I’ve seen all kinds of wars waged by America in my lifetime. I’ve seen brilliant victorious ones, long and lost ones, shameful ones, meaningless ones, criminal ones, even that “war that didn’t happen” (to quote Baudrillard). But here’s what I’ve never seen—America looking pathetic. Petty theatrics might work at home, in a palace where the entourage plays along and pretends everything’s fine, but in the real world, there are no discounts, and it becomes obvious: the emperor has no clothes.
You can deploy aircraft carriers and marines to the Gulf as much as you want. You can “bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, where it belongs” (Trump) or “finish them while they’re down” (Hegseth). You can punish Europeans and dramatically leave NATO. But the sad truth is this: America has already lost this war, and nowhere in the world does American power still act as a deterrent—primarily because it is no longer backed by moral legitimacy.
Alongside America, Israel has lost too. One month after the war began and the Iranian leadership was targeted, it’s under rocket fire. Iran has so far held firm and strengthened itself, transforming from a hybrid dictatorship and garrison state into one fully controlled by the IRGC. Economically, it’s winning as well—even if it charges transit fees in dollars per barrel through the strait, plus a thirty-dollar markup on the export price of Iranian oil per barrel, this amounts to tens of billions of dollars, largely offsetting the presumed losses from bombings.
And I won’t even talk about Putin—he’s thriving on all fronts: militarily, economically, financially, under sanctions, geopolitically, image-wise. His war now seems insignificant compared to this colossal failure. Meanwhile, China sits aside calmly, in a Buddha-like manner, watching the river carry the corpse of their enemy and quoting Napoleon at Austerlitz: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
The only good news in this tragicomedy? The midterm elections in November. If they actually happen, of course.
