The Course of Empire: Destruction (1836), by Cole Thomas
posted on www.newsweek.com Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran has jointly agreed in good faith on on the following:
- [...]
- The United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions
- [...]
- Pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree to maintain the status quo. The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions, and will not deploy additional forces in the region.
This is incredible. I feel like maybe people don't understand how world-historic this is. Not only did the United States of America lose this war, there's a strong argument to be made that this is the worst the USA has ever lost a war. The only other war that's even in the conversation is Vietnam, but the consequences of that loss were entirely domestic. The US wasn't forced to make any geopolitical concessions at all[1] despite losing soundly.
In fact, the USA has never in history had to make major strategic concessions after a war[2]. Every single goal it had going into this conflict—forcing regime change, further hobbling the economy, eliminating the nuclear program, bolstering Israel's expansionism—is explicitly disclaimed by this treaty. Not only that, but the latter three ended up in a substantially better place for Iran than the status quo ante bellum.
This is a world-historic event. This is the USA's Suez canal moment[3]. I don't see how the country can go on enforcing its hegemonic will globally after so thoroughly failing to do so in Iran, especially when the domestic appetite for war has been obliterated after decades of quagmires even before this spectacular loss. Maybe the US will be able to fall back to Monroe doctrine lines and continue to coup the Americas at will, but illegally abducting Maduro already failed to produce regime change (although it did prompt meaningful concessions) and it's hard to imagine the US having more leverage now than it did at the beginning of the year.
And just to be very clear: this is a resoundingly positive development. Since World War II, the United State of America has been far and away the greatest force for evil in the world. It has done everything in its power to prevent the development of real sovereignty, democracy, and prosperity of the masses, and to destroy those anywhere they've managed to take root. It has and continues to enact genocide and slavery as matters of policy, and props up fascists and ethnostates to force its will across the globe. Every loss for the US is a victory for the people of the world, and this loss in particular is one to be celebrated as a triumph.
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Obviously the country did unify under a communist government, which you could consider a geopolitical outcome of the US's withdrawal, but it was also absolutely going to happen if the US didn't enter the war at all so I don't think it really counts. ↩︎
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The US did make fairly substantial concessions after the Cuban Missile Crisis in terms of removing their missile installations from Turkey, but that wasn't a war. It was also done in secret so it ended up being considered a failure by the Soviets even though they accomplished their primary goal. ↩︎
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To dramatically simplify, the Suez canal crisis was a British/French/Israeli attempt to strongarm Nasser's Egypt that was so thoroughly quashed by the USA's overwhelming diplomatic and economic opposition that it marked the end of the UK's status as an imperial superpower. ↩︎
The Course of Empire: Destruction (1836), by Cole Thomas
Gabe Whisnant wrote:
Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran has jointly agreed in good faith on on the following:
- [...]
- The United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions
- [...]
- Pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree to maintain the status quo. The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions, and will not deploy additional forces in the region.
This is incredible. I feel like maybe people don't understand how world-historic this is. Not only did the United States of America lose this war, there's a strong argument to be made that this is the worst the USA has ever lost a war. The only other war that's even in the conversation is Vietnam, but the consequences of that loss were entirely domestic. The US wasn't forced to make any geopolitical concessions at all[1] despite losing soundly.
In fact, the USA has never in history had to make major strategic concessions after a war[2]. Every single goal it had going into this conflict—forcing regime change, further hobbling the economy, eliminating the nuclear program, bolstering Israel's expansionism—is explicitly disclaimed by this treaty. Not only that, but the latter three ended up in a substantially better place for Iran than the status quo ante bellum.
This is a world-historic event. This is the USA's Suez canal moment[3]. I don't see how the country can go on enforcing its hegemonic will globally after so thoroughly failing to do so in Iran, especially when the domestic appetite for war has been obliterated after decades of quagmires even before this spectacular loss. Maybe the US will be able to fall back to Monroe doctrine lines and continue to coup the Americas at will, but illegally abducting Maduro already failed to produce regime change (although it did prompt meaningful concessions) and it's hard to imagine the US having more leverage now than it did at the beginning of the year.
And just to be very clear: this is a resoundingly positive development. Since World War II, the United State of America has been far and away the greatest force for evil in the world. It has done everything in its power to prevent the development of real sovereignty, democracy, and prosperity of the masses, and to destroy those anywhere they've managed to take root. It has and continues to enact genocide and slavery as matters of policy, and props up fascists and ethnostates to force its will across the globe. Every loss for the US is a victory for the people of the world, and this loss in particular is one to be celebrated as a triumph.
-
Obviously the country did unify under a communist government, which you could consider a geopolitical outcome of the US's withdrawal, but it was also absolutely going to happen if the US didn't enter the war at all so I don't think it really counts. ↩︎
-
The US did make fairly substantial concessions after the Cuban Missile Crisis in terms of removing their missile installations from Turkey, but that wasn't a war. It was also done in secret so it ended up being considered a failure by the Soviets even though they accomplished their primary goal. ↩︎
-
To dramatically simplify, the Suez canal crisis was a British/French/Israeli attempt to strongarm Nasser's Egypt that was so thoroughly quashed by the USA's overwhelming diplomatic and economic opposition that it marked the end of the UK's status as an imperial superpower. ↩︎