Mainstream media and politics often assume that the United States is a powerful, global giant trying to keep dangerous adversaries away. It was just another day in the imperial office when Christopher Wray, FBI Director, announced that it was July 19. declared: “The Russians are trying to get us to tear ourselves apart. The Chinese are trying to manage our decline, and the Iranians are trying to get us to go away.”
These statements are in harmony with the prevailing soundscape. The standard script asserts that the United States is powerful and besieged — mighty but always menaced — the world’s leading light yet beset by hostile nations and other sinister forces aiming to undermine the USA’s rightful dominance of the globe.
A fortress mindset feeds the U.S. government’s huge “defense” budget — which is higher than the military budgets of the next 10 countries combined — while the Pentagon maintains about 750 military bases overseas. But victimology is among Washington’s official poses, in sync with a core belief that the United States is at the center of the world’s importance and must therefore police the world to the best of its capacity.
In recent decades, U.S. military power has faced new challenges to retain unipolar leverage over the planet in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. (Heavy is Uncle Sam’s head that wears the crown.) In order to rationalize red-white and blue militarism, there were new challenges.
Since Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State, gave the motto its bigtime, national debutOn February 1998 NBC’s “Today Show”, efforts to portray the U.S. as an “indispensable nation” became familiar rhetoric — or at least a renewed conceptual frame — for U.S. interventionism. “If we have to use force,” she said, “it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.”
These words would be easily adapted to teleprompters at high levels of U.S. government by 2022. These words have never lost their appeal among Washington officials and mass media. The United States simultaneously promotes itself as a shining star on the international stage and as a country trying to protect itself against evil.
Consider FBI Director Wray’s rhetoric about official enemies:
“The Russians are trying to get us to tear ourselves apart.”
This theme is a favorite of the establishment. It dodges the grim realities of U.S. society — completely unrelated to Russia — such as longstanding and ongoing conflicts due to racism, misogyny, income inequality, corporate power, oligarchy, and other structural injustices. The right-wing threat that the United States poses to democracy and human decency is American, as the Capitol insurrection of January 6 made shockingly clear.
While the Russian war in Ukraine continues, which is both unjustified and horrendous, the United States has continued to smuggle massive amounts of weapons to the Ukrainian government. Official interest in genuine diplomacy has been sporadic and almost non-existent. This month, Rep. Ro Khanna brought some rationality to Capitol Hill. told The Washington Post: “People don’t want to see a resigned attitude that this is just going to go on as long as it’s going to go on. What is the plan on the diplomatic front?” Several weeks later, the Biden administration is still indicating no interest in any such plan.
“The Chinese are trying to manage our decline.”
Leaders in Washington don’t want the sun to set on the U.S. empire, but China and many other nations have other ideas. This week, news of Nancy Pelosi’s intention to visit Taiwan in August was greeted with cheers from the editorial board of the Wall Street JournalWhich wrote that she deserved “kudos” for planning “what would be the first trip to the island democracy by a House Speaker in 25 years.”
At midweek, President Biden expressed concern about the planned trip, saying: “I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now. But I don’t know what the status of it is.” However, his team’s overall approach is confrontational, risking a potentially catastrophic war with nuclear-armed China. Despite dire warningsMany analysts believe that the U.S.’s geopolitical stance towards China is dangerously and reflexively zero-sum.
“The Iranians are trying to get us to go away.”
Iran’s government adhered to the nuclear deal enacted in 2015, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The Trump administration pulled out from the pact. Instead of swiftly moving to rejoin it, Biden’s administration has dithering and thrown roadblocks.
Two weeks ago, Secretary Antony Blinken disingenuously stated that he was the Secretary of State. announced: “We are imposing sanctions on Iranian petroleum and petrochemical producers, transporters, and front companies. Absent a commitment from Iran to return to the JCPOA, an outcome we continue to pursue, we will keep using our authorities to target Iran’s exports of energy products.”
Trita Persi, Quincy Institute Executive vice president, was the response tweeted: “Biden is continuing and embracing Trump’s max pressure policy, while expecting a different result. All of this could have been avoided if Biden just returned to the JCPOA via Exe order” — with an executive order, as he did to reverse President Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization.
What continues — with countless instances of repetition compulsion — is the proclaimed vision of the United States of America leading the charge against the world’s badness. However, systematic hypocrisy, opportunistic cruelty, and systematic hypocrisy continue to thrive beneath the veneer of goodness.
A case in point is Biden’s recent journey to the Middle East: The presidential trip’s prominent features included fist-bumping with a Saudi monarch whose government has caused a quarter-million deathsIts war on Yemen has caused great misery and death. voicing fervent supportfor the Israeli government as they continue to impose apartheid upon the Palestinian people.
The leaders of the U.S. government never cease to reiterate their commitment to democracy and human rights. However, they also insist that the United States must engage with the world forcefully because an inexhaustible source of adversaries is working to harm it. But the real U.S. agenda has always been to run the world.
