The news arrives with all the grim predictability of a Greek tragedy. American warplanes have once again struck Iranian targets, this time in retaliation for an alleged drone attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Oman. The White House, with its characteristic blend of righteous fury and strategic myopia, declares that it is 'protecting freedom of navigation.' And so the world inches closer to a full-blown conflagration in the Middle East, a region that has been a graveyard for empires and a petri dish for geopolitical folly for decades.
One cannot help but feel a sense of historical déjà vu. Here we are again, watching the United States repeat the mistakes of the British Empire in Mesopotamia, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and indeed its own recent past in Iraq and Syria. The logic is always the same: a limited strike, a show of force, a message sent. But in the Middle East, messages are never simple. They are amplified by sectarian tensions, proxy wars, and the ever-present spectre of miscalculation. Today's 'limited' airstrike is tomorrow's regional war.
The tanker attack itself is a murky affair. Neither the US nor Iran has provided conclusive evidence. Yet the machinery of retaliation grinds on, as if by its own inertia. This is the tragedy of the modern American empire: it has become a reactive behemoth, lashing out at shadows while the real levers of power slip from its grasp. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was meant to signal an end to 'forever wars,' but the military-industrial complex does not die so easily. It festers, seeks new justifications, and finds them in the Strait of Hormuz or the Persian Gulf.
What the architects of this strike fail to realise is that Iran is not a conventional foe. It is a hydra-headed adversary, capable of striking back through proxies in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. The Houthis, Hezbollah, and various Shia militias are not mere footnotes; they are the sinews of Iranian power. And they will respond. Not with symmetrical retaliation, but with asymmetric violence that will bleed American allies and global commerce. The price of oil will spike, insurance rates for tankers will soar, and the very 'freedom of navigation' that this strike purports to defend will become more precarious.
This is the hallmark of intellectual decadence: the belief that a bombing campaign can solve a political problem. It is the same hubris that led Rome to burn Carthage and Britain to crush the Zulu. Violence, in these cases, is not a solution but an expression of frustration. It is the tantrum of a superpower that has lost its moral compass and its strategic clarity. The US no longer knows what it wants in the Middle East, only that it cannot abide defiance.
The real question is not whether this strike escalates, but what it reveals about the decay of American statecraft. In the Victorian era, the British Empire at least had the decency to cloak its barbarism in the language of 'civilising mission.' Today's rhetoric is hollow, a pastiche of catchphrases about 'rules-based order' and 'democratic values.' The rules, it seems, are for the little people. The US can strike at will, while Iran must sit and take it. But history teaches us that empires that lecture others on rules while exempting themselves seldom last.
Meanwhile, Europe watches with a mixture of horror and impotence. The JCPOA, that fragile diplomatic achievement, lies in ruins. The Europeans, ever the peacemakers, will wring their hands and call for restraint. But they will do nothing, because they cannot. The American leviathan acts unilaterally, dragging the world toward disaster. And we, the intellectual class, are left to write obituaries for yet another chance at peace.
As the bombs fall and the oil prices rise, one is reminded of Gibbon's observation about Rome: 'The decline of that empire was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness.' The United States is not yet in decline, but it is certainly in a state of advanced decay. The airstrikes on Iran are not a sign of strength; they are a symptom of weakness. A strong nation would not need to bomb its way out of a diplomatic corner. A wise nation would have seen the trap and avoided it. But we are neither strong nor wise. We are merely loud, and that noise is the sound of history repeating itself.
