There has long been a monster roaming West Asia. Its evil breath poisons the atmosphere and, every now and then, it launches an attack to remind everybody that it is big and powerful. Above all, in order to support Zionism, it is anti-democratic and its name is America. Yet, despite the fun, it has wrecking lives in West Asia, America wants to cause even more misery and is mulling its options. Thus, it is looking towards East Asia, in particular, towards Taiwan with the chance of creating mayhem.

However, there is the difficulty that even monsters cannot be in two places at once so America is being forced to consider an overall West Asia withdrawal. Therefore, after a humiliating defeat in Afghanistan, it is mulling departing Iraq.  This departure is required by the Iraqi Parliament and, following Arbaeen, by the people of Iraq.  But, proud of the destruction it has caused, America may yet find an excuse to stay. America is also apparently mulling extricating itself from Syria but, again, nobody should bet on it.

The real problem is that the American mindset is governed by hubris and insensitivity as to how its actions are perceived (and suffered) by others. One way of explaining the situation is that America is in two minds.  On the one hand, it wants to leave. There is now some evidence of this – anti-missile batteries in Saudi Arabia are being withdrawn and sent to the South China Sea. On the other hand, surely America will never give up its obsession with Iran which, by expelling the American occupation 42 years ago, inflicted one of the humiliations in America’s history. 

But America is now claiming it wants peace with Iran via a return to the JCPOA nuclear agreement.  However, there is a problem – nobody who is sane will ever again trust an America which breaks its word and betrays its allies.  Thus, at one moment America could lift all sanctions on Iran whereon, the next moment, it could impose them again and help Israel to make an attack.

Those things said, there is evidence of an American desire to concentrate on East Asia.  Indeed, America has made an agreement with Anglo-Saxon chums UK and Australia to really show the Chinese what-is-what and who-is-who.  In its essence the agreement is proposing a military challenge in China’s backyard (and think what would happen if China or Russia did the same thing in the Gulf of Mexico!).

The real problem is that the American mindset is governed by hubris and insensitivity as to how its actions are perceived (and suffered) by others.  An example is the recent visit of Vice-President Kamala Harris to Vietnam.  Gaily forgetting the American napalm and bombs which killed two/three million people and the Agent Orange which killed or maimed 400,000 people with 500,000 children being born with defects, Vice-President Harris proudly announced that America Is Back!

Even more astonishingly, in Vietnam there is a memorial on the site where an American pilot (future Senator John McCain who did 23 bombing runs) was shot down i.e., the memorial commemorates the capture of a killer.  But, showing she is tone deaf and a blithering idiot, Harris visited the memorial and said, “We commemorate his sacrifice in Vietnam as well as the sacrifice of all our men and women in service.”

Because of its insufferable arrogance, America is forgetting that its overall situation is weaker than at first appears.  For example, the U.S.-UK-Australia submarine deal, scotching an agreement with the French, has fractured NATO.  Furthermore, the callous betrayal of allies in Afghanistan reminds everybody that the USA cannot be trusted (and even the Saudi elite is now sleeping less soundly in its bed at night). 

Above all, America does not appear to have noticed that the Shanghai Co-operation Organization has just welcomed a new member – Iran.  The accession of Iran to the SCO is not surprising particularly given the assassination of General Qassim Soleimani and the withdrawal of America and Europe from the JCPOA nuclear deal.  Indeed, Iran has seen where its future lies – after suffering the consequences of a uni-polar world dominated by Zionist America, it now looks forward to a multi-polar world of co-operating countries.  Moreover, this world contains a crucial aspect – the involvement of local powers (rather than external ones) in solving regional problems.

But what of Israel?  Is it not America committed to everlasting support of the apartheid regime?  Yes and no.  Yes, because the USA and Israel are locked into agreements with brutal medieval autocratic regimes in a structure of mutual support but, at the same time, no because the structure has a big weakness – its anti-democratic nature.  The structure certainly looks solid on the surface but, in a fundamental way, the regimes are unstable. 

Zionism, of course, has many supporters within the USA and UK governments.  However, millions of people are fed up with Israeli occupations, annexations and brutality and so a humiliating American/British defeat in the South China Sea (which is no longer a remote possibility) could be the precipitating event which leads to substantial change in West Asia ending Israel’s expansionism and, conceivably, putting the Zionist genie back into its bottle.

There are two other factors to remember – the coming global food price inflation (the events of 2011 were largely precipitated by rising food prices), and a possible collapse of the financialized global economy. Thus, the possibility of a reconstruction of West Asia is far from fantasy and that is understood by Iran which has announced that the real revenge for General Soleimani's assassination is U.S. withdrawal from West Asia. Iran has a strong sense of the true trend of history and knows that, at some point, arrogant hubris trips over itself and has a disastrous fall. 

Rodney Shakespeare taught in UK schools and colleges for thirteen years.  For ten years he was Visiting Professor of Binary Economics at Trisakti University, Jakarta. He is also a co-founder of the Global Justice Movement.