The U.S. war on Iran has exposed more than a catastrophic military miscalculation: It has revealed an American empire hollowed out by corruption, war profiteering and democratic decay.
By Joshua Scheer
ScheerPost
Six months into the disastrous U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the fantasy of a quick and decisive victory has collapsed. American weapons stockpiles are dwindling, energy and food prices are soaring, Washington’s Gulf alliances are fracturing and the balance of power in the Middle East is shifting beneath the empire’s feet.
In a sweeping interview with Dr. Myriam François, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges argues that the war has exposed more than a catastrophic military miscalculation: It has revealed an American empire hollowed out by corruption, war profiteering and democratic decay. As political institutions fail and elites continue to enrich themselves from the destruction, Hedges warns that organized direct action may be the only force still capable of confronting the machinery of permanent war.
Hedges examines Washington’s fatal miscalculation in Iran, the growing rift between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the possibility that the war has strengthened Iran while destabilizing America’s position across the Middle East.
He also follows the money, detailing how weapons manufacturers and political elites profit as ordinary people absorb the costs through inflation, austerity and mounting insecurity.
The conversation moves beyond the battlefield to confront the erosion of American democracy, the failure of the press to hold power accountable and the rise of inexpensive drone warfare capable of challenging vastly larger military powers.
With traditional political institutions increasingly captured or paralyzed, Hedges concludes that organized resistance — from dockworkers refusing to ship weapons to mass movements disrupting the machinery of war —may be the only remaining way to impose consequences on those in power.
He warns,
“I don’t think we live in a functioning democracy — and that has been true for some time.”
Hedges explains:
“Well, the United States blundered into yet another catastrophic fiasco in the Middle East. I worked in Iran, by the way, and I’m no friend of the Iranian regime. I was thrown in jail by the regime, and on another occasion I was deported in handcuffs. But there was a complete misconception of how Iran would react and a fundamental misunderstanding of the internal power dynamics within the country.
“The United States has lost the war. There’s no other way to put it. Iran has waged highly effective asymmetric warfare. It has been preparing for a conflict with the United States since the 1979 revolution — nearly 50 years. Iranians are not as Trump and much of the West portray them. Iran is a highly educated country with a rich and deep Persian culture.
“Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States has exhausted significant portions of its weapons stockpiles. Iran —probably with the assistance of Chinese and Russian intelligence — has also become quite adept at striking vulnerable and strategically important targets, particularly radar stations. At this point, there is very little the United States can do to stop it.
“Interceptors, THAAD missiles and Patriot systems take a long time to produce. Once you run down those stockpiles, it’s not as if you can replace them the following week. We have also deeply alienated our Gulf allies. They were not consulted before Trump launched this war. Neither were our other allies, including the United Kingdom. The war was launched on the fantasy that assassinating Iran’s supreme leader would bring about a swift victory.”
Hedges ultimately returns to his understanding of journalism as a moral obligation:
“Journalism should be used to hold the powerful to account and to lift up the voices of those who would not be heard without us. That is the role of a journalist.”
However he chides the media saying,
“The media have become completely siloed. They cater to particular political demographics and become echo chambers. That destroys any meaningful form of communication.”
His indictment extends from the profiteers who turn destruction into wealth — “I’ve covered many wars. War is a very good business” — to the political and media institutions that enable them.
While Iran has emerged as “the dominant power in the region,” the opposite of what Israel and the United States intended, Hedges argues that the Democratic Party remains “hostage to corporate and oligarchic forces” and its leaders would sooner “keep their seats in the first-class cabin and watch the ship go down” than pursue meaningful reform. Meanwhile, a siloed corporate press traps audiences inside partisan echo chambers, destroying the shared reality needed to challenge those in power.
With electoral politics, institutional safeguards and the media all failing to restrain an increasingly lawless system, Hedges reaches his conclusion:
“The only mechanism left is direct action. If our governments will not uphold international law and refuse to supply weapons for a genocide, then we have to do it.”
The warning is unmistakable: Empires do not collapse only when they lose wars abroad. They collapse when truth becomes inconvenient, profit replaces principle and those entrusted with the future choose comfort as the ship goes down. If power will not restrain itself, then the burden falls to ordinary people—to refuse, to resist and to remind the powerful that history is not written only by those who command armies, but also by those who finally decide they will no longer obey. Of course, guides are needed and should be welcomed.
This article is from ScheerPost.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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The Iran War could bring down the U.S. Imperium. Well, perhaps there is something positive to come out of this fiasco.
They US neocom warmongrrs are not merely destabilizing the US or even the middle east. They are also bring war, inflation and hunger to the entire global economic life, of everyone on this planet.
Just this week it was announced that Germany is testing ballistic missiles in the north atlantic that it has imported from… Israel. Missiles designed as offensive threats to Russiis. So Germany’s “penance” for WW II is now equal to funding the military of a genocidal warmongeribg regime, and itself threatening WW III.
Hope everyone understands what these people want for us all. It sure isnt peace and prosperity.
The functioning Democracy was ended when CIA stood idly by and watched the murder of JFK.
Now China and Russia are aligned with Iran and providing military aid to them/
“Close…” Robert, (CIA),”…but no cigar” (stood idly by and watched…). There is more and more evidence that the CIA was intimately involved in, if not the chief instigator of JFK’s assassination.
I wish Chris was right about this, but the solidarity needed in the face of US Sanctions, is not keeping the Iranian people in sustainable condition. Russia and China and others opposed to the west’s imperial wars are not making up the difference in this critical conflict. Also, if this was a straight conventional war Iran would already be hitting US Assets and Israel much harder. The Iranian leaders are clearly inhibited because they are engaged with 2 nuclear powers who are talking more freely about a nuclear strike. Combine this with threats to prevent a fair election in the US and the steady assembly of a police state ready to seize bank accounts , arrest and deport US citizens, and courts regularly siding with Trump, this is far dicier than skilled asymmetric warfare conducted by Iran.
China wants their stance to remain a matter of economic and political dispute, but that is not how military empires lose their power. The Democracy Now / All things Considered left reports none of the murderous attacks on Russia and portrays Ukraine as innocent victims when Russia retalites after years of restraint and several offers of negotiated settlement . The same fake left hate Iran because they are fundamentally religious and conservative and oppose the sexual “liberation ‘ movements of the West . The UK wants war with Russia and so wants to institute a draft for those unable to pay the fine for refusal to serve, and to equate opposition to genocide with terrorism. We are returning to industial warfare under king-like rulers as the determinative force in human history.
I think this next election will be a doozy!
If… there is an election
After all they like other countries understand us having at some time or another been trained by our military and CIA and also what threat US citizens visiting may present as a serious risk for covert methods as well. We may be the most paranoid in requiring full spectrum dominance in order to feel safe as a consequence of past actions.
The problems with humanitarianism is when people are dehumanized it cancels regard for them and they become invisible like putting a curse or casting a spell.
Meanwhile, Russia and China are strengthening all kinds of ties at the SCO. And Moscow has just announced that it will now be ending the proxy war NATO has been waging against it using Russophobes and neo-Nazis.
The Washington-Zionist militarist empire is heading for the dustbin of history.
It is so over.
We all must work to make sure it fades off slowly with a whimper into that dying light and does not lash out with one last violent nuclear blast like a cornered and desperate rat.
Only then will we be able to refunnel all the wasted dollars into productive populist policies for hundreds of millions of American working citizens.
Naive ideas.
Thank you for your detailed and informative post that supports your point.