The decline of the American empire
Do you know who has officially declared the decline of the American empire? No, it's not a Russian newspaper, not a Chinese one, not from Iran or Cuba; it is the New York Times itself.
Nothing lasts forever. Shifting this into political and imperial terms, of the various empires that have wanted to control, and indeed did control the rest of humanity, nothing lasts forever. Sooner or later, they fall.
Do they fall because of internal factors or external factors? Do they fall due to economic and military situations, or also because of spiritual issues or matters of values? Will this be the case for the United States? Recently, The New York Times has officially declared the decline and fall of the American empire.
Officially, the United States is an empire in decline, according to The New York Times, and the turning point was precisely the attack on Iran.
The American newspaper explains that Trump's war was more than just a bad idea; it became a before and after moment in the decline of the United States.
The military operation was a disaster that showed that the US armed forces are ineffective and that they don't have the power to impose Washington's will.
The publication reports that military spending has been extremely high. The United States fired nearly half of its stealth missile reserve, and in turn launched over 1000 Tomahawks, equivalent to 10 times more than it buys in a single year.
Trump wounded his own nation and proved that US power is far less than the world assumed, and if it uses a nuclear weapon, the country will bring upon itself eternal shame, claims the New York Times, and all of this, partly, because Trump fell into Netanyahu's trap.
It's tempting to wonder at what point in the process of imperial decline the United States currently finds itself. Without a doubt, it shares elements with the British Empire a century ago, deindustrialization and an excess of commitments
The unprovoked and unlawful attack on Iran is another factor in the decline of the United States as an empire, according to the New York Times. How do you view this situation?
Well, I think that first of all, what we're experiencing, and there's no doubt that this specific war with Iran will mark a before and after in world history, in general terms, is the transition of the United States and North America from a global hegemonic power to a hegemonic power in the Western Hemisphere of the world.
Understand the West now specifically as a geographic concept, from the Greenwich Meridian to the left (west); we see a Trump, the United States of America, that hasn't even been able to lead its most faithful friends around the world, namely the Asia Pacific countries that are most friendly with the United States, nor its major European allies.
So we also see that the United States has left its trusted countries in the region adrift, namely the petro monarchies. Therefore, everything would indicate that from this episode onward we would be precisely in this transition of a United States and North America with global hegemony after winning three world wars to a United States that will be confined to a specific geographic space.
I also want to really emphasize the discrediting that Donald Trump suffered as leader of the United States of North America by contradicting himself so many times and having a totally childish attitude when communicating, trying in a clownish way to push the idea that they won a war against Iran, when clearly that wasn't the case.
That's on one hand. Then, on the other hand, we also have to highlight Iran's ability to defend itself in asymmetrical terms.
And finally, a very important issue, something I've mentioned on several occasions, which is the fact that everything seems to indicate that the date of the soccer World Cup would serve as a kind of chronological limit for US military activities in West Asia.
I think this should always have been taken into account, and clearly we're getting closer to the Western Soccer World Cup, and we see the United States being a bit quieter in this regard. That doesn't mean things will stay this way permanently, but for now, as we approach the soccer World Cup, hostilities are gradually ceasing.
It truly would have been insane for the United States of North America itself to take on an event so important for the entire world, not just for us Argentineans who like the Soccer World Cup, but for the world in general, while having a war against one of the regional powers, namely the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I believe that's one of the most important points; we need to start understanding Iran as a regional power, without a doubt.
Leandro Bracamonte, Iranologist
The New York Times says that to definitely and officially place the US as an empire in decline, attacking Iran was a very serious mistake. That's what this newspaper is projecting, a newspaper that can be accused of many things, but certainly not of not being part of the US establishment.
How do you see this issue?
As for a mistake, I don't see it that way. It's already the consequence of many phases, four phases. We're talking about categorizing the decline of the United States as a society, as a government, as a country.
Let's start with the first phase, let's call it a golden age, which was its beginning as a nation, as a society built on the foundation of Protestantism that promoted Bible reading, literacy, and skilled labor. In other words, it brought about a huge, huge advance. Let's say that's where the road was mapped out, the road was laid, the foundations were set, the fundamentals were put in place.
Then comes what is known as the zombie state, or zombie religion, that is, the structures remained, but the people were left with the inertia of moral values; respect, love, helping others, community.
Why? Because those were values learned from those who started that early form of Christianity back in their time, but there was no religion anymore. There was no longer a personal relationship with God, just moral values, and in fact, according to some authors, this lasted until the post-war period.
That was its boom, its peak, but from there we enter what is called the zero state.
In the zero state, we see the absence of values, the absence of respect, the absence of love, the absence of collectivism, no helping the neighbors, no loving the neighbors, and we enter into individualism.
So then, instead of having a kind of open arms attitude toward everyone else, supporting and helping, it became a situation of individualism, and it permeates all of society. That's what's known as the zero state, the absence of values.
After that comes nihilism. What is nihilism? It's the reaction to the zero state. It's the worship of emptiness.
There's no respect anymore, no values anymore, nothing, but I'm comfortable. I love that state. It's something that helps me, and that's where we enter into the topic of destruction.
That's where we enter into the topic of war. That's where we enter into wanting to destroy others.
And here I would add that between the zero state and nihilism lies the phase of Procrustes.
What is Procrustes? Procrustes comes from Greek mythology, a figure used to describe an idiot.
In ancient Greece, there were the idiots, people who only worked for themselves. They didn't get involved in political life or social life, they simply lived their private lives from the doors of their home inward.
In fact, there is a definition of idiot that says one who thinks only for himself. That's how idiot is defined.
Now, where does this align with the mythology of Procrustes?
Procrustes was a giant who had an inn, a little hotel, and he had beds. But what did this Procrustes do? He put short people in large beds and tall people in small beds. For what purpose? The short ones he would chop up and stretch to fit them into the bed. The tall ones, he would chop up and shrink them.
And that is the attitude of an idiot. My point of view must prevail and must count. What I say must be done.
Is Trump an idiot? Exactly, he's an idiot because he wants to impose his values, or his anti-values, his anti-values, obviously, because from his point of view it's the right thing to do.
So, between what is called the zero state, which is the absence of values, and nihilism, which is the worship of what is no longer there, of emptiness, of the void, of meaninglessness.
So we are in the stage of Procrustes, which says what I say goes. I either stretch you or I shrink you. And we enter the second phase, which is nihilism, where war comes. That's when the ax blow comes, and I'm going to impose war, and I'm going to impose my tariffs, and I'm going to impose my taxes, and I don't care what you say. That's the idiot at its fullest expression. We are already at that stage.
That's why this war isn't going to stop anymore. It's the war of idiots. The idiots are the ones in the Pentagon; the idiots are the ones who are there. Now, this is the phase of the West, of Western Christianity, of society.
But, speaking, for example, of Russia, China, other countries, they are at the base in what is called the Zombie Stage.
Why? The Zombie state, and I'm not the one saying this, even though it sounds a bit like a Santos movie, is a definition from a demographic historian, Manuel Todd. And he considers himself a zombie atheist. He's someone who grew up with values, even though he doesn't profess any religion. He's an atheist, but values that proclaimed him, that promoted him.
He says that Russia and China are in that state. They still have values, maybe they don't have a true communion with God as such, but they have their inherited values that come from their ancestors, from their grandfather, from their father, etc.
So he says, but since the United States is already in the Procrustes stage and is already swinging the ax blows, because it wants to fit everything into its own way of being. Either I cut you and shrink you, or I cut you and stretch you. That's why we are already in this situation.
Pastor Javier Soria Herrera, Political Analyst
The factors of the decline of the American empire, as set out by the New York Times, are internal, external, and how do you see the situation?
Well, there's a broad issue to address and work through. I think that to complement what Pastor is saying, I'd like to propose a reading. There is a very, very good author, a Frenchman from the last century, who wrote his first book in 1921, his name is Rene Guynen.
This French author has two very interesting theses. One of them is the crisis of the modern world. Within this thesis, actually, it's a short book, and he didn't define himself as a philosopher or a thinker. Quite the opposite, he broadly criticizes the concepts we have rooted in Western culture as philosophy.
In the book, 'The Crisis of the Modern World', he comments on how what we understand today as the West has the particular anomaly of being an anti-civilization.
In other words, what Pastor was commenting on very well, this issue of the tendency toward individualism, breaking with the collective conception of humanity, is one of the most important reasons why the United States, in some way as the absolute representative of Western civilization as we understand it, is heading toward a quagmire with no way out regarding an existential issue that runs much deeper.
Facing this, we have what Donald Trump's leadership was. First of all, who is he? He's a person who enriched himself through prostitution, and noticed something that happened just a few days ago. This issue that the new right communicators always tried to present Donald Trump as a kind of Christian leader, and now Donald Trump has just decreed a national Shabbat for the United States of North America.
Surely, Pastor can explain that better than I can.
Even though Christianity was born in an environment strictly rooted in the Hebrew tradition, Judaism and Christianity as a religious phenomenology after Jesus Christ, this is important to understand, Rabbinic Judaism came after Jesus Christ.
They are contradictory traditions.
So, notice what kind of situation we're talking about. Facing this, we also have the not minor detail of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a very important detail that many people overlook, the martyrdom of Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei.
It's extremely important to understand this, because for Iranians and for all Shiites around the world, it is the realization of the epitome of an essential archetype within the tradition of Shiite Islam, sanctity through martyrdom, that Ayatollah Khamenei achieved this, and at the hands of whom, above all, is truly a validation of the entire 30 plus years of preaching of Ayatollah Khamenei as leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
When many believed it was a death blow against the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, quite the opposite; it is the eternal validation of the preaching of both Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Ayatollah Khamenei.
Leandro Bracamonte, Iranologist
We see the decline in the last two presidents. Of course, we are clearly not going to praise Barack Obama at all, but it seemed like there was a renaissance of many things, full of energy, yet in the end he destroyed several countries in West Asia while he was president.
But then suddenly comes a decrepit figure like President Biden, who greeted ghosts and did weird things, and who was preparing an attack on Iran if he had been re-elected, according to one of his main advisors recently and officially, and then along comes Trump, with no respect, even for basic decency.
This may be taken as an unmistakable cycle in the decline of the American empire on a global level. What do you think?
No, in fact, during Barack Obama's administration, one of his advisors, I can't remember his name, coined a word, the blob.
What is the blob? It's a parasite, or rather; it's a single-celled organism that has no brain. The only thing it does is eat. It expands and eats, that's all it does, eat. But even though it has no brain or nervous system, it has intelligence, because you can put it in a maze and it will find the shortest path to the food.
Well, that term was coined by one of Barack Obama's advisors, applying it to the political class, to the senators, to all that bureaucracy.
They're saying you guys have no brain, you just exist to eat, so it's understood that this blob, that situation is like a kind of, in fact, the definition is a stain, a thing, a stain, but it starts, and then it grows, so from there it began.
Then came the next administration, Biden, then the next one, and that blob has already spread. It has started back there, and that's where this guy baptized it. He says that's how we are.
So, this is a voracious thing of disrespect, of lack of intellectuality. It's an homage to individualism, as I was saying earlier, to idiocy, and they're happy about it. They're in love with it. It's truly incredible.
Let me quickly recount the four phases I mentioned.
First, what was built? Well, that's the first phase. Second, what was inherited, because it was inherited. ... Then third, what was lost, the absence, and since it's already lost, well, then I snatch it from you.
I take it away from you, and we are already entering that phase. Now I'm going to snatch it from you, because I no longer have it. I already lost it, I mismanaged it, I ruined it, my values, moral and material, etc. etc.
Now I'm taking it from you, since I'm going to snatch it from you. Well, then I'm going to make war on you, because we need it. It's that voracious thing that keeps growing, that single-celled organism without a brain that expands and does nothing but eat. It's a kind of imperial vampirism.
Pastor Javier Soria Herrera, Political Analyst
And what role does Israel play in all of this?
Right now, Israel is jumping for joy. I mean, it's obvious it didn't have the capacity to confront Iran militarily. It just didn't have it, and it's simple logic.
Israel is a tiny entity. Anywhere Iran fires, it's going to hit, because everything is contained, so it doesn't have the capacity to fight. Obviously, that's why it wanted to bring the United States in.
So, in the end, if the Persian Gulf is destroyed, if the Arab nations are destroyed, if the United States itself falls, it's jumping for joy.
Even the rabbis themselves, the Orthodox rabbis over there, they say we are against the West, and for them the West is Christianity, and for them Christian West is backed by the head that is called the United States. They say it has to fall, and it will fall.
Because from their point of view, their famous Messiah has to come and we're their Messiah. Why? Because for that Messiah to emerge, war has to come, and the United States has to fall.
Pastor Javier Soria Herrera, Political Analyst
Well, it seems like they're making it fall on purpose. Oh, yes, because it's a controlled demolition of the United States to enforce their plans.
They have already grabbed onto their idiot. But speaking of Trump, it's not just him, it's the system, it's the society.
He is simply a pawn. I mean, it's the system, it's the complete absence of values, respect, morality, good customs.
Pastor Javier Soria Herrera, Political Analyst
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