Throughout human history, empires have emerged, while others have disappeared. Many empires have often been unable to assimilate valuable lessons without first suffering a major humiliation. Today, and in this sense, the United States, the United Kingdom and certain Western countries cannot understand that occupying territories or bombing countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen will have the opposite effect to that intended. After all, the U.S. should have learned, from its various Middle Eastern wars, from Israel’s wars, and from the Ukraine War, that there are limits to what technology and aviation can achieve. But this does not seem to register with American leaders and their British followers. Strangely, their hubris has only grown since Iraq and Afghanistan.

There has been an Anglosphere-Sunni Muslim alliance since the mid-1800s, when Britain first partnered with the Ottoman Empire against French and Russian influence. After World War I, this alliance morphed from Ottoman–British to Saudi–British, and then to Saudi–American. That partnership delivered the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, helping to win the Cold War. It also prevented the Arab world from revolting against its humiliation by Israel, ensuring that Arab resources would be controlled by “moderates”, that is, states not committed to the Islamic-Jewish conflict in Palestine. The British drew the borders of the Middle East, from the Gulf to Iraq, Jordan and Palestine. The British and the Jews imposed the state of Israel on the Arabs. This led to the series of wars — 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973; the Lebanon wars of 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2006; and the endless Gaza wars.

The wars from 1948 to 1982 ended in decisive Israeli military victories. This discredited traditional, meek Arab monarchies such as those in Egypt, Libya and Iraq, leading to their replacement with secular strongmen. Eventually, after Israel’s lightning invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which successfully expelled the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Arab secular governments and movements were also discredited. Only the Gulf monarchies aligned with the U.S. thrived. The wars fought by the Shi’a in Lebanon and their Sunni allies in Gaza, on the other hand — the wars fought from 1982 onwards — were wars in which Israel failed to achieve its objectives. These wars involved movements, not states, which had a different strategy. Rather than promising victories, they sought to impose a high cost on Israel while working towards steadily building greater capabilities and a believing, religiously committed society, convinced that was the key to victory. This strategy’s success is most evident in Lebanon. Israel’s forced withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 was historic. Israel abandoned land that it would have otherwise settled, and it did so without any security assurances. Israel’s withdrawal allowed Hezbollah to grow further. Now, Hezbollah is helping lead the confrontation with the U.S. in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. The spiritual awakening that Hezbollah led among Lebanese Shi’a has had obvious material effects, shown in Hezbollah’s ability to deter Israel, despite conducting attacks against it for few months.

With the Biden administration ensuring that Israel faces no consequences for its killing sprees in the Middle East, Tel Aviv’s continual escalation can be taken for granted. There is no denying that the Biden team’s talk of seeking de-escalation in the region contradicts its actual policies. Put simply, the White House’s actions (and inactions) have been directly fuelling the regionalisation and internationalisation of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. It is a colossal foreign policy failure that’s still in the making which might be one of the worst foreign policy disasters in the post-Cold War era, which can be fundamentally attributes blame for the expansion of the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts to the White House.

The White House’s unconditional embrace of the Israeli war on Gaza combined with the Biden team’s absolute refusal to condemn Israel’s systematic conduct of genocide in Palestine through restrictions on weapons of event statements have made the administration Tel Aviv’s partner in this carnage while leaving the Netanyahu government with the perception that its hands are completely free to wage these military campaigns. As months passed and the US refused to see anything wrong with Israel’s blatant violations of human rights, Netanyahu became more emboldened and more brazen in his carnage in Palestine and later in Lebanon also. By positioning itself squarely as Israel’s partner, the US lost any and all ability for manoeuvrability separately from the Israelis. The Biden administration has therefore rendered US foreign policy completely irrelevant and has made it an extension of Israel’s policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

In this sense, the Biden administration could be considered complicit in crimes against humanity and war crimes, in accordance with the arrest warrants issued on Thursday, November 21, 2024, by the International Criminal Court[1] against Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed at least from October 8, 2023 to May 20, 2024. This decision is binding, and all States, all States party to the Statute of the Court, including all members of the European Union, are obliged to implement this decision of the Court. The Biden administration’s steadfast refusal or unwillingness to establish guardrails or redlines on Israel has led to the expansion of this war. In fact, the Biden administration said it wanted to avoid a regional war, but its unconditional support for Israel ended up fuelling one instead. The Biden administration’s steadfast refusal or unwillingness to establish guardrails or redlines on Israel has led to the expansion of this war. It’s clear that Benjamin Netanyahu realises that he can do almost anything he wants and there will be no one to stop him. Netanyahu’s address before a joint session of the US Congress on 24 July, 2024 in which he received 58 standing ovations, was an important moment. It’s not a coincidence that a week later he escalated oppression in Gaza, assassinated a Hezbollah leader in Lebanon, and then assassinated Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. He came back from that meeting, where he met with Biden and he met with Vice President Kamala Harris, realising that he has solid and unflinching support from the United States. In fact, the Biden administration has ensured that Israel has faced no consequences for its wars in the Middle East. Israel’s military and Hezbollah have been fighting each other since the Lebanese group attacked the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms on 8 October 2023, and in response to the genocide carried out by the Israeli army in Gaza. With major escalations with the killing of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September following the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, along with intense Israeli bombing of Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, and Hezbollah operations against Haifa and elsewhere in Israel. More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced since last few month. Although the White House frequently spoke about its desire to see the Gaza war not expand into Lebanon, the Biden administration did nothing to prevent that outcome, even if initially it did not necessarily support the Gaza conflict’s spillover into Lebanon. Nonetheless, some seemingly credible reports claim that high-ranking officials in the White House encouraged Tel Aviv to escalate.

The idea that Washington only learned of developments [regarding Israel’s military operations in Lebanon] after being informed by Israel is laughable. We are being asked to believe US intelligence had advanced knowledge of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but no clue about the actions of a close ally with whom it has an intensive security and intelligence relationship. It is clear that Biden administration officials sense that Israel’s tactical gains in Lebanon, from the exploding telecommunication devices and the killings of Nasrallah along with other high-ranking Hezbollah figures, mean that the Lebanese group is being defeated.

This is an outcome that the White House welcomes and is pleased to see these perceived gains on Israel’s part, believing that they serve Washington’s interests too. Of course, the extent to which Hezbollah had continues attacking Israel, and even Netanyahu-affiliated targets, speaks to how incorrect this assessment has proven. After assessing Israeli successes against Hezbollah, and probably coming to a similar conclusion that Hezbollah was collapsing and could be shattered, and that this could be leveraged to reshape the Middle East and North Africa’s strategic environment. It is obvious that Washington is now fully on board with the Israeli agenda. There is a high level of enthusiasm and excitement over Israeli conduct in Lebanon among Biden’s senior advisors because these individuals see it as a chance to redraw the political landscape in the Middle East in the direction and in support of US interests. Here we have Israel basically doing things that the United States wished it could do itself, but Israel is effectively carrying out these operations on behalf of the United States. Israel’s leadership is now ever more confident in its war strategies and will continue waging death and destruction in the Middle East region, and the next target, will be Iran. Meanwhile, international opinion seems to have no impact on the Israeli government’s decision-making as long as Washington’s support remains steadfast.

If targets inside Iran are attacked, even if only by Israel and without direct American assistance, Iran is almost certain to be looking at the extensive American presence in the region as legitimate targets, as it did when General Qassem Soleimani was assassinated. The United States does not care if Palestinians or Lebanese are killed. But it does care if US personnel are killed and is therefore seeking to avoid such a possibility. In other words, while the Biden team is extremely pleased to see Israel achieve tactical wins in terms of hitting Iran and its allies in the « Axis of Resistance » in a way that significantly weakens Tehran’s hand, the White House wants to avoid circumstances that result in Washington being sucked into a much broader war in the Middle East. In sum, through arms transfers and other types of support, Washington might be seeking to incentivise Tel Aviv to make its attack against Iran in a calibrated manner deemed suitable to US interests.

The Biden administration is fully supportive of Israel waging military strikes against Iran but wants some cover. It’s entirely possible that Washington has offered Israel a massive bribe to not hit certain targets, but it’s also entirely possible this is just propaganda to allow Washington to distance itself from Israeli actions as it has been doing in Lebanon. Regardless of the Biden administration’s reported efforts to incentivise Netanyahu to make Israel’s military attack on Iran calibrated, in fact the White House has proven unwilling to use American leverage to rein in Israel’s war machine. This demonstrates, once again, the hypocrisy and weakness of the Biden administration. At the end of the day Israel knows it will not encounter significant US opposition to whatever it does, which means Washington has elected not to do anything meaningful to prevent what comes next.

American weakness and inconsistency had been exposed, not in minor issues like human rights, but in the actual practice of power. Now, Iran and its allies are engaged in a major war intended to push U.S. influence out of the region, stripping the Sunni Arabs and the Jews of their historic protector. That, in summary, was the objective of the Oct. 7 attack and subsequent aggression. The entire edifice of British and U.S. power in the Middle East, ranging from borders to leading families to the existence of the state of Israel, is now at risk and may fall apart in the next 10 to 20 years. Israel’s commitment to ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, however, makes it impossible for the Sunnis and the Jews to stand together. As the U.S. and UK choose to bomb Yemen, the Middle East’s poorest country, rather than impose a ceasefire on Israel, relations with regional allies are set to worsen further. Perhaps America’s allies would be forgiving if the Americans could win in Yemen, but they cannot. American bombs have been falling on Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthi movement, since 2004.

The U.S. is sending reinforcements to Iraq and Syria, thinking these will make a difference. They will not. The Iranians’ tolerance for casualties among Iraqi militias is much higher than the Americans’ tolerance for casualties among American soldiers. This war, like Vietnam, Algeria, Afghanistan and the 2003-2011 Iraq War, will be lost politically, regardless of the size of the bombs that America can drop, and even if America, in another fit of hubris, decides to attack Iran. The United States and its armed wing Israel have helped balkanize Syria, but Syria cannot destroy all its neighbor’s military installations and then expect to live in peace and harmony for all eternity. The bombing campaign in Yemen will humiliate the Anglosphere. The Yemenis will keep attacking international shipping regardless of what the U.S. and U.K. air forces do, raising the question of what the point is of spending billions on aircraft carriers if they are unable to achieve political objectives against an impoverished country like Yemen. The more the U.S. and UK bomb Yemen, and the more the Houthis attack shipping, the greater the proof that the U.S. cannot defend its key national security interests in the Middle East: securing energy flows and protecting freedom of navigation.

« The emperor is naked » was quietly whispered after the Iranian attacks on shipping in 2018, and the attacks on Saudi Aramco in September 2019. President Trump’s presence prevented the world from assessing what these attacks meant. But UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, subsequently sent a delegation to Iran to discuss « maritime security. » He saw through American security guarantees. Soon, if the Israel-Gaza war is not ended, Iran and Yemen will make everyone realize that America is not a reliable security guarantor for its own interests, let alone those of others. This will be doubly so when the Gaza War ends with Hamas still in power. Then “the emperor is naked” will become a deafening roar. And this will be one of the great signs of US decline in the region. In the Middle East and South-West Asia (SWAl), the main US objective was to remain the predominant external power in the region and to preserve US and Western access to the region’s oil. Slowly but surely, this doctrine is crumbling under the weight of the American double standard. As nations seek independence from Western hegemony, Mao Zedong was probably right when he said: « Political power comes from the barrel of a gun”.

All those in the United States and elsewhere who have remained silent about Gaza, while genocide is taking place there, will no longer be able to come and talk to us about peace, human right, social justice or humanism, because they will have lost all credibility to carry these battles forward. Moreover, the truth has become clear with the massacres in Gaza, the bombings in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. For 80 years, successive American governments have been deceiving the world with ideals of freedom and democracy, but today, the propaganda no longer works, and nobody in their right mind in the world believes in American myths any more. The myths of empire crumble before our eyes.

[1] The Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. It rejected the State of Israel’s objections to its jurisdiction. « The Chamber issued arrest warrants against two individuals, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr. Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed at least from October 8, 2023 until at least May 20, 2024, the day on which the Prosecution filed the applications for arrest warrants.” “The war crime of starving civilians as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. The Chamber also found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that both Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant were criminally responsible as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population. »