Faraan Zionist Research Base; “If there is a thing we ought to learn, it is the lesson from Afghanistan, Iraq and similar countries, and that is, that the United States does not have the power, facilities and thinking capability to establish democracy in the Middle East. It can’t even resolve a crisis like the current situation in Syria. What we need to do is not to let people injure us or the people who are important to us. We are not in a position to dictate the final result.”
The vital statements at the beginning of this article are from the person who proposed the theory of the end of history nearly three decades ago and gained global fame due to this theory. Francis Fukuyama is a Japanese researcher and historian of American descent. He has worked for the US Department of Homeland Security and is a military analyst at the Rand Institute, a Pentagon-affiliated institution. In 1989, he wrote the article ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ which was later on published as a book with more details in 1991. In these two writings, Fukuyama explicitly defended the Western values historically, arguing that a global consensus had been reached in favor of liberal democracy.
It was on this basis that the Americans, claiming to hold the banner of the Western liberal democracy, pursued to establish American values in the world. The Americans used this theory to claim world leadership and international governance in the 21st century. However, after nearly three decades, the weakening of Fukuyama’s theory, with the revelation of the inherent flaws of liberal democracy on the one hand and the inadequacies and contradictory behaviors of liberal democracy on the other, has left this historical researcher with a semi-political and semi-philosophical personality to retreat from his theory. He now speaks of the impending decline of the United States: “In my book – Political Order and Political Decay – the greatest example I present in regards to political decay is the American system. All the systems of the world are deteriorating, either because of intellectual stagnation or because of the abuse of power by individuals.”
Of course, the trend in the recent years has not been in the expansion of the American hegemony and Western values. Rather, in the decline of these values and the decline of the American power. Suppose we consider the most important global conflict in the last 40 years to be the conflict between the Islamic Revolution and the United States, then a very beautiful horizon for the future of the world, the West Asian region and the Iranian nation will be visible. Based on these analyzed trends, the definite decline of the United States and the emergence of emerging powers in the world such as the Islamic Republic of Iran with the banner of divine values in line with human nature is a thing that will materialize. In a meeting with students on 23, October, 2018 and on the eve of 13 Aban, the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Imam Khamenei, said in this regard: “When we take a broad look at the situation in the United States, we see that the American power and hegemony in the world is declining. Over the years, it is constantly declining.”
When discussing the rise and fall of systems, schools, governments, and civilizations historically, the main indicator is “power.” In the common parlance of political science and international relations, power simply means the ability to influence, exercise wills, and impose demands on the other party, or other parties. Power is the result of a set of material and spiritual components. Power is the result of a set of material and spiritual components. In the contemporary and academic literature, political scientists and international relations experts divide power into two types; soft and hard. Presently, the Americans are weak in both “soft power” and “hard power.” There are several indicators and signs for the decline of the American power in both soft and hard areas that can be evaluated, including:
a) Soft power
In this regard, Imam Khamenei states in the same meeting: “Many world-renowned politicians and sociologists believe that America’s soft power is worn out and is declining. What is soft power? Soft power is for a government to be able to impose its own wishes, opinions, and beliefs upon other countries and convince them regarding these matters. This power in the United States is weakening and declining completely.” Signs of this deterioration include:
1. The internal situation of the United States depicts the disgrace of liberal democracy and the political system of capitalism. Social divisions, lack of social justice, racial discrimination, the destruction of the family unit, and pervasive moral corruption show that the United States not only has no value or inspiration for others. Rather, it is internally declining socially and morally.
2. Several nations in the world, and especially in the Islamic world, hate the United States. This hatred is at the apex in countries such as; Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, the Occupied Territories, Bahrain and Yemen. Many nations in South America and Africa share the same hatred for the US government.
3. Many governments have protested and turned against the American behavior.
4. From the fact that it has lost its soft power and influence, the United States has resorted to military campaigning and the establishment of terrorist groups for the past 17 years in order to advance its goals. The military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, launching proxy wars through the formation of terrorist groups such as ISIS, show that the United States has lost its influence.
5. America’s economic and trade wars with Europe, Russia, China, and some other countries depict the exhaustion of America’s soft power in dealing with others.
b) Hard power
In regards to this, Imam Khamenei says: “America’s hard power has been hit hard. Hard power means military power and economic power. It is no doubt that the US has military tools. Nonetheless, the US military is very depressed, confused and hesitant.
It owing to this fact that in many of the countries they are in, they use criminal organizations like Blackwater and so on in order to advance their own goals: this means that the American army is not able to carry out the American plan.” The signs of this erosion include:
1. Nearly twenty trillion dollars of US government debt with a very high budget deficit;
2. Poverty, unemployment and bankruptcy of some industries in the United States;
3- Negative balance in the foreign trade;
4- The emergence of superior economic powers such as China;
5- Exhaustion of military equipment and depression of the military forces;
6- Severe military defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria;
7. Inability to advance their goals by means of the military exercise and economic power in many parts of the world, especially the West America.
A statement from Trump, the former president of the US confirms these signs, “Over the past 17 years, the United States has spent $ 7 trillion on the wars in the Middle East, but to no avail.” There is no doubt that the decline of the United States and its decline is a clear fact. But the other fact is that the Iranian people, with their Islamic revolution, have a major role to play in ending the hellish power of the great devil.
Source: Dr. Yadollah Javani, Sobh-e Sadegh weekly
