United States of Amnesia
Written by Hash Rifai
"America," Gore Vidal once said, "is the United States of Amnesia." A clinical observation from the writer who dedicated much of his life holding America to account. And were he alive today, he'd probably pour himself something strong, sit in front is his typewriter and type: "These idiots still haven't learned."
The Washington delusion hasn't changed since Vietnam, and the same rhetoric continues to be spewed. Remove the regime, hold an election, declare victory and fly home to a ticker-tape parade. 'Merica. The only problem is that it has never once worked. Vietnam: the most powerful military on earth, defeated by farmers with rifles and an inexhaustible determination to defend their lands and die on their own soil. Iraq: remove the dictator (who ironically rose to power with financial backing from the U.S.), create a vacuum, and watch in what can only be described as baffled horror as that vacuum is filled by something much worse. Afghanistan: twenty years, two trillion dollars and the Taliban were back in Kabul before the last American boot hit the tarmac in Doha. The lesson writes itself in blood-red letters every single time. But nobody reads it. Nobody heeds the lessons. Instead, the next administration rolls in, full of certainty, arrogance and testosterone, and reaches for the same dog-eared playbook as though it contains some wisdom they alone are equipped to unlock.
And now Iran. As though the previous catastrophes were minor clerical errors rather than strategic disasters of a scale that should have ended with a few people being led to the Hague in handcuffs and under a heavily armed police escort. Iran is not Iraq in 2003 — fractured, isolated and led by a man who'd been consumed by paranoia for over a decade. Iran has military equipment that actually works, a large and loyal army brainwashed by ideology, and a resilience reinforced by decades of sanctions. They know how to wait, they know how to hurt. They've been preparing for this for thirty years. They will buckle down and prepare to endure, because endurance and suffering is what they know best.
Attempting regime change through indiscriminate bombing is a stupid and reckless strategy. On this, Keir Starmer was right when he said that he doesn't believe in regime change from the skies. The gratitude that some Iranians may have felt towards the U.S. for killing Khamenei may soon turn to anger when they are forced to bury their loved ones, and look around to see their homes destroyed and their city reduced to rubble. For proof of this, look to the West. Many Gazans may not have liked the way Hamas governed over them, but not a single one of them is thanking Israel.
The fact that this crusade is being led by Donald Trump contains an irony so obvious that it borders on parody. A man who has made no secret of his admiration for concentrated and unchallenged power, whose appreciation for strongmen has been extensively documented, now presenting himself as the liberating sword of democratic virtue. The contradiction required to maintain this view would set most heads on fire. But not Trump's. The man revels in contradiction.
For Israel, this war is both dangerous and strategic. War is the world's most efficient method of land-grabbing. It draws new lines under the guise of necessity, and it rarely, if ever, draws them back. "Temporary security measures" have a long history of becoming permanent. South Lebanon will soon be Israel’s.
Iran, meanwhile, is not going to roll over and provide the clean surrender that the architects of this war are privately hoping for. The twenty-first century battlefield is one of cheap drones, cyber attacks and chaos. Mid-sized powers like Ukraine have proven themselves to be worthy adversaries. One should never underestimate the commitment a people have to defending their lands. A war with Iran will not be a campaign with a victory parade at the end. It will likely be a long, grinding, economically ruinous undertaking that may outlast the administration that started it and the one that inherits it. If history has taught us anything, it's that America will eventually have to call it quits and pull out, angrier, poorer and pretending that it was always going to end this way.
The Gulf states — UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia — are experiencing the cold and clarifying anxiety of a people who have bet the house on the assumption that the neighbourhood is safe. Their entire economic model depends on foreigners — investors, tourists and expatriate workers — continuing to believe that the region is stable enough to be worth the trip. But investors do not wait for certainty. They flee at the whisper of uncertainty with their capital clutched tightly in their fists. The skilled workers soon follow.
Vidal was right. Amnesia, by its nature, makes repetition not just likely, but inevitable. The bluff that this time it will be different has preceded every significant American foreign policy disaster without exception. Force removes leaders, but it does not manufacture legitimacy. It does not build democratic institutions. It does not nurture stability. These things have to grow slowly, organically, and on their own schedule, or they do not grow at all. One thing is for damn sure: they cannot be delivered by a missile.