TEHRAN – Power in politics, if it crosses the boundary of balance, turns from a strategic capacity into an internal threat. In the political realm, power is a double-edged sword: an instrument that can create security and influence, yet if used unrestrained and to excess, it gradually erodes its own foundations.

History has repeatedly shown that the excessive use of force and power may, in the short term, yield greater control and produce battlefield or tactical advantages, but in the long run, it corrodes trust, legitimacy, durability, stability, and the true capability of that power.

This is an unwritten yet recurrent law in political history—a law that today reveals itself more starkly than ever. Its examples can be seen across both sides of the world.

The Zionist regime, in Gaza and the Middle East, has leaned excessively on its military capacity and instruments of pressure. Although this approach may create momentary superiority on the ground, its costs—in global public opinion and even in the regime’s own long-term security—will gradually come into view.

What appears as power today has, in practice, led to the erosion of this regime’s political capital and opened new fissures in its international standing. A power that, instead of producing security, has itself become a source of instability.

On the other side, Donald Trump—through excessive use of America’s levers of power, both in foreign policy and domestic interactions—has displayed a case of political capital erosion.

Relentless reliance on pressure and shows of strength, without regard for limits and consequences, has left a legacy of divisions and mistrust whose effects may weigh on American politics for years.

In the first year of his second presidential term, Trump pursues the longstanding policy of American bullying more openly and without pretense.

Yet his excessive dependence on coercion, threats, and displays of power—at a time when the United States faces a network of accumulated crises—has yielded neither concrete achievements nor restored America’s global prestige.

Consecutive failures in cases such as Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Iran, and Gaza, as well as the negative reactions of Latin American countries to the “Southern Spear” operation against Venezuela, indicate that this policy has been ineffective.

Trump’s overreliance on threats, sanctions, and pressure has not only failed to deliver results; it has accelerated the erosion of America’s credibility and influence.

Both the Zionist regime and Trump are ensnared in the same strategic error: the reckless consumption of power. Power that, instead of being governed, is put on display; instead of creating stability, is expended on crisis-making and destabilization; and instead of strengthening legitimacy, depletes it.

The law of politics is clear: whenever power escapes the framework of rationality and becomes an instrument of excess, it sows the seeds of future weakness in the soil of the present.

Leaders and nations must not forget this simple yet fundamental truth: no power—even if great—can withstand the attrition it inflicts upon itself.

Today’s showy victories, if they rest on unbridled and baseless force, will leave very heavy costs tomorrow.

Whenever power turns to oppression and excess, it plants the seeds of a force that will one day overcome it. Power consumed recklessly will, sooner or later, devour itself.

Source: Sedaye Iran, the online newspaper of the Institute of the Islamic Revolution of Iran — November 15, 2025