Pakistan’s leaders nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace price and gave the US general in charge of helping apartheid Israel massacre tens of thousands of innocent women and children an award. Their plan to grant American companies access to Pakistan’s natural resources is equally servile. By pursuing what amounts to a neo-colonial arrangement, the country’s leadership risks surrendering the lion’s share of wealth from potentially transformative mineral and energy deposits to American corporations – undermining national sovereignty and forfeiting long-term economic benefits in the process.

The desire to appease America is somewhat understandable given its powerful military and violent tendencies. But appeasement that prevents Pakistan from building the strength needed to protect itself is not a sustainable or strategic path forward.

America’s irrational justifications for its violence against Iraq and Iran offer sobering lessons. The United States sold Saddam Hussein the chemical weapons his forces used during the Iran-Iraq War, only to later use those same weapons as an excuse for a full-scale invasion—despite evidence Iraq had already dismantled them. Similarly, it backed Israel’s actions against Iran under the pretext of halting a nuclear program that Iran had already shown a willingness to dismantle through negotiations, as it did in the 2015 JCPOA deal. These examples make it clear that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could easily be used to justify violence against it one day. They also show neither appeasement nor even unilateral disarmament are reliable safeguards against U.S. hostility.

The geopolitical landscape today is far less forgiving than it was during the Afghan conflict, when Pakistan was able to play a double game—supporting the U.S.-led invasion while simultaneously backing elements of the Taliban. The current circumstances do not lend themselves to such subterfuge. As such, Pakistan must chart a new path rooted in attaining strategic autonomy, rather than one shaped by the shifting goals of an external superpower.

The foundation of such a policy must be the development of a robust regional alliance with Iran and Turkey centered on economic integration and security cooperation. By fostering such a partnership, Pakistan can assume a constructive role in revitalizing a significant portion of the Muslim world while simultaneously strengthening itself. Achieving this vision will require comprehensive political, legal, and fiscal reforms aimed at building the sort of technologically advanced, export-driven economy needed to support such an alliance.

Until Pakistan’s leadership embraces these difficult but necessary steps, the country will remain vulnerable. While a few voices, such as Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Asad Durrani, have warned of the danger, most of the country’s elite appear committed to a strategy of accommodation. Their complacency ignores the simple fact that a “strategic reset” with the United States, absent any alignment of core interests that extends beyond resource extraction and counterterrorism cooperation, is illusory. Washington’s arms sales to India and its long-standing policy of trying to subjugate the Muslim world mean America is Pakistan’s enemy, not its friend. It is time Pakistan’s decision-makers recognize this reality and act accordingly.

Tagged : "war on terror" / causes of Muslim decline / geopolitics / imperialism / India / iran / islam / islamic / muslim / Muslim reform / pakistan / pan-islamic / pax americana / turkey

Israel’s attack on Iran highlights the desperate need for change

by Mirrors For The PrinceAugust 24, 2025August 24, 2025Uncategorized1 Comment

It is hard not to get a feeling of deja vu when one writes about the Muslim world. Nearly every geopolitical event of note involves a spectacular military defeat or failed state collapsing in on itself. Israel’s attack on Iran earlier this summer is no different. It is yet another episode that vividly illustrates the military dominance Western powers have had over Muslim states for centuries.

On June 12th, Israel launched an unprovoked surprise attack against Iran. It has attacked Iran many times over the years but the scale and magnitude of this latest round of violence was far greater than any of those previous assaults or acts of sabotage. Over a period of twelve days, its forces launched hundreds of strikes on military, nuclear, energy, educational, residential and media sites across the country, causing widespread damage and mayhem. America joined in at the last minute too, using its stealth bombers to destroy three nuclear facilities. At least 639 Iranians were murdered, among them women, children, and several high ranking Iranian military officers and scientists. Many of these officials were killed alongside their families while sleeping in the dead of night. Israeli leaders and their partners in America argued their violence was necessary to eliminate the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As usual, they made no sense.

For starters, Iran was not trying to build nuclear weapons. It has been on the threshold of weaponizing its uranium stockpile for years but has intentionally refrained from doing so in the hopes of negotiating a settlement with the US and its Western allies. In fact, it was preparing for a sixth round of negotiations to do exactly that when it was attacked. Perhaps most galling of all, America unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA treaty Iran signed to give up its nuclear pursuits in 2015 and American intelligence officials recently issued a report indicating Iran was not trying to build nuclear weapons. Attacking Iran under the pretense of preventing it from building weapons it was not trying to build is a ridiculous and illogical argument.

Even if Iran managed to build nuclear weapons, which it has every right to do, it would never use one against Israel because Israel has its own stockpile of nuclear bombs. Under the logic of mutually assured destruction or MAD, that makes using nuclear weapons against it an act of suicide and an impossibility.

These attacks had nothing to do with ensuring Israel’s survival or protecting it from Iran. They were the culmination of Israel’s campaign to make sure no one within the Muslim world challenges its apartheid regime or tries to stop its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The only aim was to punctuate Israel’s rampages through Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria by critically weakening the only Muslim state willing to openly help the Palestinian and Lebanese people defend themselves. In doing so, Israel hoped to establish its hegemony over the entire Middle East while deliberately trying to destabilize large chunks of it at the same time. “Regime change” is, after all, merely an Orwellian term that in the post-Iraq context calls for fomenting civil war and chaos by destroying Iran’s government and leaving nothing to replace it.

Much like their allies in the Pentagon, Israel’s military leaders simultaneously proved their tactical brilliance and strategic incompetence. They have all but guaranteed Iran will acquire nuclear weapons while unleashing a chain of events that could very easily come back to haunt them in the same way their invasion of Lebanon gave rise to Hezbollah and their attempts to fracture the Palestinians gave rise to Hamas. War always shifts societies to the right, creating space for extremists and hardliners to thrive. Israel’s unjust war against Iran will be no different. The only difference, given Iran’s much larger size and resources, will be the amount of blowback.

Israel’s leaders also showed, once again, that they are messianic radicals who represent an existential threat to the entire Muslim world. Though the Western media has done its best to ignore or downplay them, the evidence of apartheid Israel’s brutality and crimes is overwhelming. During its never ending assault on Gaza, Israel’s military has intentionally murdered tens of thousands of women and children by indiscriminately attacking densely populated civilian areas. Its forces frequently use thousand pound bombs to attack apartment buildings and residential neighborhoods. Its snipers and drones routinely murder children trying to flee to safety or search for food. There are also credible reports regarding the systemic use of Palestinians as human shields by Israeli forces. Most damning of all, the Israeli government has implemented a blockade that has led to widespread shortages of food, medicine, and the basic necessities of life.

Eliminating a few Iranian generals cannot mask these crimes. If anything, the latest assault against Iran is more proof Israel is a violent apartheid state with no interest in peace. Even if Israel managed to destroy the entire Axis of Resistance and topple the Iranian government, which were highly doubtful propositions, the conditions for war between it and the wider Muslim world would remain. Israel would still be a violent apartheid state ruled by baby killing sociopaths engaged in the violent repression of the Palestinians who believe sowing chaos and destruction throughout the Muslim world makes them safer. It is only a matter of time before their crimes lead to more violence.

As such, we must critically examine why Iran fared so poorly against Israel’s assaults and what the entire Muslim world can learn from yet another stinging defeat of a Muslim state at the hands of the Western powers.

To be fair, it is far too early to accurately gauge the true impact of these events and Iran’s ability to regroup. Adding to the difficulty is the fog of war and how information, even in the supposedly “free world” is so tightly controlled by governments. This makes accurately assessing the damage much harder. For example, Iranian missiles appear to have struck Israel’s military headquarters, however, aside from a brief report by Fox News, Western media outlets ignored this extremely important story. Nevertheless, most reports suggest Iran suffered significant damage while inflicting a minimal amount in return. The loss of so many high ranking military officers, by itself, represents a critical blow that justifies labeling it the loser. At a minimum, these developments show Iran’s strategy of establishing deterrence failed miserably.

According to an essay published in Foreign Affairs, Iran “lost” because “its “hardliners overplayed their hand” when “they unleashed their proxies at Israeli targets” in the aftermath of its attack on Gaza. There is a lot wrong with this piece that we do not have time to explore in detail. It epitomizes the sort of biased and superficial analysis Western media outlets have always used to whitewash and normalize apartheid Israel’s crimes and mostly functions to remind us that propaganda comes in all shapes and sizes.

Rather than discuss how Israel’s intentional targeting of civilians compelled both Hezbollah and the Houthis to get involved or how its apartheid policies and refusal to negotiate a lasting peace with the Palestinians made war inevitable, it predictably and quite erroneously paints Iran as the aggressor. However, it does adequately explain that Iran’s inability to effectively attack Israel or defend itself emboldened Israel’s leaders to escalate their violence. Iran lost, in other words, because of its weak military capabilities, particularly those related to its air forces, air defenses, and counter intelligence abilities.

A comprehensive discussion of the historical, political, economic, social, and geographic factors that have conspired to prevent Iran from building a modern military force capable of defending its territory would take a book. As such, we will limit ourselves to the most relevant points.

As a preliminary matter, there is a plausible argument to be made that Iran lost because it hesitated and/or never fully committed to the fight. It became obvious within the first few weeks of Israel’s assault on Gaza that this war was going to be genocidally different than its previous rampages through the territory and would inevitably spread beyond Gaza. Rather than waiting and hoping for Israel’s leaders to satiate their bloodlust, they should have realized the danger they were in and launched a preemptive attack coordinated with regional allies while they were still at full strength. That may have been their only chance at overwhelming and neutralizing Israel’s air defenses during the early stages of the conflict. Which, in turn, might have been the only way to deter it from further violence. Instead, Iran’s leaders showed restraint and advised their allies to do the same. This merely allowed Israel to pick them off one by one, at a time of its choosing. This is certainly a plausible argument but not a very good one considering Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and the trigger happy extremists who control it.

Iran’s leaders were forced to show restraint, as they have had to many times before, because they knew they did not have weapons powerful enough to deter Israel should they fully expose its vulnerabilities. As such, their biggest mistake was not building a credible nuclear deterrent. North Korea shows Western nations will ostracize and sanction those nations that defy their attempts to monopolize the most destructive military technologies but they will not attack them.

The need for such weapons should have been clear after America’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the toppling of Libya’s government. Despite these warning signs, Iran’s leaders did not act with urgency to ensure they were properly armed. Instead, they sanguinely ignored the lessons gleaned from America’s violence against the Muslim world these past 35 years or the past 500 years of world history which shows Western nations only understand the language of violence. In the modern age, speaking this language requires nuclear weapons supported by technologically advanced conventional forces.

Iran’s reluctance to build nuclear weapons was somewhat understandable given the diplomatic and economic repercussions but its military planners inexplicably neglected their conventional forces too. They opted for a defensive posture centered around a robust air defense network full of the sort of targets Israel’s air force specializes in destroying. But they failed to build or acquire the advanced fighters needed to protect them. Instead, they built an arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones, many of which were distributed to its network of regional allies. Iran’s leaders hoped their asymmetric capabilities would dissuade Israel and America from attacking them. Clearly, their hope was misplaced.

Yet another critical factor handicapping Iran’s war fighting capabilities relates to its inability to build strong alliances with other states. Militias, even ones as powerful as Hezbollah, cannot generate the resources and power of a state. As the constant flow of munitions and money from its American and European allies show, Israel is part of a powerful alliance of Western states that work together by supplying each other with military hardware, ammunition, and intelligence.

Aside from Libya, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Sudan every single Arab state is ruled by dictators who rely on Western arms to sustain their regimes. As a result, most of the Arab world is ruled by men who are too weak to stand up to Israel or its American backers. Several even quietly helped Israel. Jordan actually shot down Iranian missiles and drones under the pretense of protecting its air space while allowing Israeli missiles, drones, and jets unfettered access to this same air space.

Before Assad’s fall, Syria was the only Arab state allied to Iran but after years of civil war, it did not even meet the definition of a state since it did not control all its territory. It served as a necessary logistical hub but was more of a liability than an asset in projecting force since Syria’s military under Assad was incompetent and he was a duplicitous and unreliable ally. The means used to prop up his government backfired in the same way brutality and repression always backfire, eventually leaving both Iran and Hezbollah more isolated.

Iran has managed to develop strong alliances with Russia and China but they are not the sort of alliances that would induce either country to overtly intervene on its behalf. As a result of its lack of close allies, Iran was forced to weather the storm alone, much like Iraq before it.

In sum, the proximate causes of Iran’s defeat relate to its inability to build or acquire the advanced weapons needed to protect itself or build strong alliances with powerful states willing to help it. Now that a ceasefire has been put in place, Iran must start to rebuild by taking the short and long term steps needed to make sure its enemies never attack it again.

Its leaders must begin by enacting deep rooted reforms to liberalize and democratize their political and legal systems. Not as some PR gimmick to appease Western audiences but with the understanding that their survival depends on it. Iran has been ruled by its clerics, otherwise known as Ayatollahs, since they overthrew the Shah and subordinated their military elite in 1979. Religion and politics is one of the most toxic combinations known to man. The two should never mix. When they come into contact, they corrupt each other in ways that are exceptionally difficult to reverse. Clerics belong in a mosque or seminary, not a command center.

The structure of Iran’s government makes it inherently weak in a variety of ways that primarily boil down to three things. The oppression of women. The lack of democracy. The lack of freedom of expression. These are the real reasons Iran lost just as they are the reason so many parts of the Muslim world are unstable and prone to conquest. When these toxic ingredients mix, it becomes much harder to build industrialized economies of the sort needed to field competent militaries or form enduring partnerships based on trade and mutual interests with other states.

China and Russia both prove authoritarian states are capable of building modern militaries, particularly if the state invests heavily in education and industrialization. But an often overlooked aspect of their modernization efforts was the degree to which women were liberated and empowered. Iran may be able to contrive an authoritarian political system that still allows for military modernization but it will never do so without first freeing Iranian women.

There have been countless studies that prove what common sense already tells us – there is a strong correlation between gender inequality and underdevelopment. Iran’s leaders have improved educational access for many Iranian women; however, they have also spent decades repressing and marginalizing them in a variety of ways that have limited their ability to contribute to Iran’s socio-economic development and, by inference, its ability to protect itself.

As the author argued several years ago, the repression meted out to Iran’s people, especially its women, and the denial of their democratic and human rights by their own government have forced Iran to fight its enemies with “one armed tied behind its back.” The destruction visited upon it this past June demonstrates the folly of this approach and the urgent need for reforms.

Once it has taken the long overdue steps to strengthen itself internally, Iran will need to build stronger alliances with other states. Lacking suitable partners in the Arab world, it must expand and strengthen its existing alliances with China and Russia by enhancing military cooperation to rebuild and plug the gaps in its defenses.

Iran must also work with Turkey and Pakistan to build the sort of strategic partnership that can give it the power to protect itself over the long run. The need for a Muslim security organization similar to NATO between these three nations has been clear for many years. Combined, they represent the spine of the Muslim world and, if properly connected, would possess the power to stabilize much of it. To integrate properly, they must first bind themselves via joint infrastructure and free trade agreements designed to spur the sort of economic cooperation that can form the foundation for a long lasting alliance comparable to the EU. This foundation could then form the basis for a military alliance.

The idea that Turkey and Pakistan could create an alliance with Iran may seem implausible and there are certainly significant barriers standing in the way. But the inescapable truth is that all three desperately need each other. Joining together is the only way to protect themselves from the unhinged war mongers who rule Israel and America and their policy of weakening and destabilizing any Muslim state they view as a threat. Egypt was the first domino to fall. Then came Iraq, then Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan. Iran appears to have narrowly escaped a similar fate, but only for now.

Given the sheer number of Muslim nations Israel and America have attacked, destabilized, or subjugated over the years, the pattern and the malign intentions guiding it are painfully obvious to see. Neither will ever stop attacking the Muslim world until Muslim nations develop the strength to stop them.

Learning to protect each other will play an important part in building this strength. It is not just a matter of pan-Islamic sentiments but self-interest and preservation. Due to the many ways Israel’s and America’s destructive activities can hurt them, it is in the interest of both Pakistan and Turkey to actively oppose them.

Turkey’s recent involvement in Syria has set it on a collision course with Israel. It is therefore only a matter of time before Israel turns on Turkey too. The current trajectory of Turkey’s relationship with the West as evidenced by the degree to which it is constantly demonized in Western publications and the sanctions that limit weapons and technology transfers suggest its Western allies will do little to help it when that day comes. Many of Turkey’s people have recently begun thinking along similar lines. The Turkish government even vowed to build a fully independent defense industry to ensure it has the means to protect itself. Building an alliance with Iran and Pakistan represents one of the most important steps towards ensuring it can do so effectively.

Israel and America have also been selling advanced weapons to India for years. Many of them, such as the Israeli made Heron drone, were used against Pakistan during India’s Operation Sindoor. Whether its leaders want to admit it or not, by virtue of their arms sales to India’s fanatical rulers, America and Israel are Pakistan’s enemies.

Rather than confront the reality of its prolific weapons sales to India and what this says about its long term designs for the Subcontinent, Pakistan’s rulers are hoping for a “strategic reset” with America. Unless this reset involves halting arms shipments to India and ending its attempts to destabilize Iran, it will not satisfy Pakistan’s long term security needs in the way that forming a military alliance with Iran and Turkey would.

The centrifugal forces Israel hopes to unleash in Iran have the potential to flood both countries with refugees while inflaming or reigniting separatists movements in each. As Tucker Carlson pointed out so brilliantly, Iran has a population of roughly 92 million people. That’s more than three times Iraq’s population and almost five times Afghanistan’s when they were invaded. The potential chaos that will ensue if Israel ever manages to destroy Iran’s government will make the anarchy that followed these invasions look like a walk in the park. Which is saying something considering America’s invasion of Afghanistan set off a civil war in Pakistan that killed 80,000 people and has yet to fully resolve itself.

If Pakistan and Turkey are to have any chance at peaceful and prosperous futures, they will need to make sure Iran’s government remains capable of holding the country together. By protecting Iran, they are protecting themselves.

Despite the glaring need and obvious benefits, these countries have not come together because, to varying degrees, Pakistan and Turkey feature the same sort of inherently weak authoritarian political and social systems that govern Iran. Their political economies are dominated by military elites and patronage networks that are incapable of building strong partnerships with each other. EU style integration requires politically influential business and industrial elites and well-run courts and administrative agencies, not generals with vast business interests.

Of the three, Turkey has the most inclusive and open political and social systems. It is the only democracy in the Middle East but still retains serious authoritarian features that de-incentivize investment and technological innovation. Despite its authoritarian characteristics, Turkey has built a strong industrial base that has translated to an increasingly independent and advanced military industrial complex. However, it still struggles to build its most sophisticated equipment like the engines and microchips that power its famous drones. Turkey still imports 20% of its military hardware from Western arms suppliers, which severely limits its geopolitical freedom of action and ability to enter into alliances that might upset its western partners.

Pakistan has been ruled by its generals, either directly or via a hybrid system, for most of its history. Its courts and law enforcement agencies are awful and its government is authoritarian and non-responsive to the needs of its people, particularly when it comes to providing decent public education and reliable energy. Pakistan has built a powerful military but its socio-economic and industrial foundations are rotten and in need of serious investment and reform. Rather than implement the necessary changes, its elite prefer the comfort of neo-colonial relationships and the ease of taking cheap money from their Arab benefactors and international banking institutions.

Iran and the entire Muslim world must respond to the last two years of Israeli and American outrages by finally admitting their way of doing things is not working. They must embrace democracy, gender equality, the rule of law and freedom of expression if they ever wish to end the cycle of violence that has consumed their societies for so long. Until they do, the pattern will continue unabated. The attack against Iran is but the latest iteration of this pattern and highlights the desperate need for serious and meaningful change, not just in Tehran but across the entire Muslim world.

Tagged : america / Apartheid / geopolitics apartheid; imperialism; Muslim; / imperialism / iran / islam / islamic / Israel / middle east / pakistan / Palestine / pan-islamic / pax americana / turkey

What has the war in Gaza revealed about the world?

by Mirrors For The PrinceAugust 4, 2024August 4, 2024Uncategorized1 Comment

Part IV: the “rules” based international system

This essay was first published here, by the Friday Times on July 16, 2024.

This discussion began by focusing on what the war in Gaza teaches us about America. It will now conclude with an examination of what it reveals about its “rules” based international system. Whereas the lessons gleaned from parts I, II, and III were relatively straight forward, using Gaza to understand the nature of the current international order is more complicated due to America’s contradictory behavior and blatant gaslighting.

For example, Jeffery Cimmino and Matthew Kroenig state the Pax Americana is designed to promote stability throughout the world by encouraging “peaceful, predictable, and cooperative behavior among states that is consistent with liberal values and principles” while placing “limits on the use of military force” and advancing “democratic values and human rights.” However, America’s unequivocal support for apartheid Israel and the massacre it unleashed on Gaza’s civilians suggests these lofty principles have no real connection to its actions. Given the disconnect between its stated ideals and actions, this discussion will focus on America’s behavior to determine three aspects of the international system it created, namely, when does it allow people to wage war, does it protect civilians during war, and whether it truly promotes democracy.

WHEN IS WAR JUSTIFIED?

Men have traditionally waged war for power, wealth, women, and territory. Every once and a while they build empires that pretend to aspire to greater things like God or democracy to justify their actions, but organized violence is rarely noble or moral. In the aftermath of WW2, the nations of the world tried to create a new international order based on the idea that war must only be waged as a last resort. The United Nations (UN) was founded to ensure states had peaceful ways of resolving their disputes to try and avoid future wars. Unfortunately, the five nations empowered to keep the peace were also some of the biggest arms dealers on the planet and each had its own imperial or neo-imperial ambitions. Thus, the system failed. It is mostly irrelevant now, but the UN charter is still meant to govern the conduct of nations, including when they are permitted to wage war.

Though some have tried to make nonsensical distinctions between “wars of choice” and “wars of necessity” to suggest otherwise, from a moral and legal perspective, war is only ever justified as a means of self-defense or coming to the defense of others in extreme situations. The right to self-defense is an almost universally acknowledged concept best characterized as a natural or innate right that is enshrined in most legal systems including Article 51 of the UN charter. In theory, the idea that violence is only ever justified as a defensive action should be easy to apply. Gaza, and by extension the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prove otherwise.

Despite what many in the West would like to believe, Oct. 7^th did not happen in a vacuum. It happened within the context of Israel’s 16-year blockade of Gaza, its total rejection of diplomacy including several attempts by Hamas to negotiate a long-term peace, its apartheid system, 75 years of conquest and ethnic cleansing and its policy of occasionally “mowing the grass,” which is a disgusting euphemism popular in the West that refers to Israel’s policy of preemptively attacking and murdering Palestinians. During the two years preceding this attack, Israel’s extremist government did everything it could to provoke the Palestinians by desecrating their places of worship and murdering a record number of children. It even attacked Gaza five months before Oct. 7^th in May of 2023, killing nine civilians, including 3 children.

In addition to brutalizing the Palestinians, Israel has spent years waging a relentless bombing and clandestine campaign against Iran and its allies because of their support for the Palestinians. It has bombed Lebanon and Syria hundreds of times. It is also responsible for murdering numerous high ranking Iranian government officials and conducting several acts of sabotage on its infrastructure. It even helped America murder General Soleimani, one of Iran’s highest-ranking officers who worked in a hybrid role roughly comparable to being the head of the CIA and America’s special forces command. As the recent strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria shows, Israel’s aggression has only grown over the past eight months. Inexplicably, Muslims are denied the right to defend themselves from this violence. They can neither respond to protect themselves nor intervene to save Palestine’s defenseless people.

On the other end of the spectrum, we are frequently reminded that Israel’s right to defend itself is absolute and expansive. Israel’s supporters have gone out of their way to frame its massacre as an act of self-defense meant to prevent future attacks. But the IDF regained control of the border within two days of the initial attack. It killed, captured, or expelled Hamas’ entire force, ending the threat they posed. Once Israel reinforced the border with its tanks and armored fighting vehicles, there was zero possibility of a repeat attack. That Hamas was able to inflict as much damage as it did, given its limited arsenal of light weapons, was shocking and mostly due to catching Israel off guard. But pretending it has the capabilities for a repeat performance is ridiculous. As such, nothing that has happened since that day can reasonably be described as self-defense. The slaughter Israel has carried out can only be classified as revenge and collective punishment.

The current war in Gaza and the entire conquest of Palestine reveals a tiered international system in which a privileged few are allowed to wage war while others must never resort to violence, no matter the provocation. Americans and Israelis, as members of the West, can use violence whenever they deem it necessary and have no limits on who or how many they can kill. Whereas Muslims must meekly accept their fate when they are attacked, lest they be labeled “terrorists” and subjected to more violence.

Gaza is but one example of many that prove the point. When the countless other invasions and violent actions America has committed or enabled, like the invasions of Vietnam and Iraq or the insurgencies it supported in Central America are considered, the pattern shows America and its allies enjoy a monopoly on violence. They are allowed to do anything to feel safe, even if that means destroying another country for no reason at all or murdering entire families in their homes as they sleep.

Men still wage war for the same reasons they always have in the Pax Americana. The only difference is when they are armed with weapons made in America, their cause is automatically considered just. To oppose such men, even if they are stealing your land or bombing your family, is a crime.

ARE CIVILIANS PROTECTED DURING WAR?

Hamas’s attack killed over 1200 Israelis, 377 of whom were security personnel and 845 of whom were civilians. It also took over 250 hostages, including women and children. As such, its attack was condemned in the West because it intentionally targeted civilians. President Biden described it as “abhorrent” and “unadulterated evil” that caused harm to “innocent civilians.” The US House of Representatives passed a resolution denouncing it as “barbaric” while one Western commentator argued the violence Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians over the decades did not justify Oct 7^th because, “no amount of context justifies killing babies.” These responses were largely due to the belief that Hamas broke the rules by targeting civilians, which is consistent with the idea that the Pax Americana limits the use of military force by protecting innocents during war.

The problem, of course, is that Israel’s response has killed or maimed tens of thousands of civilians. Not only has it killed a staggering number of innocents, but as we have discussed throughout this series, it did so intentionally. Its rules of engagement and targeting practices led it to launch missile strikes on the homes of Palestinian families at night while they were sleeping if its AI software decided one of them might be involved with Hamas. That they were full of children or that Hamas’ fighters were hiding underground was deemed irrelevant.

Once again, Gaza reveals a double standard. Just as westerners are the only ones who have the right to protect themselves and can wage war under a definition of self-defense so broad it loses all meaning; their civilians are off limits too. Palestinian civilians, on the other hand, are fair game. They can be shot, beaten, carpet bombed, starved, arrested en masse, held without trial indefinitely, tortured or expelled from their homes. Similarly, their homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship are legitimate targets too.

In truth, this dynamic has been obvious since the end of WW2, which America concluded by firebombing residential neighborhoods in Tokyo and then dropping two atomic bombs on cities full of women and children. Charges related to the intentional bombing of civilians by German and Japanese officials were even dropped during the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials because the Allies were guilty of committing similar crimes. In fact, one of the few successful defenses available to these officials was pointing to similar conduct on the part of the Allies. Through these proceedings, the founders of the Pax Americana began their reign by giving themselves legal license to murder women and children.

Gaza is just one more example that proves when America, or those it empowers, wage war, they are allowed to murder women and children with impunity. Even an attack on a purely military target like Pearl Harbor will be deemed an offense worthy of burning 100,000 civilians to death. But any attempt to target civilians who deserve protection according to Western eyes, like Ukrainians, Israelis, or Americans, will be met with passionate condemnation and a massive escalation in violence.

DOES THE PAX AMERICANA REALLY PROMOTE DEMOCRACY?

To answer this question, we must look beyond Gaza since the current war does not directly touch on this issue. Thankfully, America’s support for apartheid Israel does. There are over 2.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank who have been forced to live under a brutal military occupation and apartheid system since 1967. None of these people have any say over the government that controls their lives and America has actively supported Israel in denying them their right to self-determination for decades. America’s unequivocal support for apartheid Israel unequivocally shows it does not promote democratic values or human rights.

As usual, Palestine is merely part of a broader pattern. In addition to supporting apartheid Israel in its quest to oppress the Palestinians, America has a long history of supporting dictators and juntas across the world. Since listing all the dictators America has armed and supported over the years would take entirely too much space, we will limit ourselves to just a few examples. It is currently the primary arms dealer to the tyrants who rule Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, and nearly every other Arab country. Without America’s support, the iron grip these dictators have on their societies would be considerably looser.

America’s support for the region’s despots is just the tip of the iceberg. It has also quietly helped undermine or topple the few democratic movements in the region. According to Shadi Hamid, the Obama Administration effectively gave Egypt’s generals the “greenlight” to overthrow their nation’s first democratically elected government. This assertion is supported by its remarkably muted condemnation of their coup and the haste with which it restored ties once the junta was in power, even after it mercilessly slaughtered over 1,000 demonstrators on the streets of Cairo. Mr. Hamid’s work has shed light on the extent to which America actively helped overthrow Egyptian democracy, though its leaders have done their best to obscure these facts.

Given the degree to which Egypt’s military depends on America for many of its weapons, like the F16s it flies or the M1 Abram tanks that form a substantial part of its armored units, it should be obvious, as a matter of simple logic, that Egypt’s generals would never do anything to jeopardize their access to these weapons. As such, it is highly unlikely they would overthrow their government without first getting permission from their favorite arms dealer.

America played a similar role in toppling Tunisia’s democratic government too, going so far as to deny a coup had even taken place, and has spent decades undermining Pakistan’s civilian rulers while empowering its generals. But nothing illustrates its hostility to democracy in the Muslim world better than its relationship with Turkey. Even with its restrictions on free speech, Turkey’s claim to the title of the only democracy in the Middle East is superior to Israel’s since it has not violently disenfranchised millions of people under its control based solely on their ethnicity. Despite being the only democracy in the Middle East and the frequent proclamations America’s leaders make regarding their preference for working with other democracies, Turkey’s relationship with America has come under increased strain over the past few decades.

Many analysts like to pretend the souring in relations between these two once stalwart allies is due to Turkey’s “democratic back sliding” or disproportionately blame Turkish President Erdogan’s personal ambitions. Nothing could be further from the truth. The primary catalyst for Turkey’s growing rift with the West was its rejection by the E.U, which unmoored and set it adrift from the Western bloc. A secondary driver of this shift is the fact that Turkey’s government has become more responsive to the desires of its people, which is a function of the growing inclusivity of its political system particularly as it relates to the growth of Turkish civil society. Though it is still flawed in serious ways, Turkey’s democracy is getting stronger. As its democratic system has entrenched itself and grown from the shadow of the generals who so frequently tried to control it, Turkey’s leaders have been forced to act according to the wishes of their constituents. The tensions between Turkey and the West are therefore partially due to the fact that its government now gives expression to the Pan-Islamic sentiments of its people. President Erdogan’s passionate denunciations of Israel and embrace of Hamas are just two examples that show how these sentiments impact his rhetoric and policies.

Taken together, these facts show America is actively opposed to the spread of democracy in the Muslim world. Which makes sense considering its goal is to subjugate the region to its interests. Democratic Muslim governments are harder to control and more likely to enact policies that challenge America’s hegemonic policies. A democratic Egypt, for example, would never have worked with Israel to blockade Gaza, just as a democratic Turkey has become more willing to condemn Israeli excesses.

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER

Gaza reveals the true nature of the Pax Americana by showing it is a system that treats Muslim children as legitimate targets during war and denies their parents the rights to defend or govern themselves. As a system predicated on war and domination, it is not based on a set of definable rules but force and coercion. It is designed to violently maintain America’s control over the Muslim world and its resources. Which finally brings us to Gaza’s most important lesson.

America and Israel represent an immediate and existential threat to the peace and prosperity of not just the Palestinians, but the entire Muslim world. They have chosen the path of war and have no interest in real peace. Instead of recognizing that the choice to build Israel on Arab land means they must learn to live as equals with Palestinians, they have chosen apartheid and slaughter. Both believe they have the right to attack any part of the Muslim world they deem fit and have proven capable of mercilessly massacring children in pursuit of their goals.

By any sane measure, meaning one that values all human life equally regardless of the faith or identity of the victims, America has been an agent of chaos, violence, and repression throughout the region. One can only hope those responsible for its crimes live long enough to see justice. There is no statute of limitations on mass murder, after all. Just as Israel’s spies famously tracked down Nazi officials decades after WW2, there must come a day when its soldiers and politicians are dragged before tribunals to face justice for their transgressions alongside their American accomplices.

Before that can happen, Muslims must take the steps needed to protect themselves. Given the unhinged people Israelis and Americans keep choosing to lead them, their racist world views, lethal arsenals, and history of using chemical or nuclear weapons against defenseless women and children, Muslims should be very frightened of the type of violence they are capable of unleashing. The only way to put an end to the threat they pose is by finally taking the long overdue steps needed to build strong states that can defend them and work together.

The key to doing that is building inclusive and democratic political and social systems and institutions that can lead to the economic and technological growth they so desperately need. Muslim nations do not need more guns but more factories, start-ups, universities, research institutes, laboratories, political parties, and independent and honest judges, prosecutors, and journalists. Societies that do not possess such ingredients are incapable of building prosperous economies driven by innovation and technological growth which means they are incapable of building powerful militaries armed with the most advanced weapons.

These ingredients will also help bring Muslims together, which is the only way to counter the Western coalition’s far greater strength. There is no single Muslim state powerful enough to stand up to America and its friends. The Arab, Central Asian, and African parts of the Muslim world are too weak or servile to be of any use in this regard while those in Southeast Asia are too remote. As such, the burden must fall to Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. It is only by creating a deep-rooted alliance between these nations that Muslims have any chance at finally ending the neo-colonial dynamics that have ensnared them and regaining sovereignty over their lands in both name and fact.

America realized the possibilities of such an alliance decades ago when it created CENTO. The logic that compelled it to do so is still sound. Combining the power of these three nations would give them the strength to protect the Muslim world while stabilizing a large chunk of it. Turkish and Pakistani leaders may not wish to openly break with America, but any fool can see this is inevitable and necessary. America has denied both nations its most advanced weapons while offering them to their archrivals in Greece and India. It is investing in India’s defense industry while sanctioning Pakistan’s and it has an unstated policy of ensuring no Muslim state can ever develop enough power to threaten Israel or its control of the region. Whether they realize it or not, Pakistan and Turkey have no choice but to create an alliance with Iran. All three desperately need each other.

Effectively combining their powers will require linking them on multiple levels. They must create free trade zones reinforced by infrastructure designed to increase the flow of people, goods, and ideas between them. Encouraging tourism by creating international organizations designed to increase people to people contact like sports leagues and professional, civil, trade, and academic associations would also be wise. Even something as simple as starting a soccer league featuring teams from each country would go a long way towards building the sort of ties that can bind these nations. Most importantly, they must create fair and transparent ways for their people to trade with each other on a large scale. The best way to do that is by creating democratic systems based on the rule of law. Which highlights, yet again, the desperate need to build such systems. Bringing these nations together represents the Muslim world’s best hope for finally ending the pattern of conquests and massacres that have plagued it for centuries.

As explained in Part III, it is only a matter of time before America implodes. Its decline will add to the chaos over the short term but may bring some reprieve over the long run. The problem is that at some point, another nation will step in and the same dynamics that prevented Muslims from protecting themselves from the West will still exist. Due to its unique geographic position as a bridge that connects Western Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China, there will always be powerful states with an interest in controlling the Muslim world. As a result, Muslims nations must remain vigilant about safeguarding their freedoms. As Palestine shows, the price for failing in this vigilance is paid in blood. If Muslims ever want the bloodshed to stop, they will need to make some serious changes to their societies consistent with the ideas discussed above. Until they do, they will be forced to obey the ridiculous “rules” others impose on them.

Tagged : Apartheid / Gaza / Hamas / international law / iran / islam / islamic / Israel / Israeli-Palestinian conflict / middle east / pakistan / Palestine / pan-islamic / pax americana / rules based international system / turkey / United Nations / war crimes / war in gaza

What has the war in Gaza revealed about the world?

by Mirrors For The PrinceAugust 4, 2024August 4, 2024Uncategorized3 Comments

Part III: Muslims in America

This essay was first published here, by the Friday Times on July 10th, 2024.

We will now focus on what lessons the carnage in Gaza holds for America’s Muslims. To appreciate the full impact of this war, one must first understand how it fits within the context of America’s relationship with the wider Muslim world, which has largely been shaped by its desire to control the Middle East’s energy resources and make sure no Muslim state can threaten apartheid Israel.

In pursuit of these goals, it established de facto military control over much of the Middle East. It has had bases in Turkey since the advent of the Cold War, but once that conflict ended it used Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait as a pretext to establish a permanent military presence in the Gulf. As the recent attacks on its forces in Jordan, Iraq, and Syria show, it has troops scattered throughout the region. It maintains several air squadrons composed of advanced fighters, bombers, and drones and a permanent naval presence in the region that includes constantly rotating at least one aircraft carrier battle group into either the eastern Mediterranean Sea or Persian Gulf. In total, America has roughly 60-80k troops in the region on any given day.

In addition to its substantial military presence, it has managed to ensure every Arab state, except Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Sudan, is governed by dictators who must comply with its wishes. To make sure Muslim states are ruled by compliant rulers, it has employed the full spectrum of violence from assassinations and coups to all out invasions. It has also used special forces, drone strikes, and the occasional missile volley to quiet those opposed to its agenda. However, its preferred method of control is selling weapons to Muslim states, thereby making them dependent on America to maintain and equip their militaries. Through these various mechanisms, it has established a form of neo-imperial military control over much of the region and fittingly given it a neo-colonial façade.

It has achieved this power by inflicting unspeakable pain and suffering throughout the region. Gaza is but the latest in a long line of massacres America has committed or enabled against Muslims. An estimated 576,000 Iraqi children died because of the sanctions it imposed before the 2003 invasion, another 4.5 million died because of the War on Terror, and its support and weapons allowed Saudi Arabia to kill 377,000 Yemenis and Egypt to jail 60,000 non-violent political prisoners. Due to these actions, as well as many others we simply do not have the space to list, America has the blood of millions of innocents on its hands.

In sum, at the same time America was inviting Muslims from all over the world to its shores via immigration policies that made it easy for educated professionals to settle there, it was also violently attacking their homelands or supporting the brutal regimes that may have prompted some of them to seek new homes. Given this history and its long-standing support for apartheid Israel, being Muslim in America has always been complicated. By virtue of its decades long attempt to subjugate and control the Muslim world, America’s Muslims have often been in the uneasy position of being viewed and treated as a fifth column who cannot be fully trusted. As a result, dealing with bigotry and Islamophobia is an implicit part of the Muslim American experience.

Despite everything, America’s Muslims have thrived as a community. The Economist went so far as to call the twenty year period after 9/11 a “golden age” for us in which our population doubled and our influence grew. Until eight months ago, we were fully integrated into the fabric of American life and enmeshed in the pursuit of our American dreams.

Gaza has shattered those dreams. The images of mutilated and lifeless Palestinian children have reminded us that America is still perfectly capable of massacring Muslims while hiding behind vile, racist justifications to obscure its crimes. Watching Gaza’s poor people brutally murdered from afar and living in and paying taxes to the country enabling these crimes has been excruciatingly painful.

It has also led to action. As a community, America’s Muslims have spoken out loudly in defense of Gaza’s children. We have marched, petitioned our leaders, and even blocked traffic to bring attention to their plight. Despite our desperate pleas and the overwhelming evidence of Israel’s crimes, most have demonized, dismissed or ignored us. Instead of listening, many accused us of being terrorist sympathizers, pro-Hamas, or antisemitic. Congressman Mike Rollins went so far as to praise blatantly racist counter protesters in Mississippi, one of whom was mimicking an ape and gesturing towards a Pro-Palestinian African American protester. But Mr. Collins is hardly the only bigot in Congress. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, was censured by 234 of her colleagues for daring to object to the slaughter of her people and call for their freedom. On the other hand, Brian Mast faced no consequences for justifying the murder of Palestinian babies by comparing them to Nazis.

These officials are merely a reflection of the society that elected them. America has always tolerated violence and discrimination towards Muslims. Since the start of this war, our children have been stabbed and shot. We have been fired from our jobs, arrested, expelled from our schools, sued, and even barred from speaking at our graduations. All because we refuse to be silent when Israel’s military murders children or ignore that it is a brutal apartheid state guilty of denying millions of Palestinians their basic human rights for nearly 60 years.

While all of this has been going on, most Americans have proven they simply do not care. About the mass murder their government is enabling in Gaza, or the blatant discrimination Muslim Americans face. Aside from a small, vocal minority, most have done their best to ignore Israel’s crimes and their nation’s role in aiding them.

The cumulative weight of this data reveals some very harsh truths. The most obvious: America’s Muslims are second class citizens who do not have the same right to express ourselves as our neighbors. Even when our government actively helps slaughter thousands of children, we must accept its actions without dissent or suffer the consequences. Despite our increased numbers and influence, neither our lives nor our voices matter. Not only do they not matter, but those who insist on expressing them will be silenced.

In many ways, Gaza reinforces what we have known the whole time. Muslims in America will always be viewed with suspicion and hostility. Even when we fully embrace the American ethos and fight for universal concepts like defending children from mass murder, we will be vilified, then ignored.

Gaza has reminded us how precarious it is to be Muslim in America. Nothing proves the point better than the upcoming presidential election. Our choices are Genocide Joe Biden, a self-described Zionist guilty of enabling the worst massacre of Palestinians since 1948 or Donald Trump, another self-described Zionist who believes his opponent has shown too much restraint in trying to limit Israel’s massacre. The only difference between these men is that one gaslights and lies to deflect criticism of his crimes while the other openly embraces and celebrates them. But when it comes to valuing Muslim lives or protecting children from slaughter, they are the same.

Which leads us to another even harsher truth: Muslims do not belong in America. We are not wanted, and will not be safe if we stay here. As referenced in Part I, America is not on a sound trajectory. Over the next few decades, several seemingly unrelated factors will come together to cause economic and political upheaval of the sort that often leads to violence.

The starting point for such a discussion must begin with the massive debt America has accumulated to pay for its hegemonic ambitions and the exponential rate at which the interest payments required to service it are growing. This expense will cost $12.4 trillion over the next decade, making it the largest item in the budget and creating an unsustainable situation in which America will be printing and borrowing money to pay interest on the money it has already printed and borrowed. In an ironic twist, the debt Ronald Reagan first took on to pay for the arms race that bankrupted the Soviets now threatens to do the same to America. It is no longer difficult to imagine a day when it reaches $70-80 trillion, and the interest payments alone consume more than the federal government collects in tax receipts.

Aside from printing the dollar into oblivion, America’s leaders have also been entering into free trade agreements that incentivized their companies to shift their manufacturing operations overseas. These agreements have caused millions of once high paying factory jobs to disappear. What was once described as the world’s workshop now consistently imports far more than it exports and has had an incredibly weak balance of payments for over thirty years in a row. This has had wide ranging political, social, and economic effects, the most obvious of which is the MAGA movement. As America’s leaders continue to debase their currency, paying for the massive quantity of goods and inputs their economy no longer produces will become prohibitively expensive. The destabilizing impact of dismantling its manufacturing base will only grow over the next few decades.

The root cause of America’s financial distress is its insistence on maintaining a military that can simultaneously control Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. America’s military is not built to protect the homeland but to project power throughout nearly the entire world. Due to its hegemonic ambitions, it has spent an obscene amount of money on national security over the years and continues to do so. It spent $21 trillion on its military between just 9/11 and 2021 and another $1.7 trillion in 2022 and 2023, which accounts for most of its $34 trillion debt. In its quest to dominate the world, America maxed out its credit cards and the bills are starting to come due.

Alas, its corporate military interests now have such a strangle hold on its political economy that having an honest conversation about the desperate need to stand down and re-adjust the country’s spending and national security priorities is impossible. Instead of being honest about its dire finances, America’s elite wax on about silly ideas like modern monetary theory. Its rival political factions can only agree on massive spending packages that further add to its debt and their desire to dominate the world. Due to their refusal to accept simple truths, America’s leaders have overextended themselves.

Having dismantled the factories that were the true source of their nation’s power, they no longer have the resources to control Eurasia from end to end. Not only have they overextended themselves, but they have gone against decades of very sensible policies that sought to prevent China and Russia from coming to together by doing everything in their power to unite these giants and their interior lines of communication. If Eurasia is the world island, America is firmly on the outside, looking in, and trying to dominate from the perimeter.

From both a financial and geopolitical perspective, America’s leaders are doing everything possible to accelerate their own demise. When historians look back at their fall, they will probably describe it as the greatest own goal in history. America is arguably the most geographically blessed political entity that has ever existed. It possesses formidable natural defenses that could have allowed it to spend a minimal amount on its military. Rather than use these blessings to strengthen themselves by educating their people and building world class infrastructure to maintain their considerable economic advantages, its leaders spent the past eighty years investing in war and hegemony. In doing so, they have neglected the true source of civilizational power, namely, economic, scientific, and industrial infrastructure and capabilities.

The only thing propping up this house of cards is the dollar, which is the currency of choice for people and governments throughout the globe. In their drive to control the world, America’s leaders are doing their best to change this. They have turned their control of the dollar and the international trading system that relies on it into a cudgel to punish their enemies and coerce any who might disobey their wishes. In doing so, they are incentivizing the rest of the world to find a substitute currency that cannot be controlled from Washington DC. The long-term economic consequences of using the dollar as a geopolitical weapon will ultimately be reduced demand that lessens its value.

Combined these factors will lead to a variety of woes like hyperinflation, exorbitant taxes, high interest rates, higher input costs, reduced investment, diminished public services, and insolvency. These will, in turn, lead to spiraling social and political chaos. By themselves, these developments would be enough to cause violence, but they are not the only trends to consider. At the same time its finances are collapsing, America will also be undergoing significant demographic changes that will only add to the tumult. By 2045, white people will no longer form the majority in America.

Western societies have frequently featured overtly racist ideologies and discriminatory policies that violently oppressed people based on their faith, race, or ethnicity. The Inquisition, the various progroms against Jews culminating in the Holocaust, the Atlantic slave trade, the genocide perpetrated against Native Americans, America’s and South Africa’s histories as apartheid states, the internment of Japanese Americans during WW2, and Israeli apartheid all have their origins in the Western world’s bigoted and violently xenophobic cultures. These values have been an important component of the Western ethos for centuries and, as Gaza shows, still shape the perspectives of many Americans. Considering this history, it is not unfair to wonder how white people will react to having to share power as a minority, particularly since their declining numbers and power will be accompanied by significant economic upheaval.

As January 6^th showed, there are already large swathes of white America who feel alienated and marginalized by the way their country is changing. As their share of the population shrinks, these feelings will only grow. That awful day may have marked the first violent coup attempt in America’s history, but it will not be the last.

Over the decades, America has trained millions of its men in the arts of subverting governments and organized violence. It has also made it easy for them to arm themselves. As the world’s preeminent merchant of death, America is flooded with weapons. There are over 400 million personal firearms floating around the country. According to the Washington Post, 20 million of them are AR15 style assault rifles. In addition to personal firearms, America is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of jet fighters, tanks, armored fighting vehicles, large caliber machine guns, rocket launchers, drones, and literally anything else needed to kill or maim human beings en masse. It features warehouses, factories, military bases, storage depots, and armories full of the tools needed to level places like Gaza. Each of its fifty states even has its own military.

Climate change will only make things worse. The increasing severity and frequency of large-scale natural disasters like wildfires, flooding, and exceptionally strong hurricanes and storms has already caused some insurance companies to abandon several particularly vulnerable states like Florida and Iowa. As the scale of these disasters grows, the costs and impact will too. The burden to rebuild and make the victims whole will ultimately fall to a federal government drowning in debt and therefore unable to adequately cope.

Predicting the exact fallout when these trends collide is obviously impossible. Nevertheless, it is possible to analyze this data, compare it to additional data from the historical record, and use this information to make logical inferences and extrapolations. A reasonable analysis of the macro-trends suggests large scale violence is a very real possibility within the next few decades and that America will soon find itself in serious trouble. Of course, “soon” is a relative term in the historical scheme of things. The Abbasid, Roman, and Ottoman Empires took centuries to fully collapse and be reborn. America seems poised to follow a similar path.

It is certainly possible its leaders react to the collapse of the dollar by peacefully dismantling the security state they have built, thereby managing a soft landing for the end of Pax Americana. However, given the number of resources they have invested into war and death and the degree to which this has warped their minds, this is not a likely scenario. A society that empowers men like Congressman Thomas Massie, who sends holiday greeting cards showing his family armed with assault rifles, is unlikely to react rationally.

The more likely scenario is that the same people who stormed the Capitol blame this collapse on a “woke” Federal government and react by launching an insurgency that eventually grows into a civil war. They may not even wait for the dollar to collapse and could easily resort to violence if Donald Trump is imprisoned or the next time they refuse to admit they lost an election.

These possibilities present America’s Muslims with impossible choices. Do we stay where we are not wanted and may not be safe, or do we return to the Muslim world and the hyenas and jackals who rule it? We will not fare well in an America experiencing economic collapse and social unrest. As a visible minority that has always been viewed with hostility, we would be particularly vulnerable to violence and systemic abuse if the situation devolves into lawlessness or civil war. But for the reasons addressed in Part II, returning to our homelands is fraught with danger too. It will be up to each of us to consider our unique situations when deciding what path to take. Both are full of peril and risks.

When making this choice, the author can only suggest that the skills and capital we have acquired during our stay in the West might be put to good use in those few Muslim countries like Turkey, Bosnia, Malaysia, or Indonesia that have more inclusive political, social, and economic systems. If we were to move to these countries in sufficient numbers, it is entirely possible we could have a positive impact like the one Crusaders returning from the Holy Land had on Europe so long ago. Their experiences in the more developed Muslim world changed their tastes and perspectives, sparking changes that eventually led to Europe’s Renaissance. There may come a day when America’s Muslims have no choice but to try and spark a similar transformation in their former homelands. Those Muslims who would prefer to avoid the anarchy and upheaval that is sure to accompany America’s looming implosion would do well to start planning for that day now.

Tagged : america / Apartheid / genocide / Hamas / iran / islam / islamic / Israel / Israeli-Palestinian conflict / middle east / pakistan / Palestine / pan-islamic / pax americana / turkey

America’s decline will bring chaos the Muslim world is unprepared for

by Mirrors For The PrinceNovember 26, 2023November 26, 2023Uncategorized1 Comment

This article was first published here by the Friday Times on June 15, 2023

Several years ago, when its national debt was just $20 trillion, I wrote an essay arguing America’s weak finances would lead it to withdraw its military from the Muslim world, creating a vacuum China would fill. The underlying premise of my argument was that America’s growing debt would force its leaders to trim military spending and the Muslim world, not being vital to its core interests, would be the first to witness the beginning of the end of the Pax Americana. A retrenchment necessitated by being in a nearly continuous state of either hot, cold, or asymmetrical war for most of the past 80 years.

America’s military presence in the region is still going strong today. It maintains a permanent naval presence in the Gulf and has troops scattered throughout the region. However, its attempts to build an anti-Iranian military coalition between Israel and the Arab world as an eventual substitute for its own forces and the recent rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia brokered by China suggests I was on the right track. Both developments support the argument that its role in the region is diminishing and portend trends that will only accelerate with time. As such, I am still confident in my thesis. But I was wrong about one crucial assumption.

I implicitly believed America’s leaders would react rationally. That they would see the massive pile of debt their wasteful spending and imperial wars of conquest have led to and develop a rational plan to fix the situation. I was wrong.

As evidence, I offer the recent deal reached between the Biden Administration and the Republican led Congress to raise America’s debt ceiling to accommodate a sum that has now grown to $31.4 trillion. There are two aspects of this deal that vividly highlight just how irrational and detached from reality America’s policy elite have become. The first, it cut funding for America’s tax collection and enforcement agency, the IRS. Second, it did not cut military spending. Instead, it increased military outlays by 1%.

Of the government agencies and departments most vital to a nation’s prosperity and security, none is more important than those that collect tax revenue. Not even the military. As Pakistan’s dysfunctional government and economy shows, without a well-funded and efficient tax collection and enforcement agency nothing else works. Paying for the public services like roads, competent law enforcement and regulatory agencies, or schools that glue a nation together and nurture economic activity becomes impossible. Also, as a matter of common sense, when the government has accrued $31.4 trillion in debt, it should be trying to increase revenue and collections.

But America’s conservative faction fought hard to claw back some of the funding that President Biden wisely allocated to the IRS. In doing so they did not just contradict their stated desire to improve America’s finances, they helped illustrate just how irrational its leaders have become.

By itself, the attack on the IRS staged by America’s right was unsettling enough. But what was far more upsetting was how little discussion there was about the root cause of America’s debt by either of its political factions.

Over the past 20 years, America has spent $16 trillion on its military and that is a conservative estimate that does not account for certain intelligence activities like those provided by the CIA or the cost of its nuclear arsenal, parts of which gets budgeted under the Department of Energy for accounting purposes. It also excludes the cost of caring for its veterans and the national security functions performed by the Department of Homeland Security. For those keeping track, the conservative estimate is over half its debt.

Due to this spending, America is the most dominant military power in the world by a wide margin. It fields a massive arsenal of the most advanced tanks, fighters, drones, submarines, and aircraft carriers. Despite having already spent trillions to build this impressive force and having important geographic advantages that protect it from invasion, there was no meaningful discussion about cutting military spending. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that so many of the professionals paid to discuss these issues work for defense contractors? One can only guess. Thankfully, understanding why is not important. What is important is recognizing the fact that military spending is America’s holy grail. One that neither party will ever meaningfully threaten, no matter how bleak its finances.

Some may argue that events in Ukraine and the Pacific justify America’s refusal to scale back its military. But these arguments do not fare well under closer scrutiny. Aside from the fact that Europe should be defending itself, the bear we were all raised to fear has proven less ferocious than previously imagined. Russia and Western Europe will never be friends and Europe’s nations will always need to prepare accordingly, but the idea that Russia presents a threat to America is ludicrous.

America’s fixation with containing China is equally illogical. Again, as a preliminary matter, protecting Asia is not America’s responsibility. That burden must ultimately fall to Asia’s nations. China’s behavior, particularly its treatment of the poor Uighurs, has been abhorrent, there is no denying that. But it has never threatened America’s commercial or national security interests. America’s obsession with countering China has more to do with its own hegemonic ambitions than anything else and reinforces the argument that its leaders are no longer acting rationally.

The key takeaway: America’s finances will only worsen as it continues to fund a military designed to dominate the world rather than protect the homeland. Instead of taking the steps necessary to reign in spending, America’s leaders seem determined to do the same thing they did in Afghanistan; pretend like nothing is wrong until everything implodes in the blink of an eye.

The only real question is when, but no one can truly answer that. America is a large, wealthy country, making it hard to predict how far down this path it can go before reality rears its ugly head. If I were a betting man, I would wager the inflection point will correlate to the interest payments on its debt. Once this number reaches a certain level, America will be printing money to pay the interest on the money it has already borrowed and printed. It’s hard to predict the exact fallout but debasing a nation’s currency to pay its debts has never ended well for the many governments throughout history that have followed this path.

The rest of the world needs to prepare accordingly. Even in a weakened financial position, America’s massive military industrial infrastructure will still allow it to wreak havoc in many ways. Much like the demise of the Soviet Union flooded the world with its weapons, America’s decline will incentivize it to expand its role as the world’s merchant of death. Many of its weapons will end up in Israel, India, and Greece.

The leaders of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey should take note. As I argued in a companion piece to the essay about America’s looming military withdrawal, these nations must come together to create new political, economic and military organizations for their mutual defense and prosperity. The key to doing so: creating institutional mechanisms to support trade and joint infrastructure development within the framework of a free trade zone like the one Europe built in the aftermath of WW2. Projects like the long-delayed Peace Pipeline between Iran and Pakistan would serve as the perfect building blocks to increase trade and connectivity.

Unfortunately, the Muslim world’s leaders are even more irrational and illogical than America’s. Despite centuries of conquest and instability, Muslim elites refuse to make the sort of changes that would allow them to prosper either individually or collectively. Pakistan, for example, seems intent on creating the same toxic and ineffective neo-colonial dynamic with China that has repeatedly failed Muslim societies since the Ottomans first tried the same tactic with Germany. Iran’s leaders are still obsessing over how Iranian women dress. One could write volumes about the irrational policies favored by Afghanistan’s rulers.

Like most of the Muslim world, all three suffer under the weight of authoritarian and non-responsive political and social systems that stifle change or serious attempts at reform. Consequently, they are highly unlikely to take the steps necessary to protect themselves from the chaos and upheaval that always accompanies major shifts in the world’s geopolitical sands. That is a pity, because America’s loosening grip on the region also means the time to do so has never been better.

Tagged : america / islam / islamic / middle east / pan-islamic / pax americana