Iran Conflict and the Diminishing Marginal Returns of Empire
Can Reinforcing a Power Structure Inherently Also Degrade It?
The Iran Conflict of 2026 has had a few interesting twists and turns in recent weeks, which may or may not reveal an underlying trend in the transmogrification of US financial, technological and ideological empire:
US base strikes diminished in volume but critical assets (AWACS) were struck in a sufficiently precise manner to indicate satellite assistance from China or Russia
Through Pakistani mediation, Iran agreed to a ceasefire with the expectation that Hezbollah would also be included. When this proved not the case, it showed the Iran does in fact view Hezbollah as its proxy in its hostility towards Israel while diminishing the relative deniability of this practice, which they have historically leaned on to pursue their various asymmetric warfare strategies.
The Strait of Hormuz was to be opened, then not opened fast enough, then the US implemented a dueling blockade, which drew increased encouragement from China to ensure the Strait is in fact opened
As initial negotiations failed, the US postured a stance towards “economic warfare” that would continue to cripple Iran’s already fragile economy
The US is attempting to buy out Iran’s current stockpile of enriched uranium in order to achieve it’s pre-existing nonproliferation objective, mostly defined by “partners” in Israel
40 of 47 Democrat senators voted to suspend arms sales to Israel. While this does not change actual policy change yet, it represents a clear turning point in the nature of US-Israel relations.
The US is the primary global exporter of oil and natural gas for the forthcoming months, if not longer.
The US has now isolated China prior to Xi and Trump’s Summit, currently scheduled for May.
The path of this conflict is so meandering that it is difficult to say that, in the vein of a true Trump believer, “this was the plan all along”. However it matches with the broad assumption of this previous article that the US’ aggressive actions effectively came with no downside risk. The United States is already the global primary exporter of advanced technology, has seen its reserve currency status diluted over decades and not just in recent years, and has persistent domestic social unrest due primarily to the wealth inequality produced by its pre-eminent position in the global economic system. It cannot any longer remain “American” and maintain its position of global hegemon, and so when faced with either its identity or its livelihood, it sees no problem risking both to get what it wants.
This is not just the attitude of the institutional structure, but also the means by which most Americans have viewed the conflict since its beginning - even though they question the acts involved, they are hardly tearing down the barricades to prevent the state from addressing themselves against a 5-decade antagonist to their foreign policy aims and general well-being. Panicans and collapsitarians (Douglas Mcgregor, John Mearsheimer anyone?) have continually predicted doom since the beginning of this conflict and yet here we are, on the precipice of it wrapping up, all major goals achieved (including regime change, as there is in fact a fundamentally regime in place if a deal does reach concurrence ) - first by military means and then by economic and diplomatic ones - with a government that effectively questioned the policy only on the margins.
Israel has become a noose around Trump’s neck, and what have the Democrats done for him? Opened up the discourse to reset relations, all while Trump provides the deep state its most meaningful desires in Iran and recenters the global energy system even more around US natural gas. There is simply no losing because there is no winning either, it is merely a continuation of pre-existing advantages in differing forms - old wine in new bottles, but still the same bottles from which “drunkards, fools and the United States of America” indulge (to paraphrase Chancellor Bismarck).
Furthermore, the future pursuit of asymmetric, fifth-generation warfare against the United States will only more directly invite direct confrontation, where targeted air power, sanctions (both primary and secondary) and the leveraging of continually higher echelons of technology will only drive further pre-eminence for the United States, but by an empire of “negation”. That is to say: no further intervention is required, only the proactive discouragement of policy which the US establishment dislikes.
And by contrast, what do they like? The natural progression of commerce, science and technology, because within the pre-existing transnational technocapitalist superstate, it is already wholly overweight to their interest.
So in the end, all the outcomes of this conflict, minus the lives and materiel lost, are “win-win-win, win-win-win, win-win, win-win”. Yes, it is an oppressive global economic system which produces alienation and destroys human freedom at the drop of the hat. But what’s the alternative, communism??