Decenter Journal – Read away from the center! Resist indoctrination!
The United States, being the dominant power of the world after World War II, has been maintained unchallenged for the last seven decades. Intellectuals and scholars have been proposing the gradual demise of its power in terms of economic data. For example, the United States accounted for 20.09% of world GDP in 1989 and it decreased to 15.11% in 2019 while China accounted for 4.09% of world GDP in 1989 and increased to 19.25% in 2019 (Data from IMF). However, we still look at the United States as the most powerful nation as it dominates the cultural and media discourse of the world, of who is evil and who is God. When the United States tell us that Saddam Huissein, Muammar Gaddafi, Osama bin Laden, and Bashar Hafez al-Assad are absolute evil to our world, we believed him without blinking of an eye. But how much do we know these evils of our world? Nothing.
When the United States tells us “democracy” is God – the one man one vote version – we believed him. No one asks the question of if the vote will channel the people’s message to influence government policy that favors the people as the original intention of democracy is. No one asks. The focus is on the vote. So we get to see the chaos that happened in Libya, Ukraine, and Egypt recently that they successfully kicked out their “dictators” and the people get their vote, with an empty stomach as a bonus. But enough for this for the moment. Let’s go back to Soleimani especially the responses of the world leaders to the murder of this beloved Iranian general.
Right after the ruthless murder, the United States portrayed this as a patriotic act with Trump tweeted an American flag. When the Iranian threatened retaliation to the crime of the United States, the murderer threatened to kill more.
The United States told us that Soleimani was an evil person who was hated by Iranian, but the mourning for this General lasted for three straight days, with hundreds of thousands of people participated.
Pompeo told us that the killing of Soleimani brought joy to the Iraqi people, but moments later, thousands of Iraqi were on the street mourning for the General.
Pompeo told us that the Iraqi people love the presence of the American troops in Iraq, while the Iraq parliament votes to expel American troops.
Let’s forget about who is telling the truth. Instead, let’s take a look at how the world responded to this crisis. First of all, Europe, Israel, and Saudi Arabia are allied. Europe is not being very helpful, as Pompeo complained in this video:
Israel, a long-time close friend of the United States, was so obviously frightened to be dragged into this crisis that Netanyahu immediately explained that Israel has nothing to do with this killing and is not going to be involved in this.
Saudi Arabia, another critical strategic allied of the United States in the Middle East, stated clear publicly that they have nothing to do with this and the drone that used for the killing was not from their kingdom. In fact, the Saudi understands how the United States works to create conflict and crisis then walk away. Most recently, the attack of the Saudi oil production plant and the attack on Yemen by the Houthis could be easily spotted by the American troops stationed in the region but were not stopped. Therefore, Saudi wants nothing to do with this progressively escalating conflict with Iran.
At the moment, the friends are all turning their back to the United States. What about the imaginary enemies of the United States. Russia, China, and Iran just had their joint military exercise in December last year. The three mega countries have strengthened their cooperation.
Moreover, immediately after the killing, Putin has already landed in Syria to meet with Iran’s best friend in the region, Bashar al-Assad. So the situation for the United States is not as rosy as everybody thinks. In fact, in my opinion, the United States miscalculated this killing. We knew the United States is losing its global power, but this incident laid bare just how much they lost their power over many nations before our eyes.