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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

How the US is rapidly reaching the limits of imperial over-reach

Beyond the immediate protection of Israel and its borders, which the USA could reasonably commit itself to, it did not need to get into every war in the Muslim world.

This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends  Not with a bang but a whimper.

— TS Eliot in his poem, The Hollow Men

The world may, at some point, end either in a bang or a whimper, or not end at all if wisdom prevails, but if one were to substitute the word “world” with “imperialism”, it would be perfect. All imperialisms, whether of the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, British, Arab or Persian kinds, have always ended in a whimper for one simple reason: the imperial powers don’t understand the limits of their own power. They die not because they lacked power, but because they thought their powers were endless. And, of course, they also arrogantly presumed that they were too big to fail.

What we have been seeing in slow motion, starting from the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11 to the 2008 global financial crisis to the ongoing Iran war, is the steady decline of America power (after a brief rise), thanks to imperial over-reach. The Americans failed in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya – unless you think sparking off local civil wars is somehow a victory for American imperialism– and they are certainly not winning either in Ukraine or West Asia. In the latter case, they decapitated the Iranian leadership (which has grown new, unseen heads). What they have imperilled is the remaining parts of the Gulf kingdoms and sheikhdoms, and if these Sunni states start feeling the economic pain caused by Iran’s missile and drone attacks, even the Arabs will seek the ouster of America from the region. The Sunni Arab........

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