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By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander, New Age Islam

Protests in Iran arise from the tension between anti-imperialist ideology, harsh sanctions, economic mismanagement, regional ambitions, and a restless youth demanding justice and renewal within an Islamic framework

· Understanding how Iran’s post-1979 anti-imperialist identity both legitimizes defiance of the U.S.–Israel axis and obscures internal decay, corruption, and suppression of dissent.

· Analysis of economic paralysis caused by sanctions, structural mismanagement, inflation, unemployment, and the unfulfilled project of a self-reliant Islamic economy.

· Discussion of regional ambitions in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and how external interventions and alliances drain resources and intensify domestic grievances.

· Examination of youth-led protests rooted in faith, frustration, and demands for participatory governance, accountability, and socioeconomic justice rather than rejection of Islam.

· Argument for an ijtihad of governance—renewing Islamic principles in economics, politics, and diplomacy to reconcile resistance with prosperity and restore moral legitimacy.

….

Iran occupies a unique and paradoxical position in the modern world order. It stands as one of the few nations that has consistently defied the hegemony of the United States and Israel—two powers often perceived by its leadership as the embodiment of global injustice. This defiance has won Iran both admiration and isolation. While its resistance to Western domination epitomizes a quest for sovereignty, the internal fractures within Iranian society reveal a more complex picture—one where ideological steadfastness coexists with deep economic distress and generational dissent.

In recent years, waves of protest have repeatedly swept through Iran. While the government and its allies frequently dismiss these movements as foreign-sponsored or Zionist-engineered, reducing them solely to such conspiracies obscures the genuine grievances of the Iranian people. Inflation, corruption, unemployment, and power shortages have become part of daily life. The sanctions imposed by the West, particularly by the United States, have crippled the economy, deepened social inequality, and stripped away the optimism of youth who see little reward for their education, faith, or patriotism.

This essay examines the genesis of contemporary protests in Iran through a layered analysis of its ideological commitments, geopolitical strategies, and internal socioeconomic dynamics. It explores how Iran’s defiance of Western imperialism, though morally and politically laudable in some respects, has become entangled with its own internal contradictions—creating conditions ripe for domestic unrest.

The Anti-Imperialist Identity and Its Consequences

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s political identity has been anchored in anti-imperialism. Imam Khomeini’s revolutionary discourse positioned the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as its regional embodiment of injustice. To this day, Iranian state rhetoric denounces U.S. and Israeli policies as manipulative, coercive, and in defiance of international law. The historical context—especially the 1953 CIA-backed coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh—renders this suspicion neither baseless nor paranoid. Iran’s defiance, therefore, is as much a product of painful national memory as of ideological conviction.

Yet, opposition to Western domination has not insulated Iran from internal decay. The theocratic system that promised spiritual authenticity and social justice has, over time, evolved into an intricate power structure, where clerical elites and military-industrial networks dominate political and economic life. The revolutionary narrative that once galvanized the poor and inspired the oppressed now risks losing credibility among a population facing inflation rates that erode purchasing power and corruption that betray revolutionary ethics.

Thus, the very identity that once united the nation against foreign enemies now fuels domestic division. When the ruling elite frame all dissent as imperial conspiracy, legitimate grievances lose their voice. The ideological shield that once protected Iran’s sovereignty becomes a barrier separating the leadership from the realities of its people.

Economic Crisis and Structural Constraints

At the heart of Iran’s protests lies an economic paralysis shaped by both external sanctions and internal mismanagement. Western sanctions, particularly after the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), devastated Iran’s access to international banking and trade. Unable to integrate into the global capitalist system, Iran finds itself marginalized from conventional markets. The problem is not merely exclusion—it is the absence of an alternative.

Here lies a critical paradox. The broader Muslim world, fragmented and complicit with neoliberal systems, has failed to construct a viable alternative to Western capitalism. Iran’s dream of building a self-reliant Islamic economy has thus remained aspirational rather than operational. As sanctions tightened, Tehran was forced to sell crude oil at drastically reduced prices, often through clandestine channels. Revenues that could have been invested in infrastructure, welfare, and employment were instead diverted into sustaining regional influence campaigns, leaving domestic sectors starved of capital.

Inflation and unemployment have become chronic. Power blackouts, rising food prices, and a collapsing rial have made daily survival increasingly difficult. The educated youth, once proud of Iran’s scientific and technological progress, now struggle to find avenues for meaningful employment or expression. They inhabit a psychological contradiction: deeply nationalistic yet disillusioned with their government’s capacity to translate patriotic sacrifice into tangible well-being.

The Regional Ambition and Its Domestic Costs

Iran’s geopolitical ambitions have also contributed to its domestic discontent. The Iranian leadership has prioritized expanding influence across the Middle East, presenting itself as the vanguard of resistance against Zionism and Western imperialism. Its extensive involvement in Lebanon through Hezbollah, in Syria through support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and in Iraq through allied militias reflects this broader strategic agenda.

While such policies have enhanced Iran’s regional stature and deterrence capability, they have also come at a grave economic cost. The resources spent supporting allied regimes and non-state actors amounted to billions of dollars, even as citizens at home struggled with rising poverty and decaying infrastructure.

This contradiction is increasingly visible to ordinary Iranians. It is difficult to justify financing wars abroad when bread and electricity become scarce at home. The ideal of Ummah-based solidarity loses moral resonance when accompanied by domestic deprivation.

Moreover, Iran’s partnership with Russia, though strategically beneficial, further entrenches its dependency on external powers that pursue their own interests. Moscow’s support in military technology and energy cooperation has enabled Iran to withstand Western isolation, but it also tethers Tehran’s autonomy to Russia’s geopolitical calculus. The Iranian dream of leading the Muslim world thus comes at the cost of partial subordination within a different power bloc.

The Youth Factor: Between Faith and Futurity

No analysis of Iranian protests can neglect the generational dimension. A majority of Iran’s population is under thirty-five—a demographic that has grown up after the revolution, with little memory of the Shah’s tyranny or the moral euphoria of 1979. Their world is mediated not by revolutionary sermons but by social media, technology, and global cultural exposure.

This youth remains proud of its Islamic and Persian heritage but is impatient with the rigidities of the regime. They yearn for economic opportunities, political participation, and cultural openness. The government, however, views liberalization as a gateway to ideological subversion, often comparing it to the Glasnost and Perestroika reforms that preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union. From the regime’s perspective, allowing excessive openness would unravel the Islamic Republic’s moral fabric. From the youth’s perspective, suppression of individuality and expression stifles both personal and national potential.

The protests, therefore, are not necessarily anti-Islamic; they are anti-stagnation. The Iranian Street does not demand abandonment of faith—it demands renewal of justice, the very principle on which the Islamic Revolution was built. The call is for ijtihad not in theology alone, but in governance: a creative, courageous reinterpretation of Islamic principles in economic, political, and social spheres suitable for contemporary realities.

Ideological Rigidity and the Need for Renewal

The Islamic Republic’s ideological foundation draws heavily on Shia theology, especially the concept of resistance against tyranny. This theological resistance provided moral legitimacy to the revolution and continues to justify Iran’s defiance against global powers. Yet, when this same resistance is turned inward—to suppress critique and diversity within the ummah—it ceases to be emancipatory and becomes authoritarian.

Imam Khomeini’s project was not merely political; it was profoundly moral. He engaged in ijtihad—reinterpretation of jurisprudential traditions—to create structures capable of guiding an Islamic state in the modern era. However, over four decades later, Iran’s leadership often appears to invoke his legacy more as a dogma than as a dynamic method. The world that Khomeini faced in 1979 has transformed. Globalization, digital communication, environmental crisis, and youth consciousness demand new forms of engagement. A radical ijtihad—one that addresses economic justice, participatory governance, and social inclusion—is essential for Iran’s ideological survival.

Such renewal does not mean Westernization. Rather, it demands reclaiming the spiritual and ethical essence of Islam while unshackling it from bureaucratic and militarized interpretations. To continue invoking resistance without introspection only deepens alienation.

The Moral Economy of Protest

Protests in Iran are not purely political—they embody a deeper moral economy. The ordinary citizen protests not only against poverty or unemployment but against perceived betrayal of revolutionary ideals. When people risk imprisonment or death by raising their voices, they act from moral conviction that the system has deviated from justice. These protests are not against Islam; they are appeals to its ethical promise.

This is where foreign narratives often misinterpret Iran. Western media tends to frame Iranian uprisings as secular revolts seeking liberal democracy. In truth, they are more complex—driven by a dialectic of faith and frustration, loyalty and loss. Many protesters invoke Islamic symbolism even as they criticize clerical authority. Their resistance is simultaneously against economic deprivation and moral hypocrisy.

The government’s strategy of labelling dissenters as Zionist agents may temporarily consolidate loyalist ranks, but it erodes long-term legitimacy. To portray every protest as an external conspiracy is to deny the capacity of Iranian society to think, feel, and self-correct. The most dangerous threat to the Islamic Republic is not foreign aggression, but domestic deafness.

International Isolation and the Cost of Defiance

Iran’s enduring isolation further exacerbates domestic woes. Sanctions are now a form of economic warfare. Banks, industries, and even humanitarian imports face restrictions under the pretext of nuclear containment. Such policies from the West are indeed unfair and coercive, violating principles of collective human welfare. Yet, Iran’s own diplomatic choices have often intensified its predicament.

Its insistence on absolute ideological purity has limited diplomatic flexibility. While countries like China and India maintain pragmatic engagement with Western and regional powers, Iran’s posture remains polarized. This unyielding stance, though morally grounded, restricts opportunities for trade diversification and economic recovery. The failure to establish broad alliances within the Muslim world demonstrates both Iran’s political isolation and the fragmentation of Islamic unity.

Ironically, the more Iran tries to lead the Muslim world through defiance, the more alienated it becomes from Muslim societies that are economically entangled with Western systems. This isolation perpetuates the cycle of sanctions, poverty, and protest.

The Paradox of Resistance and Prosperity

Iran’s predicament mirrors an enduring paradox in revolutionary politics: the tension between principle and pragmatism. A state built on resistance cannot easily pivot toward economic liberalization without appearing to betray its values. Yet, prolonged resistance without corresponding prosperity undermines legitimacy.

The leadership views economic hardship as the price of dignity—resistance economy—but for the youth and working class, dignity without bread is hollow. When inflation devours salaries, when corruption denies fairness, and when ideological rhetoric replaces policy innovation, martyrdom loses its moral glow. A revolution must feed its children not only with slogans but with sustenance.

Iran’s success in developing indigenous defence technology, nuclear capability, and world-class universities demonstrates its potential for excellence. However, when such achievements coexist with social inequality, their legitimacy diminishes. A missile that can reach Tel Aviv means little to a family that cannot afford rice or fuel.

The Way Forward: Ijtihad of Governance

To transcend this impasse, Iran requires intellectual and political courage. It must embrace the spirit of ijtihad—not as theological revisionism, but as governance renewal. The premise is simple: Islam is not static; it adapts to changing conditions through reasoned reinterpretation. Khomeini himself invoked this principle when establishing the Wilayat al-Faqih system. His successors must now do the same in socio-economic and political domains.

This renewal could take several forms:

· Economic Diversification: Reducing dependency on oil exports by investing in technology, renewable energy, and small-scale industries.

· Participatory Reform: Opening controlled spaces for civic dialogue and youth involvement within the framework of Islamic ethics.

· Transparency and Accountability: Institutional mechanisms against corruption, grounded not in fear of punishment but in moral responsibility.

· Diplomatic Recalibration: Building partnerships across Asia, Africa, and Latin America beyond ideological binaries, to stabilize trade and political standing.

· Cultural Openness: Encouraging creativity, art, and education as expressions of faith rather than threats to it.

Such reforms do not weaken Islamic authority—they renew its vitality. Islam’s greatest strength was always its capacity for adaptation without assimilation.

Conclusion: Toward a Just and Self-Renewing Iran

The genesis of protests in Iran is neither a Western plot nor a purely domestic failure—it is the manifestation of a complex dialectic between ideology and reality. Iran’s defiance of U.S. and Israeli aggression remains morally justified when viewed against the long history of colonial and imperial exploitation. Yet, the moral courage to resist external oppression must be matched by moral responsibility toward internal justice.

A state cannot champion global resistance while neglecting the hunger of its citizens. Nor can it silence youth aspirations by invoking old slogans. The Iranian nation stands at a crossroads: either to persist in rigid defiance, risking internal erosion, or to embark on a journey of renewal grounded in faith, justice, and pragmatism.

To once again become the beacon of the Muslim world, Iran must perform a new ijtihad—one that redirects its revolutionary energy from external confrontation to internal reconstruction. The truest measure of resistance is not how long one withstands sanctions, but how well one upholds justice, equity, and human dignity within. Only then can Iran transcend the cycles of protest and repression to achieve a revolution of spirit that matches the promise of 1979.

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M.H.A.Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir.

27  January 2026

Source: newageislam.com

By Dennis Small

After convening on January 12, 2026 in an international virtual emergency roundtable dialogue, we the undersigned have issued this appeal to the world community. We join together to catalyze actions we believe must be taken to avert the plunge of human civilization into a potentially fatal catastrophe.

With the beginning of the year 2026, the world has moved into a new phase. International law is being abolished and replaced by the law of the jungle, by the so-called principle that “might makes right.” This complete breakdown of even the pretense of any adherence to a world order based on real principles of law threatens to escalate various regional conflicts into a new dark age, or even a global nuclear war.

For example: after the repeated commission of acts of piracy against the nation of Venezuela, and the kidnapping of the head of a sovereign country, we now have the announcement of the planned invasions and theft of natural resources of more countries such as Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Iran, and possibly others, and territories such as Greenland. A militarization not seen in approximately 90 years evokes the panorama of a coming new world war, while the Western-dominated financial system, now almost entirely severed from the real economy, is threatened with a systemic meltdown even worse than the crisis of 2008.

The fig-leaf of “humanitarian interventions” and defense of the “rules-based order” has been entirely dropped in favor of an openly demonstrated aggressive imperialism and neocolonialism. So-called “Western values” are betrayed in favor of the threadbare illusion that there is any legitimacy left after those values have been buried. The absence of any efficient statecraft, and the use of military and economic force as a replacement of diplomacy as a means of conflict resolution, has led to the failure of post-World War II institutions such as the United Nations Security Council and the UN General Assembly. The failure to enforce the decisions of the highest courts, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has left genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity unpunished.

This deplorable condition of current affairs requires an urgent intervention, both by institutions, and the world’s people of good will. We therefore propose the creation of a World Civil Society Initiative, to work together with religious organizations and other civil groups, and the UN as a central partner, in order to uphold the UN Charter and the 1954 Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Its immediate foci, among others, must be:

• The urgent convening of an international conference to discuss the principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture, and

• The creation of teams to work on aspects of the reconstruction of the world system. For example:

a) the elaboration of a “World Land-Bridge,” of economic development corridors for every continent;

b) the creation of ad hoc teams which must condemn the brazen foreign intervention into the internal affairs of Venezuela, and any similar interventions into the internal affairs of sovereign states in any part of the world, as well as the ongoing genocide in Gaza and similar violations of human dignity elsewhere;

c) the reorganization of the world financial system, including the creation of national banks for every country, and a new payment system devoted to the physical economy;

d) the revival of the best traditions of each world culture or civilization; and the encouragement of dialogue among them to promote

e) the exploration of new methods of thinking designed to establish a new paradigm in human history, such as the method of the Coincidence of Opposites.

An Immediate Action Group to implement this outlook is hereby constituted. It is open to representatives of any organization/institution, as well as to individuals, who wish to participate in the creation of a worldwide civil society initiative committed to the interest of the one humanity, and to guarantee the adhesion of a reformed UN to that ideal. It should be up to the respective representatives of all nations to determine what is the appropriate nonviolent direct action in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela in their country.

Let us create a movement of world citizens!

Initiating signers:

• Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Schiller Institute founder, EIR Editor-in-Chief

• Dr. Naledi Pandor (South Africa), former South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and current chair of the Nelson Mandela Foundation Board of Trustees

• Zhang Weiwei (China), Professor of International Relations at Fudan University in Shanghai and Director of its China Institute

• Dmitri Trenin (Russia), Director and Academic Supervisor of the Institute of World Military Economy and Strategy at the HSE University in Moscow

• Donald Ramotar (Guyana), former President of Guyana

• María de los Ángeles Huerta del Río (Mexico), former Mexican Congresswoman

• Namit Verma (India), Indian author and security analyst

• Dennis Small (United States), EIR Ibero-America Editor

• Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Bosshard (Switzerland), former military advisor to the OSCE Secretary General

25  January 2026

Mass deportations violate U.S. and international law.

They’re also crimes against humanity.

By Dr. Gregory H Stanton

Founding President

Genocide Watch

President Trump’s order to arrest and deport millions of undocumented immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of refugees, violates US obligations under the 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees. The US Senate ratified that treaty unanimously in 1968. 147 nations are States Parties to the treaty.

The US adopted the Refugee Protocol into US law in the United States Refugee Act of 1980, passed unanimously by the Senate and signed by President Jimmy Carter, who noted, “The Refugee Act reflects our long tradition as a haven for people uprooted by persecution and political turmoil.”

The Refugee Protocol applies the operative Articles of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees:

Article 1 defines “refugee” as any person who is outside the country of his or her nationality owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, and who is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to his or her country.

Refugees seeking asylum who cross borders illegally are not to be considered criminals. Article 31 says states shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees coming from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened. They must present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.

Article 33, the heart of the Refugee Convention, says: “No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

Convicted criminals are not eligible to be protected as refugees. Article 1 F denies refugee status to anyone against whom there is evidence of a war crime, crime against humanity, or a serious non-political crime.

However, Article 32 holds that States Parties shall not expel a refugee in their territory except in pursuance of a decision reached in accordance with due process of law. Massive ICE roundups and forced deportations without trials fall far short of that standard.

Couldn’t the US invoke Article 9 of the Refugee Convention and claim that smuggling of fentanyl by undocumented migrants is a grave and exceptional circumstance that threatens US national security and requires their expulsion?

The fatal flaw in this rationale is that the people being deported are already in the US and pose no more threat to national security than ordinary American citizens. Two-thirds of undocumented immigrants in the US have lived in the US for ten years or more.

Countries expected to resettle deportees may invoke Article 4 of the Refugee Protocol and dispute any “national security” claim in the International Court of Justice. Such countries are not legally obligated to accept the return of their citizens who have fled to the USA.

Couldn’t President Trump simply withdraw from the Refugee Protocol? Not so fast. To withdraw from (denounce) the Protocol, the US must give one year’s notice to the UN Secretary-General. US denunciation would not take effect until one year after the Secretary-General receives notification.

Trump’s deportations are crimes against humanity.

At Nuremberg, Nazi leaders were tried for crimes against humanity that included forced deportations of Jews. Today forced deportations are outlawed by many decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In 2002, the International Criminal Court became a permanent world tribunal to try such crimes.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article (7(1)(d)) makes deportation or forcible transfer of a population a crime against humanity.

The Rome Statute defines deportation as “forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area where they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law.”

The US is not a State Party to the Rome Statute. US citizens cannot be tried by the ICC unless they committed a crime against a citizen or on the territory of a country that is a State Party to the ICC.

125 nations are States Parties to the ICC Statute, including 25 in Latin America and 33 in Africa. If the US deports a citizen of El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Brazil, Bosnia, DR Congo, Nigeria, Ukraine or 114 other ICC States Parties, those countries could ask the ICC Prosecutor to bring charges against a US official who participated in the deportation of their citizens.

There is no head of state immunity in the ICC for crimes against humanity committed by heads of state or government officials. Though it is politically unlikely, even President Trump himself could be charged for these mass deportations and put on trial.

Refugees who have sought asylum are lawfully present in the US under both US and international law. They are not criminals for entering without visas. So, too, are persons granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) by Presidential Order. Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans, Salvadorans, and others fleeing Marxist dictatorships or countries controlled by criminal gangs were granted protected status by President Biden.

President Trump has now rescinded TPS for Venezuelans and wants to deport 600,000 Venezuelans back into the tyranny run by the Marxist dictator Maduro of Venezuela. President Trump’s revocation of their Temporary Protected Status was arbitrary and capricious. It should be struck down by the US Supreme Court because it violates both the US Refugee Act and international law.

Universal Jurisdiction

Crimes against humanity, like genocide, torture, and war crimes are crimes of universal jurisdiction. Like piracy, they can be prosecuted no matter where the crime was committed and regardless of the defendant’s nationality. Such crimes constitute peremptory norms (jus cogens) and violate duties owed to all of humanity (erga omnes.)

Fifteen countries enforce universal jurisdiction in their courts: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The US has universal jurisdiction for torture and genocide.

Any US official who orders or carries out mass deportations is committing a crime against humanity.

The U.S. Congress should subpoena their names and their full records of participation in ICE raids. State laws should prohibit the wearing of masks by all law enforcement personnel and should require that all such persons wear and use body cameras at all times subject to downloads by city and state law enforcement authorities. State laws should make it a felony to violate these laws and to resist arrest for violations.

In the future, they may travel to Europe for business or vacations. If they travel to a country with universal jurisdiction, their identities are verified, and evidence is prepared against them, they could be arrested and charged as soon as they step off their flights in Paris or Berlin. They could be put on trial there for crimes against humanity.

It would not be an auspicious way to begin a vacation.

Dr. Gregory H. Stanton is Founding President of Genocide Watch and the Alliance Against Genocide. He founded the Cambodian Genocide Project.

28 January 2026

Source: genocidewatch.com

Genocide Emergency: Myanmar

January 2026

By Jeanne Macé

On September 30, 2025, a “High-Level Conference on the Situation of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar” was held on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. Genocide Watch urged UN members to take strong measures to sanction Myanmar for its systematic persecution of its Rohingya population.

Since Myanmar’s independence from the U.K. in 1948, the Rohingya Muslim minority has faced systematic persecution in Rakhine State. It has included the 2012 attacks by the Buddhist Rakhine majority and Myanmar security forces, and the 2016-2017 genocidal military operation carried out by the Myanmar army, the Tatmadaw.

In 2026, Rohingya civilians in Rakhine State are still being systematically attacked, displaced, and killed by both the Arakan Army (an ethnic Rakhine armed militia) and the Myanmar junta forces (Tatmadaw), which have been fighting each other since 2018 for control of Rakhine State. The Arakan Army terrorizes the Rohingya population, which it accuses of collaborating with the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.

The Arakan Army commits crimes against humanity of extreme brutality against the Rohingya, including beheadings, detentions, “disappearances”, forced labor, forced conscription, looting, burning, and pillage. On August 5, 2024, a drone and mortar attack by the Arakan Army killed 200 Rohingya fleeing fighting in Maungdaw, near the Bangladesh border. 2024 saw the most atrocities against Rohingya since the genocide of 2016-2017.

Staying in Myanmar and Living under Apartheid

Approximately 630,000 Rohingya still live in Myanmar under a system of state-sponsored discrimination and ethnic segregation imposed by laws, policies, and practices aimed at isolating the Rohingya community. Myanmar has denied Rohingya citizenship since the 1982 Citizenship Law, which reserves this right to citizenship to ‘national races’ that the law lists as settled in Myanmar before 1823.

The list pointedly excludes Rohingya. Myanmar claims Rohingya immigrated from what is now Bangladesh since 1832, despite conclusive evidence that they lived in Rakhine State over a century before 1832. During the 2014 census, Myanmar required Rohingyas to self-identify as “Bengali” immigrants, thereby emphasizing their foreignness and providing a ground for deportation. In the long-promised sham elections of January 2026, designed to ensure the junta’s continued grip on power, Rohingyas were again barred from voting.

Myanmar subjects Rohingyas to extreme restrictions on movement. In the open-air detention camps in Sitwe, where 150,000 are confined, military and police checkpoints have been set up, and entry and exit authorizations are required. This blatant deprivation of liberty severely hampers Rohingyas access to food, work, and healthcare.

These discriminatory laws and practices, combined with widespread violations of the Rohingya’s economic and social rights and their systematic social and political exclusion, have led Amnesty International and other organizations including Genocide Watch to denounce Myanmar’s systematic crime of apartheid.

Leaving Myanmar and Fearing Repatriation

Most of the 1.1 million Rohingya who have fled Myanmar since 2017 have sought safety and shelter in Bangladesh. In the past 18 months, the border town of Cox’s Bazar has taken in 150,000 more Rohingya in already overcrowded refugee camps, which face shortages of water, food, healthcare, and shelter. US cuts in aid have already exacerbated their plight. Rohingya refugees are subjected to restrictions imposed by Bangladesh on their livelihoods, movement, and education.

Bangladesh has never ratified international refugee conventions. Bangladeshi authorities refuse asylum to Rohingya refugees and will not allow them to become citizens of Bangladesh. It is official policy to organize their repatriation to Myanmar. But few Rohingyas want to return for fear of further persecution in Myanmar. A symbolic repatriation of 1,100 refugees to Myanmar’s Rakhine State took place in May 2023. Rohingya activists say this operation was only meant to appease the International Court of Justice’s investigation into Myanmar’s genocide.

In May 2025, India detained and deported at least 40 Rohingya refugees living in Delhi, most of whom held identification documents issued by the UN Refugee Agency. Indian authorities forced them onto an Indian naval ship before abandoning them in international waters in the Andaman Sea, near Myanmar. The refugees, including children and elderly people, were only given life jackets with no choice but to attempt to swim to an island in Myanmar territory. Many drowned. Such violations of the principle of non-refoulement must cease.

Starvation is the New Weapon of Genocide

Since November 2023, the Myanmar junta has imposed a blockade on almost all humanitarian aid in the areas it still controls in Rakhine State. The Arakan Army further restricts Rohingya livelihoods in areas they control. This deliberate policy threatens more than 2 million people with starvation in Rakhine State. Over 500,000 belong to the remaining Rohingya community. The destruction of agricultural equipment and the contamination of land with landmines and unexploded ordnance are resulting in rising famine.

The survival of Rohingya people confined to Myanmar internment camps depends on international humanitarian aid. Myanmar authorities refuse to allow the distribution of food and medicine to Myanmar. More than 25,000 people in Pauktaw Township are deprived of food, leading to deaths from starvation.

Denial of humanitarian access is one of the official elements of the Tatmadaw’s ‘Four Cuts’ military strategy. This tactic consists of deliberately targeting unarmed civilians in order to prevent and deter them from supporting or joining the resistance. When starvation deliberately targets a specific ethnic and religious group, as is the case for the Rohingya community, it is an act of genocide.

Due to Myanmar’s apartheid system maintained by the ruling military junta, through the denial of Rohingya citizenship and deprivation of their freedom of movement, Myanmar is at Stage 3: Discrimination. Due to Myanmar’s deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid intended for the Rohingya community, Myanmar is committing the crime of Stage 8: Persecution. Due to the systematic killing of Rohingya people, Genocide Watch considers Myanmar to be at Stage 9: Extermination. Myanmar is committing Genocide against the Rohingya ethnic and religious group.

Genocide Watch recommends that:

●      Nations with universal jurisdiction should prosecute the Myanmar generals primarily responsible for past and present genocide against the Rohingya and other ethnic groups.

●      The International Criminal Court (ICC) should ask all ICC States-Parties and the UN Security Council to enforce the ICC’s arrest warrants against General Min Aung Hlaing for his crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution, and the crime of genocide against the Rohingya people.

●      Myanmar’s neighboring countries should take effective measures to ensure the safe passage and protection of Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution and genocide in Myanmar.

●      Bangladesh must ratify the international conventions on refugees.

●      Bangladesh authorities must stop pressuring Rohingya to return to Myanmar.

●      Bangladesh should allow the Rohingya living in camps near Cox’s Bazar and elsewhere full access to education, freedom of movement, and self-support through work.

●      Donor nations should devote more resources to helping Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

27 January 2026

Source: genocidewatch.com

By Seyed Hossein Mousavian

Tehran will respond in a way that eliminates any incentive for restraint, unleashing a conflict that would be impossible to control

Iran is facing a crisis unlike any it has seen in decades. Between domestic unrest, economic instability and heightened tensions with the US and Israel, Tehran is navigating a perilous landscape with profound regional and global implications.

The United States has carried out a major military build-up around Iran, deploying additional naval forces, aircraft, and support assets amid escalating tensions. As one of the most significant US military concentrations near Iran in decades, the move is widely viewed as preparation for a potential confrontation and has drawn sharp warnings from Tehran.

In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump has pursued a regime-change strategy in Iran.

Last June, Israel launched a dramatic military campaign based on a strategy known as “top-down government collapse, bottom-up uprising”. Israeli and American planners assumed that by assassinating top Iranian political, military, security and nuclear officials, the population would embrace regime change and flood the streets.

They further assumed that by targeting Iran’s missile capabilities, they would prevent any counterattack, paving the way for a rapid collapse. The June strikes killed dozens of senior Iranian officials, yet the population largely rallied behind the government.

Iran retaliated with hundreds of missile and drone attacks against Israel, delivering significant counterblows. Analysts now agree that these two factors were decisive in the failure of the 2025 operation.

In response, Trump authorised strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities, potentially delaying Iran’s nuclear breakout by several years. A temporary ceasefire followed, primarily aimed at protecting Israel from further Iranian missile attacks.

By the end of 2025, however, economic grievances had ignited a new wave of protests, as merchants in Tehran took to the streets to decry the rial’s collapse and soaring living costs. The unrest quickly spread to other cities.

Hijacking protests

This environment created an opportunity for the US and Israel to deploy Plan B, whose strategy could be summarised as “bottom-up uprising, top-down military assault”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Israeli-affiliated networks of infiltrating the protests, engaging in sabotage, targeted attacks and acts of violence to escalate clashes and increase casualties.

Trump indicated that a surge in civilian deaths could justify US military intervention. Casualties among security forces and protesters were significantly higher than in previous rounds of unrest.

But the US-Israeli strategy to hijack the protests ultimately failed. Public revulsion against violent infiltrators prompted hundreds of thousands of people to join a government-organised rally in the second week of January, signalling opposition to foreign interference. Iranian security forces dismantled internal networks, cut off external communications, and arrested thousands of people, forcing a US retreat from direct military action.

The next potential phase of the US-Israeli strategy may involve an attempt to remove Iran’s top leader – a scenario inviting comparisons to the recent operation in Venezuela.

Trump has publicly stated that the time has come to remove Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has likened the Iranian regime to the Nazis, noting on X (formerly Twitter): “We cannot allow this historic moment to pass … The downfall of the ayatollah and his regime would be on par with the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned against such a move, vowing that “an attack on the great leader of our country is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation”.

Moreover, US-based pro-Israel hawks have suggested that rather than launching a full-scale invasion, President Trump should revive a 1979 proposal by Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, which calls for seizing Iran’s Kharg oil terminal – responsible for roughly 90 percent of its oil exports – as a way to economically cripple the country and potentially force regime change.

Risk of destabilisation

Several factors will shape Iran’s trajectory in the days and months ahead. The first is domestic governance and social cohesion. Economic hardship, unemployment, corruption and deep social divides remain the primary sources of public unrest.

While the government has regained control for the time being, simmering dissatisfaction could reignite large-scale protests. Political fragmentation among Iran’s four main currents – conservatives, reformists, moderates and nationalists – complicates national cohesion, making broad-based reform and unity essential to long-term stability.

The people of Iran cannot withstand the escalating trend of rising prices and inflation. The most important factor is thus how Iran’s ruling establishment can contain the economic crisis and improve people’s living conditions in the face of crippling US sanctions.

Moreover, the thousands killed and injured in the January 2026 unrest have left thousands of Iranian families in mourning, dealing a devastating blow to the people’s psyche.

The second factor is the US-Israeli drive for regime change. Unchecked hostility from both nations, combined with punishing sanctions, creates an unprecedented level of external pressure on Iran. Trump’s overt calls for regime change in Tehran mark a historic escalation in decades of bilateral relations.

These pressures not only threaten Iran’s security, but also risk destabilising the wider region. It remains to be seen whether Trump will enter into negotiations with Iran for a mutually satisfactory, face-saving deal, while distancing himself from Israel’s policies – or whether he will continue the “surrender or war” approach.

The third factor that will shape Iran’s trajectory involves the capabilities of US allies in the region. Crucially, US-aligned Arab states – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman and Qatar – have opposed military intervention in Iran, amid fears of regional escalation and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of an ever-expanding “Greater Israel”.

Will Muslim countries allied with the US be able to prevent another war and facilitate a deal with Iran, or will Israel’s ambitions prevail?

The way forward

The fourth factor amid this backdrop, Iran has strengthened ties with Russia and China, joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Brics.

This alignment seeks to provide Tehran with military, economic and political support against western destabilisation efforts, creating a new axis of geopolitical tensions. This will serve as a critical test of Iran’s “pivot to the East” policy, with far-reaching implications for the future of the region.

Last but not least, several of Iran’s key regional allies, often referred to as the “Axis of Resistance”, have publicly warned that they would enter a wider conflict if the United States or Israel attacks Iran. Lebanon’s Hezbollah leadership has expressed it would not remain neutral.

Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi government hinted it was ready to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Moreover, Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group issued a direct threat in response to any attack targeting Iran, warning a “total war” in the region would be a result.

This suggests that, unlike earlier conflicts where Tehran’s regional allies stayed largely on the sidelines, an attack on Iran now risks activating parts of the “Axis of Resistance” in a wider war.

Some American and European experts told me that Trump has made his decision to carry out a new attack on Iran.

This moment is a “bloody pause” before a potential “regional explosion”. For Iran, a next US–Israeli attack would be an “existential war”, eliminating any incentive for restraint and unleashing a conflict that would be impossible to control.

If catastrophe is to be avoided, President Trump must rethink a “surrender-driven strategy” and move toward a “broad, face-saving deal” with Iran – ending 47 years of confrontation before the region is pushed into irreversible war.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a Visiting Research Collaborator with Princeton University and a former Chief of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Relations Committee.

27 January 2026

Source: middleeasteye.net

By Gerald A. Perreira

Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP) unequivocally condemns the criminal US attack against Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and Venezuela’s first lady, Cilia Flores, in the early hours of January 3, 2026. This attack tramples on Venezuela’s sovereignty and inalienable right to self-determination and can only be described as State terrorism.

Centuries of US and West European imperialism, and their current behavior worldwide, has shown us that international law is a myth, a mental construct existing only on paper. We who are a part of the global resistance are well aware that international law does not exist in reality, since it cannot be enforced. It is very clear that the type of criminal activity and naked fascism being pursued by the Trump administration and its allies in Western Europe and the Apartheid State of Israel cannot be stopped by the invoking of international law, resolutions and declarations issued by an impotent and obsolete United Nations.

For centuries we have experienced the brutal reality: that US hegemony and continued plundering of our resources is enforced with miliary might alone, and that any country who dares to chart its own course will be subjected to ruthless sanctions and brutal military assaults. The US and West Europe, since the colonial project was initiated in our Americas and the Caribbean, have intervened in the affairs of our sovereign nations with impunity. In the face of this criminal and life-threatening behavior it is clear that we must resist by any means necessary. This attack on Venezuela is a pyrrhic victory. It may seem like a massive defeat for revolutionary and progressive forces worldwide, but the decline of the US Empire is in motion and cannot be reversed by the demonic trio, Trump, Hegseth and Rubio. Their reckless actions, supported by the governments of Guyana and Trinidad, will have dire consequences for all those involved.

The era of US fascism dressed up as “friendly fascism” pretending to be about ‘human-rights; and ‘democracy’ is over. The way that Donald Trump, members of his administration, US senators and congressman are brazenly expressing their racist and fascist views, is a signal that the threat to our very survival is becoming graver by the day. There is no better example of this brazen bravado, than the tweet from former US Secretary of State and war criminal, Mike Pompeo, on January 2, “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”
In the words of our sister Assata Shakur, who made the transition a few months ago having dedicated her life to the struggle against US imperialism: “Where there is oppression, there will always be resistance”.

3 January 2026

Gerald A. Perreira
On behalf of the National Directorate, Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP)
Georgetown, Guyana
www.ovpguyana.org

January 19, 2026

[https://www.youtube.com/live/MT32HEG8W4A]

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai
Chairman

World Forum for Peace & Justice

January 23, 2026

January should have been a month of hope for the people of Kashmir. It was in January 5, 1949 when the United Nations established that the final status of the State of Jammu and Kashmir shall be determined in accordance with the will of the people, expressed through a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.

And again in January 24, 1957 the United Nations Security Council reaffirmed that any action that (Kashmir) assembly may have taken or might attempt to take to determine the future shape and affiliation of the entire State or any part thereof, or action by the parties concerned in support of any such action by the assembly, would not constitute a disposition of the State in accordance with the above principle.”

Yet, for Kashmiris, January has instead become a month of mourning—a recurring reminder of unfulfilled promises and unpunished crimes. which establishes that the final status of the State of Jammu and Kashmir shall be determined in accordance with the will of the people, expressed through a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations,

The most catastrophic of these tragedies occurred on January 21, 1990, at Gawkadal Bridge in Srinagar. On that day, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) opened fire on peaceful demonstrators protesting the imposition of Governor’s Rule under Jagmohan—widely remembered by Kashmiris as the “Butcher of Kashmir.” Hundreds of unarmed protesters were trapped on the bridge as security forces cordoned it off from both sides and fired indiscriminately. With no avenue of escape, many people jumped into the icy waters of the Jhelum River.

Women, children, students, and passersby were among the dead. At least 50 civilians were killed, though eyewitnesses and survivors believe the actual toll was much higher. No independent judicial inquiry was ever conducted. No official was held criminally accountable. The case was quietly closed, records were destroyed, and justice was denied to the victims. This is the lived reality of Kashmir.

The Daily Kashmir Times quoted Manohar Lal, a Kashmiri Pandit residing near the Gawkadal area, who recalled: “Everyone was wailing, and blood was all around.” He added that many of those who sustained bullet injuries cried out in agony, and some even died in boats while being transported to hospitals. “I participated in the demonstration,” he said, “to register my silent protest against what happened before my eyes.”

Speaking to Kashmir News Agency, Manohar Lal further recounted how he heard the thuds of bullets from inside his home. “Then there were screams and cries. I peeped through my window, and what I saw still traumatizes me. I continue to suffer sleepless nights whenever I recall that incident.”

The documentary Saffron Kingdom, made by Arfat Sheikh, a Kashmiri-American filmmaker, powerfully documents the Gawkadal massacre and offers an essential, firsthand account that deserves to be seen by anyone seeking to understand the full scale of the tragedy.

The violence did not end there. On January 22, 1990, just one day after the Gawkadal massacre, ten more civilians were killed at Alamgari Bazar in Srinagar while protesting the killings at Gawkadal.

This was followed by the Handwara massacre on January 25, 1990, when 21 Kashmiri civilians were killed by the Border Security Force (BSF). Thousands had poured into the streets of Handwara to express solidarity with the people of Gawkadal and to demand accountability and justice. Eyewitnesses described scenes of horror—bodies lying motionless on the ground, survivors scrambling desperately to escape the gunfire.

January’s trail of blood continued in later years. On January 27, 1994, the Kupwara massacre claimed the lives of 27 innocent civilians. In the days preceding India’s Republic Day on January 26, soldiers of the Punjab Regiment warned local residents that they must participate in official celebrations or face consequences. Defying these threats, the people of Kupwara observed a complete shutdown. The following day, as shopkeepers reopened their businesses, Indian soldiers opened fire from multiple directions, killing at least 27 civilians.

Earlier, on January 6, 1993, the town of Sopore, known as the heart of Kashmir’s apple industry, witnessed another massacre. The BSF opened indiscriminate fire in the main bazaar, killing 43 civilians. Shopkeepers were prevented from fleeing; some were burned alive inside their shops. More than 250 shops and 50 homes were reduced to ashes.

Again, on January 19, 1991, 14 civilians were killed at Magarmal Bagh in Srinagar by the Central Reserve Police, some while they were inside their own shops.

Where is accountability? Where is the UN Charter? Where is the respect for UN Security Council resolutions that promised the people of Kashmir the right to decide their own future? These are the questions being asked today by the youth of Kashmir.

If the United Nations wishes to retain its credibility, then powerful states—including India—must be held accountable under international law. They must answer why justice has been systematically denied, and why UN resolutions—accepted by India itself—remain unimplemented.

The people of Kashmir ask for nothing more, and nothing less, than what was promised to them: the right to decide their own future.

History will judge not only those who committed these crimes, but also those who remained silent.

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai is also the Secretary General
World Kashmir Awareness Forum.

He can be reached at: 

WhatsApp: 1-202-607-6435 / gnfai2003@yahoo.com

Kashmirawareness.org

By Prof. Johan Galtung

[Prof. Johan Galtung’s exceptional foresight predicting the fall of the US empire is being validated by successive administrations, with Trump sticking the last nail in the empire’s (not the Republic’s) coffin–irreversibly. I repeat in unison with Prof. Galtung: ‘I love the US republic, and I hate the US empire’. —TMS Editor]

***********************

[Economic Contradictions- (2)]- between productive and finance economy: Domestic and global market turnover being high even if the growth is sluggish in the productive economy in many countries, and distribution being low, there will be heavy accumulation of liquidity high up searching for an outlet. Luxury consumption and productive investment being limited, the obvious outlet is buying and selling in the finance economy, also known as speculation. The productive economy responds by putting up bogus, virtual enterprises like ENRON and WORLDCOM that the growth in the finance economy quickly gets out of synch with growth in the productive economy. Thus, the 2001 sharpening of this contradiction into a crash for some stocks and depreciation of the US dollar was as expected, indicative of a chronic pathology. One basic cure for that pathology is the distribution that the US Empire, through its use of the WB/IMF/WTO-NYSE-Pentagon system is impeding. As that cure is at present unavailable, the underlying pathology will produce new increases in financial goods values and new crashes.

1. Definitions and Hypotheses: An Overview

Definition: An empire is a transborder Center-Periphery system, in macro-space and in macro-time, with a culture legitimizing a structure of unequal exchange between center and periphery: economically, between exploiters and exploited, as inequity; militarily, between killers and victims, as enforcement; politically, between dominators and dominated, as repression; culturally, between alienators and alienated, as conditioning.

Empires have different profiles. The US Empire has a complete configuration, articulated in a statement by a Pentagon planner: “The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing”.[1]

In other words, direct violence to protect structural violence legitimized by cultural violence.[2] The Center is continental USA and the Periphery much of the world. Like any system it has a life-cycle reminiscent of an organism, with conception, gestation, birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, senescence and death. Seeded by the British Empire, the maturing colonies honed their imperial skills on indigenous populations, ventured abroad in military interventions defining zones of interest, took over the Spanish Empire, expanding with world, even space hegemony as goal, now in the aging phase with overwhelming control tasks quickly overtaking the expansion tasks.

Decline and fall is to be expected as for anything human; the question is what-why-how-when-where-by whom-against whom. Answers:

• what: the four unequal, non-sustainable, exchange patterns above;
• why: because they cause unbearable suffering and resentment;
• how: through the synergies in the synchronic maturation of 14 contradictions, followed by demoralization of system elites;
• when: within a time frame of, say, 20 years, counting from Y2000;
• where: depending on the maturation level of the contradictions;
• by whom: the exploited/bereaved/dominated/alienated, the solidary, and those who fight the US Empire to set up their own;
• against whom: the exploiters/killers/dominators/alienators, and those who support the US Empire because of perceived benefits.

The hypothesis is not that the fall and decline of the US Empire implies a fall and decline of the US Republic (continental USA). To the contrary, relief from the burden of Empire control and maintenance when it outstrips the gains from unequal exchange, and expansion increases rather than decreases the deficit, could lead to a blossoming of the US Republic. This author admits an anti-Empire bias because of enormous periphery suffering outside and inside the Republic; and a pro-US Republic bias because of the creative genius and generosity of the USA. “Anti-American” makes no such distinction between the US Republic and the US Empire.[3]

There is no dearth of predictions of economic disaster for the US Republic in the wake of decline and fall of the system “to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault”, also from marxists who (still) believe that Empire-building can be reduced to economic greed satisfied by flagrant inequity. But this is only one component in a complete imperial syndrome with components attracting and repelling different niches in societies and persons. Economists blind to externalities design theories legitimizing inequity, unrealistic “realists” enforce “order”, liberals guide and dominate political choices of others, and missionaries, religious and secular, try to convert anybody. All together an enormous drain of resources.

The case of England indicates that an empire can be a burden. The decline of the Empire started long before, but the fall of the crown jewel, India, due to a combination of nonviolent (Gandhi) and violent struggle, and the incompatibility of imperialism with the Atlantic Charter, was decisive. The Empire unravelled very quickly over a period of 15 years from 1947, obviously unstable.

And England? Today richer than ever in history. Welcome, USA.

2. The US Empire: A Bird’s-Eye View

Right after the mass murder in New York and Washington on September 11 2001 Zoltan Grossman circulated a list, based on Congressional Records and The Library of Congress Congressional Research Service, with 133 American military interventions during 111 years, from 1890-2001, from the brutal murder of the indigenous population at Wounded Knee in Dakota to the punishment expedition to Afghanistan. Six of them are the First and Second World Wars, and the Korea, Vietnam, Gulf and Yugoslavian wars: Democrats started five of them (Bush senior and junior are the exceptions among isolationist Republicans who usually focus more on the exploitation of their own population). The average per year is 1.15 before, and 1.29 after, the Second World War, in other words an increase. And after the Cold War, from late 1989, a heavy increase up to 2.0, compatible with the hypothesis that wars increase as empires grow, with more privileges to protect; more unrest to quell, revolts to crush.

William Blum has 300 pages of solid documentation in his Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe MA: Common Courage Press, 2000). The total suffering is enormous: the victims, the bereaved, the damaged nature, structure (through verticalization) and culture (through brutalization, myths of revenge and honor). Most of it fits into one single pattern: building a US Empire based on economic exploitation of other countries and other peoples, using direct violence and indirect violence, open (Pentagon) and overt (CIA); with open and covert support from US allies. The result is the international class structure with increasing gaps between the poor and rich countries, and between poor and rich people.

There is no sign of any clash of civilizations, nor any sign of territorial expansion. But there is enormous missionary zeal and enormous self-righteousness. And the rhetoric changes: containment of Soviet expansion, fight against Communism, drugs, intervention for democracy and human rights, against terrorism. Blum’s list of interventions up to the year 2000 covers 67 cases since 1945(Grossman has 56, the criteria differ somewhat):

China 45-51, France 47, Marshall Islands 46-58, Italy 47-70s, Greece 47-49, Philippines 45-53, Korea 4553, Albania 49-53, Eastern Europe 48-56, Germany 50s, Iran 53, Guatemala 53-90s, Costa Rica 50s, 7071, Middle East 56-58, Indonesia 57-58, Haiti 59, Western Europe 50s-60s, British Guiana 53-64, Iraq 5863, Soviet Union 40s-60s, Vietnam 45-73, Cambodia 55-73, Laos 57-73, Thailand 65-73, Ecuador 60-63, Congo-Zaire 77-78, France-Algeria 60s, Brazil 61-63, Peru 65, Dominican Republic 63-65, Cuba 59-, Indonesia 65, Ghana 66, Uruguay 69-72, Chile 64-73, Greece 67-74, South Africa 60s-80s, Bolivia 64-75, Australia 72-75, Iraq 72-75, Portugal 74-76, East Timor 75-99, Angola 75-80s, Jamaica 76, Honduras 80s, Nicaragua 78-90s, Philippines 70s, Seychelles 79-81, South Yemen 79-84, South Korea 80, Chad 81-2, Grenada 79-83, Suriname 82-84, Libya 81-89, Fiji 87, Panama 89, Afghanistan 79-92, El Salvador 80-92, Haiti 87-94, Bulgaria 90-91, Albania 91-92, Somalia 93, Iraq 90s, Peru 90s, Mexico 90s, Colombia 90s, Yugoslavia 95-99.

There was bombing in 25 cases (for details, read the book):

China 45-46, Korea/China 50-53, Guatemala 54, Indonesia 58, Cuba 60-61, Guatemala 60, Vietnam 6173, Congo 64, Peru 65, Laos 64-73, Cambodia 69-70, Guatemala 67-69, Grenada 83, Lebanon-Syria 8384, Libya 86, El Salvador 80s, Nicaragua 80s, Iran 87, Panama 89, Iraq 91-, Kuwait 91, Somalia 93, Sudan 98, Afghanistan 98, Yugoslavia 99.

Assassination of foreign leaders, among them heads of state, was attempted in 35 countries, and assistance with torture in 11 countries: Greece, Iran, Germany, Vietnam, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama.

On top of this come 23 countries where the United States has intervened in elections or has prevented elections:

Italy 48-70s, Lebanon 50s, Indonesia 55, Vietnam 55, Guayana 53-64, Japan 58-70s, Nepal 59, Laos 60, Brazil 62, Dominican Republic 62, Guatemala 63, Bolivia 66, Chile 64-70, Portugal 74-5, Australia 74-5, Jamaica 76, Panama 84, 89, Nicaragua 84,90, Haiti 87-88, Bulgaria 91-92, Russia 96, Mongolia 96, Bosnia 98.

35 (attempted) assassinations + 11 countries with torture + 25 bombings + 67 interventions + 23 interferences with other people’s elections give 161 forms of aggravated political violence only since the Second World War. A world record.

Increase over time comes with shift in civilization target:

• Phase I Eastern Asia Confucian-Buddhist
• Phase II Eastern Europe Orthodox Christian
• Phase III Latin America Catholic Christian
• Phase IV Western Asia Islam

The phases overlap, but this is the general picture.

In the first phase the focus was above all on people in Korea, south and north, wanting reunification of their nation, and on poor peasants in Viêt Nam wanting independence. In the second phase there was the Cold, not Hot, War for containment of communism. In the third phase the targets were poor people, small and indigenous populations supported by “maoist” students. And in the fourth phase, which is dominating the picture today, the focus was on Islamic countries and movements, Palestinians being an important example.

All the time we find that the USA supports those who favor US business and growth, and works against those who give higher priority to distribution and basic needs of the most needy.[4]They die, 100,000 per day, underfed, underclothed, undersheltered, undercared, underschooled; jobless, hopeless and futureless.

Satisfiers for their needs cannot be bought with the money they do not have, and cannot be bought with labor because that requires jobs or land (seeds, water, manure) they do not have. A cruel world built on a world trade headed by the USA, supported by US dominated military and allied governments, and often populations who benefit from cheap resources and food products.

What is new in the fourth phase has something to do with religion. Islam is just as concerned with sin and guilt and expiation, with crime and punishment, as Christianity. But they do not place God and his country, and particularly “God’s Own Country”, the USA, higher than Allah and his countries, particularly not Allah’s own holy country, Saudi Arabia.

A United Nations Security Council with a nucleus of four Christian and one Confucian country has little authority in Islam, as opposed to the authority enjoyed in the Christian countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America. And Buddhist, East Asian countries are perhaps more inclined to change a bad joint karma than to issue certificates of guilt to the USA.

In other words, the real resistance had to come in the fourth phase with a new Pearl Harbor that many see as the introduction to a long-lasting Third World War.

Of that we should not be so certain. But one thing is clear: Anybody who was the least bit surprised 11 September was ignorant, naive or both. The bottomless, limitless state terrorism of the United States got a very unsurprising answer: terrorism against the United States. With an estimated 12-16 million killed, and an average of 10 bereaved for each one, with pain and sorrow, lust for revenge and revanche growing, no act of revenge would be inconceivable. But the deeper roots lie not in the never-ending chain of “blowback” violence. They are in the numerous unresolved conflicts built into the US Empire. The way to solution for sure passes through US Empire dissolution.

The Pentagon planner’s “to those ends we will do a fair amount of killing” reflects imperial reality. The when-where- against whom has just been explored. And then what?

3. On the Decline and Fall of Empires: The Soviet Empire Case

In a comparative study of the decline (of ten) and fall (of nine, No. 10 is the US Empire) in 1995[5], with an economic focus, the conclusion was that no single factor, but a combination of factors in a syndrome was the general cause:

• a division of labor whereby foreign countries, and/or foreigners inside one’s own country, take over the most challenging and interesting and developing tasks, given the historical situation;
• a deficit in creativity related to a deficit in technology and good management, including foresight and innovation;
• one or several sectors of the economy neglected or lagging;
• and, at the same time, expansionism as ideology/cosmology, exploiting foreign countries and/or one’s own people inviting negative, destructive reactions.

The syndrome idea came from an earlier study of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire[6] where many authors have come up with many single factor theories. The idea was then applied to the Soviet Empire in 1980[7], focusing on five factors referred to as contradictions, tensions, like the four points above:

In the society:

• a top-heavy, centralized, non-participatory society run by the Russian nation controlling other nations,
• the city controlling the countryside,
• the socialist bourgeoisie the socialist proletariat,
• the socialist bourgeoisie having nothing to buy because the processing level was too low;

In the world: a confrontational foreign policy run by the Soviet Union controlling and intervening in satellite countries.

The prediction, made many times by this author in 1980, was that the Soviet Empire would crumble not because of any single factor but because of “synchronic maturation of contradictions, followed by demoralization of Center and Periphery elites”, with the Berlin Wall crumbling in an early phase, within 10 years.

The mechanism was not the big bang of war, but the whimper of demoralized elites who after lashing out violently become corrupt, alcoholized, overfed, sometimes charming, ego-maniacs.

4. On the Contradictions of the US Empire

The prediction of the decline and fall of the Soviet Empire was based on the synergy of five contradictions, and the time span for the contradictions to work their way through decline to fall was estimated at 10 years in 1980. Sometimes I added a No. 5: between myth, the massive Soviet propaganda, and reality – to some extent dissolved in marvelous jokes.

The prediction of the decline and fall of the US Empire is based on the synergy of 14 contradictions, and the time span for the contradictions to work their way through decline to fall was estimated at 25 years in the year 2000. There are more contradictions because the US Empire is more complex, and the time span is longer also because it is more sophisticated. After the first months of President George W. Bush (selected) the time span was reduced to 20 years because of the way in which he sharpened so many of the contradictions posited the year before, and because his extreme singlemindedness made him blind to the negative, complex synergies. He just continued.

President William J. Clinton (elected, twice) was seen in a different light. Confronted with a pattern of contradictions, no doubt with significant differences in terminology and numbers, his violence was an intervention in Somalia that he canceled, a war against Serbia of which he evidenced heavy doubts and never any enthusiasm, and a couple of missiles fired in anger. Being superintelligent, demoralization in high places, and sex in strange places, might have been the consequences. Hypothesis: they tried to impeach him not so much for the latter as for the former – using the latter as pretext. The effort misfired, but a highly non-demoralized George Bush captured the US Presidency.

Here is the list of 14 contradictions posited in 2000:

I. Economic Contradictions (US-led System WB/IMF/WTO-NYSE-Pentagon)

• between growth and distribution: overproduction relative to demand, 1.4 billion below $ 1/day, 100.000 die/day, 1/4 of hunger
• between productive and finance economy (currency, stocks, bonds) overvalued, hence crashes, unemployment, contract work
• between production/distribution/consumption and nature: ecocrisis, depletion/pollution, global warming

II. Military Contradictions (US-led System NATO/TIAP/USA-Japan)

• between US state terrorism and terrorism: Blowback
• between US and allies (except UK, D, Japan), saying enough
• between US hegemony in Eurasia and the Russia-India-China triangle, with 40% of humanity
• between US-led NATO and EU army: The Tindemans follow-up

III. Political Contradictions (US Exceptionalism under God)

• between USA and the UN: The UN hitting back
• between USA and the EU: vying for Orthodox/Muslim support

IV. Cultural Contradictions (US Triumphant Plebeian Culture)

• Between US Judeo-Christianity and Islam (25% of humanity; UNSC nucleus has four Christian and none of the 56 Muslim countries).
• Between US and the oldest civilizations (Chinese, Indian, Mesopotamian, Aztec/Inca/Maya)
• Between US and European elite culture: France, Germany, etc.

V. Social Contradictions (US-led World Elites vs The Rest: World Economic Forum, Davos vs World Social Forum, Porto Alegre)

• Between state-corporate elites and working classes of unemployed and contract workers. The middle classes?
• Between older generation and youth: Seattle, Washington, Praha, Genova and ever younger youth. The middle generation?
• To this could be added: between myth and reality. The list was a simple reading of the US Empire situation. More sophisticated discourses are certainly possible, keeping the key ideas of syndromes, synergies and demoralization.
• The maturation of contradictions: An update after 3 years

We shall use the same formulations as above, drop the small explanatory remarks in the above list, and add some kind of, hopefully informed, running commentary on contemporary affairs.

Obviously, the US Empire as a functioning, dynamic reality, not as a static structure, with the 14 contradictions in its wake is a very complex system. In such systems linearities are rare, causal chains split and unite; loops, spirals, any curve shape, are ubiquitous. Quantum jumps when two factors are strongly coupled, one changes and the other remains constant, will be frequent. But the prediction is that within twenty years the four types of unequal exchange with the USA in the Center will wither away, whether what comes is more equal exchange or less exchange, in other words isolation. Or both.

1. Economic Contradictions

• Between growth and distribution: generally growth is sluggish with the possible exception of China, and the distribution often worsening, both between and within countries. However, the basic concern is with livelihood at the bottom of world society, the preventable mortality and the suffering due to near-death morbidity from hunger or easily preventable/curable diseases. That syndrome is with us, and the analysis in terms of overproduction leading to unemployment leading to underdemand leading oversupply leading to more unemployment etc. stands. At the same time monetization of land/seeds/water/manure impedes the conversion of labor into food by tilling one’s own land. The US Empire pursues growth but neglects and prevents distribution, thereby undercutting itself since a key aspect of growth in increased demand, meaning increased consumption, all over.
• Between productive and finance economy. Domestic and global market turnover being high even if the growth is sluggish in the productive economy in many countries, and distribution being low there will be heavy accumulation of liquidity high up searching for an outlet. Luxury consumption and productive investment being limited the obvious outlet is buying and selling in the finance economy, also known as speculation. The productive economy responds by putting up bogus, virtual enterprises like ENRON and WORLDCOM that the growth in the finance economy quickly gets out of synch with growth in the productive economy. Thus, the 2001 sharpening of his contradiction into a crash for some stocks and depreciation of the US dollar was as expected, indicative of a chronic pathology. One basic cure for that pathology is the distribution that the US Empire, through its use of the WB/IMF/WTO-NYSE-Pentagon system is impeding. As that cure is at present unavailable the underlying pathology will produce new increases in financial goods values and new crashes.
• Between production/distribution/consumption and nature: The Bush administration’s unilateral exit from the Kyoto Protocol sharpened this contradiction considerably and was a key factor behind the banner at the 2002 summit in South Africa: Thank you, Mr Bush, you have made the world hate America. The explanation given was that the Protocol impeded US economic growth (meaning unacceptable to powerful corporations). This move endangers the planet and is an expression of contempt for global regimes based on negotiating ratifiable treaties. The USA could have demanded re-negotiation. But the US Empire had other priorities and mobilized millions in the movement for sustainable development against the USA.

2. Military Contradictions

• between US state terrorism and terrorism: This contradiction underwent a quantum jump on 11 september 2001 although the number killed was less than the number killed in the aftermath of the other 11 September, in 1973, the USA supported coup against the socialist government of Salvador Allende (one of the now 68 interventions after the Second World War, counting Iraq). Highly predictable, as predictable as its repetition unless the US Empire itself exits from the cycle of violence and decides to understand “that the enemy may be us/US”. But the US Empire now talks about interventions in more than 60 countries, lasting more than a life time. A heavy price for the failure to try to, or the effort to avoid to, solve conflicts/contradictions.

At this point an obvious remark: an effort to explain 9/11, for instance as a “reaction to the US Empire by hitting two major instruments for economic and military operation”, or the short-hand as “revenge” and “unresolved conflict” in no way justifies the gruesome act. Nor is the US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq justified. But like Kosova they can both be partly explained as efforts to maintain and expand the US Empire, for more control of the world oil market, and “to keep the world safe for our economy” by establishing military bases.

Violence hits the Empire at their strongest point, is as wrong, ineffective and counterproductive as the US violence and mobilizes against the perpetrators. Ruling out explanation as justification runs against Enlightenment rationality: solve problems by identifying causal chains, then removing causes like violence cycles and unresolved conflicts. But the US Empire stands in the way and will ultimately have to yield.

• between US and allies: very fluid. The US Empire does not want to be seen as the US Empire but as something generally supported by “advanced societies”, “civilized” as against “evil”, “chaotic” and “terrorist”. Washington builds coalitions with Allies in the NATO/TIAP/US-Japan systems, and others.

This contradiction (and many others) has never surfaced so clearly as in connection with the war against Iraq, but there were also tensions budding in connection with the Yugoslavia and Afghanistan operations. Public opinion is not an important variable here.

Washington deals with governments and for that reason is very concerned with who are the members. The three ways of exercising power, persuasion, bargaining and threats, are best exercised behind closed doors so as not to be exposed to anything like the German Foreign Minister’s devastating remark to the US Secretary of Defense in München February 2003: “In a democracy you have to present arguments for your position, and your arguments are not convincing.” If the public knew what goes on behind closed door, like supporting an attack on Iraq in return for having somebody inscribed on the US list of terrorist organization, the opposition would increase.

In 2000 UK, Germany and Japan were seen as reliable allies. This failed to predict the German position, linked to the Social Democratic Party having been pressed already against its inner conviction over Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. Australia, however, was highly predictable as an Anglo-Saxon country [8], and Japan behaved as predicted. The cost-benefit analysis of the countries varies, but the trend is against unconditional support for the US Empire. A very sensitive contradiction that will sharpen if people exercise much more pressure on governments.

• between US hegemony in Eurasia and Russia-India-China: these are enormous countries, unconquerable so the USA has approached them through their fear of Muslim populations, in Chechnya, in Kashmir (and all over) and Xinjiang respectively. After the NATO expansion eastward and the USA-Japan alliance (with Taiwan and South Korea as de facto members) expansion westward from 1995, the three countries resolved most of their problems, came closer together (although not in a formal alliance). But those moves were temporarily stopped by the USA aligning them against Islamic terrorism, meaning Muslims fighting for more autonomy/independence in the three places mentioned. The attack on Iraq seems to have sharpened the contradiction again as they do not participate in the occupation (knowing something about Islamic guerrillas). But the USA still has considerable market access and investment economic clout with all three governments. 7. between USA-led NATO and an EU army: this is not the same as the two preceding points which are more about abstaining from support, and countries feeling the pincer movement of the US Empire, possibly creating an alliance. Here we are dealing with a new multinational army of a potential superpower, creating identity problems for some members. The question, “why do they need this army when they have NATO?” has an answer in dualist logic: “this shows they are not entirely with us, hence they are against us.”

There will be much maneuvering behind closed doors concerning this contradiction. But the general move will be in the direction of an EU Army for some members, building on the present Eurocorps, with a line of command that does not end in Washington, nor passes through washington except for some exchange of information. For defensive purposes or a coming EU Empire? To take over the spoils?

3. Political Contradictions

• between USA and the UN: the most powerful country in the world also uses the veto in the Security Council most frequently and has close to a de facto economic veto by withholding or withdrawing support for programs not to their liking, in addition to the US Empire clout on many UN members, like changing the conditions for loans according to voting pattern. That this behavior is resented stands to reason and that resentment came out in the open when the Anglo-Saxon USA/UK alliance failed to get their second resolution on Iraq accepted by the UNSC. However, very energetic US diplomacy and again US Empire clout prevented what Washington was afraid of using the Uniting for Peace resolution to lift an issue that has gotten stuck in the UNSC into the General Assembly. A UNGA debate and vote would make the limited support for an attack on Iraq rather than the French-German approach of deep UN inspection clear.
• between USA and the EU: this goes far beyond EU army vs NATO. The EU has today 15 members, by May 2004 there will be 25, with more to come. If the EU, very much in their own interest, decided to bridge the basic fault-lines in the whole European construction, between Orthodox and Catholic/Protestant Christianity, and between Islam and Christianity (from 1054 and 1095 respectively) by opening the EU for Russian and Turkish membership, well, then the USA would be very far behind indeed. We would be talking of 750 million+ inhabitants. The process of membership might have to be gradual, like X% increase per year in access to EU labor market against X% increase per year in access to resources. The relation to East Asia may be problematic, but the EU is also doing good work on this fault-line.And a giant EU could only gain from abstaining from any imitation of the US Empire, signing up for UN support instead.

4. Cultural Contradictions

• between US Judeo-Christianity and Islam: these are the abrahamitic religions, and the expression Judeo-Christianity, so frequent in the USA, draws a wedge among them. With the recent fundamentalist alliance based on the idea that Armageddon is near and that the first coming of the Messiah and the second coming of Christ could be the same person, this contradiction has become very sharp indeed. But Islam is expanding very quickly, Christianity is not and the Jews are a small minority. This rift will mark clear borders against US Empire penetration. The young Saudi Wahhabite perpetrators on 9/11 may have acted more than they dreamt of on behalf of 1.3 billion Muslims, and not only 300 million Arabs. And this warlike relation, will limit US Empire expansion considerably.
• between US and the oldest civilizations: when people talk of fundamentalism they usually mean the religious articulation of old cultures. But cultures are many-dimensional, including language and other forms of expression, and sacred times and sacred places in history and geography, anything. There are awakenings all over the world, seeing ancient non-Western cultures not as exotic museum objects to be observed but not lived. The destruction of artifacts from Sumer/Babylon in Iraq was seen as an effort to make the Iraqis governable by destroying other foci of identification. A typical example of a contradiction in an early, infant stage, but filled with potential for rapid maturation and powerful articulation.
• between US and European elite culture: the world, or so the West thinks, has four major geo-cultural Centers: the USA, the UK, France and Germany. Others can learn to imitate or produce exotica. France and Germany continue the struggle for cultural prevalence relative to the USA, with Anglo-Saxon UK being somewhere inbetween.

5. Social Contradictions

• between state-corporate elites and working classes of unemployed and contract workers: the powerful US trade union complex, the AFL/CIO, voted for the first time against a war: Iraq. But the working classes are today kept in line by the threat of unemployment and the inferiority of contract work relative to that vanishing category, the real position, with security. The state-corporate elites are better organized and at making themselves insubstitutable. They can make hire and fire become easy, with the ultimate threat of automation (“modernization”) settling issues.

The postmodern economy can do without workers, but not without customers. Firing workers they fire customers by reducing their acquisitive power. The world middle classes can join by boycotting the products of the US Empire, like oil from Iraq, Boeing aircraft (one of the major death factories in the world); in general boycotting US consumer goods, capital goods and financial goods, like US dollars, stock and bonds -but keeping personal contacts.

• between older generation and youth: younger than ever, not only college students against the Viêt Nam war but high school students, easily mobilized through the Internet as long as that lasts. Maybe an element of myth versus reality in this: they have been served propaganda that seems very remote from reality. The same may apply to women, but here Washington has played the cards well:`”homeland security” drives the issue home and women into the ranks defending the defenders of the home and the family. But the other nations in the USA, the Inuits, Hawai’ians, First Nations, Chicanos, African Americans, could be pitted against the Anglo-Saxon, Southern Baptist, militarized Deep South, now in command. Hopefully they will not create an emergency to cancel elections they may not win.
• And the decline and fall?

Have a look at the 14 contradictions, and then a look at the definition of an empire. The way of solving these contradictions eating at the heart of the system is very simple:

for the 3 economic contradictions: reduce, even stop exploiting!
for the 4 military contradictions: reduce, even stop killing!
for the 2 political contradictions: reduce, even stop dominating!
for the 3 cultural contradictions: reduce, even stop alienating!
for the 2 social contradictions: reduce, even stop all the above!

For each reduction, the US Empire is, by definition, declining. For each stop the US Empire is falling. Stop all four, and the US Empire is gone, although some may survive in residual forms like the Russian Empire in Chechnya and the British Empire in Iraq. The most dramatic recent example is possibly the dissolution of the French Empire: de Gaulle had the incredible personal grandeur to terminate the whole empire (except for the Pacific and some other places) and like for the Soviet and British Empires a number of independent countries were born. Global capitalism, however, has a tendency to recreate transborder exploitation, and there are, as mentioned, residuals. A new world was born, however, in the 1960s from the Western empires, in the 1990s from the Soviet Empire.

Only the naive will assume that new world to be paradise on earth. New systems emerge with their contradictions. The rulers of the British, French and Soviet empires had concluded that the costs by far outrun the gains. Some others sometimes come to the conclusion that the costs of the fall, including for the Periphery, by far outrun the gains. That, of course, depends on the successor system, the alternative. This author favors United Nations global governance, and not an EU Empire.[9] But that is another story.

The British and French empires were based on “overseas” colonies, the Soviet empire on contiguous, Czarist/Bolshevik, “union”, and the US Empire is based on what the Pentagon planner said, with the non-US Periphery being “independent” countries. This confuses some whose empire concept is linked to “colonies” and not to independent countries; and others whose concept is linked to “overseas”, not to contiguous territory. Still others got confused because three of these Centers are Western democracies, beyond the suspicion of ever committing major wrongs. The definition opening this essay is based on a relation of unequal exchange between Center and Periphery, not on Periphery geography or Center polity.

That unequal exchange, divided into four components, is the root contradiction of the empire as a system. From the four deep contradictions flow the fourteen surface contradictions, visible to everybody, the subject of journalism. The deep contradictions almost never are. So the basic model explored so far is:

• Deep contradictions imply 14 surface contradictions

As the 14 mature, synchronize and synergize the Center may loosen the grip on the Periphery in one conscious, enlightened act (de Gaulle) or see the Empire dissolve, slowly (UK) or quickly (the Soviet Union). USA, the choice is yours.

But the USA now behaves like a wounded elephant, lashing out in all directions. This is the boiling stage of demoralization, with emotions impeding rational thinking about is and ought, to be followed by a frozen stage, a “let go”, more like the Soviet Union, or Clinton. Demoralization is oscillating before it stabilizes. Like individual pathologies, healing is related to the ability to come on top of the pathology rather than the other way round. Like now, with the USA driven by a conflict mainly of its own making.

The Model Above Can Now Be Expanded:

[4] Implies [14] implies Demoralization implies -[4] implies -[14] The 4 deep lead to 14 surface contradictions and demoralization which leads to a let go of Empire and the dissolution of the 14. However: the 4 may have deeper roots. Thus, where does the inequity come from? From an unfettered capitalism so inequitable that it needs some military protection. But where does capitalism come from? And all that violence? The cultural superiority complex with missionary right and duty, and no duty to understand other cultures, may be related to the sense of exceptionalism as God’s Chosen People and Country.

But where does that idea come from? And so on and so forth. The 4 defining the US Empire are not uncaused, not unconditioned. But the focus here is on their removal and not on removing even deeper, but very evasive causes. This can happen through negative feedback loops via waning faith in the viability of the Empire as a system, in other words demoralization.

The 14 may have other roots. The economic contradictions come from capitalism; the USA was violent before the US Empire; some EU members may hate the US Empire because it stands in the way of their own ambitions; the same applies to competitive cultures such as an Islam that wants an expanding dar-al-Islam, the abode of Islam, as successor to the battlefield, the dar-al-harb. But the world is better off under USA than under EU or Islam, some say.

There is some truth to all of that. But the problem is not only the US share of the world capitalist pie but how it implies killing, domination and alienation.

This has to decline, fall and go, while paying attention to all the other contradictions.

There will be class, generation, gender, nation struggle also without the US Empire. True, but today that is the major problem.

The 14 may strengthen the resolve to maintain the 4. In the beginning, and one at the time, yes. Cosmetics may be applied, bland compromises entered, people articulating the contradictions silenced, ridiculed, persecuted, killed. It is the synergy of several contradictions that leads to demoralization and ultimate decline. Contradictions between dominant and dominated nations within a country tend to bounce back and find new outlets. The dominated face brutal force but not nagging doubts about viability. Their national home is a dream untested by contradictions whereas the empire has been tested and found nonviable at any speed.

Demoralization may not negate the 4. What we are talking about is decreasing faith in the viability; even decreasing faith in the legitimacy, of the Empire, with boiling anger at first, then a frozen let go, with the possibility of an autonomous let go. Either the Center deliberately looses the grip, or the Periphery slips out its clammy, feeble claws. Either way, decline and fall.

However, after a phase of demoralization a new political class may decide not to let go but just the contrary, to strengthen the grip, like the USA is trying right now. Given the obvious, the impermanence of everything, this will only postpone the inevitable.

Negating the 4 may not negate the 14. This is certainly more true than untrue. As explored below, we may even talk about an objective contradiction having lost, or even crushed, its subject in search of a new subject. There are many other roots for many of the contradictions. That one contradiction (syndrome) may conceal another, the latter blossoming when the former is wilting, is clear. But that daoist insight will not stop contradictions from maturing. As to the US Empire, there is light at the end of a long and twisting tunnel. But after that tunnel there are new tunnels-8. On contradictions in general

The concept itself harbors contradictions in the sense of tensions among meanings. The common factor seems to be a whole, a holon, a system, with at least two forces operating. The tension is between the forces. There is no assumption of only two forces, nor that they are exactly opposite, nor that they are of the same size. Newton’s Third Law is written that way, expressing a contradiction. But that is a special case and should not distort our ideas of social systems. We need a more general discourse.

Before two or more forces let us explore the cases of 0 or 1.

Even with the vagueness of “force” it is not unreasonable to attribute the property “dead” to a system with no force, no movement, tendency, inclination. The objection may be that much happens to a buried corpse: “to” yes, but not “in”. The forces are exogenous to the system, not endogenous, like in a live organism.

Introduce one force, like running. The body spends energy. And the counterforce is not slow in announcing itself as fatigue, trying to change a motion into a non-motion referred to as “rest”. The mechanical analogue brings up the idea of R, a dynamically changing resultant force that reflects magnitude and direction of all forces. The system will move or rest with the resultant. R>0 means move, R=0 means equilibrium, R<0 means rest deficit.

Is a force always accompanied by a counterforce? Is there always a reactio with an actio? And in systems with foresight, could there even be a proactio for any expected actio? And a pro-proactio? I find this a very useful an axiom in the analysis of social and personal systems. But I see no reason to assume that reactio and proactio are necessarily opposed. They could also be aligned with actio and, at least to start with, reinforce actio.

The idea of force-counterforce twins might lead us to an even number of forces as they come in pairs. We do not say that one is producing or generating the other since that leads to an infinite number. Rather, we assume synchronicity; they are “co-arising” as buddhist epistemology will have it rather than one force generating the next, generating the next, etc. And there is no reason to land on an even number. Another metaphor might be a bundle of forces somehow accounting for the tensions in the system.

Let us move from general talk about “systems” and “forces” to more specific social and personal systems. In the conceptual neighborhood is the idea of “conflict” as tension in goal-seeking systems because of incompatibility between the goals. Goals are then associated with life even when attributed metaphorically to non-life as in “mountains striving upward”. If incompatible goals are in the same system we have a dilemma, if in different systems we have a dispute. A goal-holder conscious of the goal is an actor, if not conscious a party. And that brings in the major distinction between subjective and objective contradictions.

A subjective contradiction passes through and is reflected by the human brain; as thought/consciousness, as speech/articulation as action/mobilization. But not necessarily in that order, intellectualized like a philosopher who first reflects, then writes and then – maybe does nothing. We could just as well assume the opposite order, the actor mobilizing for action out of old habit, then saying what he feels he thinks and thinking what he feels. Or any other sequence.
But sooner or later there is consciousness.

With two goals we get two goal-seeking forces, A and B, and three possibilities for the resultant: R=A (A wins), R=B (B wins) or R=0, an in-between equilibrium, also known as a compromise.

At that point the mechanical analogy breaks down. The three cases do not exhaust the possibilities. Moreover, they do not eliminate the contradiction. A or B wins does not mean that the dissatisfied loser no longer has the same or some other goal incompatible with the winner’s goal. The contradiction is still there, under the lid of the boiling cauldron of a defeat. And a compromise may leave both of them semi-dissatisfied. If we use the term “sharp” to describe the contradiction as it was, “blunt” may apply to a compromise. But how do we transcend the contradiction?

Since the three possibilities exhaust the logic of opposing forces within a system, the answer is “by changing the system”. This is what Gorbachev faced in the contradiction between the Soviet Empire and the social forces wanting basic change in the DDR: he let the DDR go. The contradiction now being between people and party elites in the DDR, the latter then yielded to West Germany, BRD, eventually to be absorbed by them. As a result the Soviet Empire declined and fell and BRD absorbed DDR. The contradiction is still there, but finds other articulations.

And this is what Gorbachev’s successors never managed to do with Chechnya. All they could do was to prevent them from winning, not to transcend the contradiction. For that to happen they would have to let Chechnya go, which will happen sooner or later anyhow.

For the contradiction to be transcended, and the tension to be released, system change is needed, and more so the deeper the contradiction is in the system. An empire is not changed by suppressing, winning, over some party or even actor; that only makes the empire more imperial. An empire is changed by becoming less imperial. And that is also known as a decline from the empire’s point of view. At the end of that road is its fall.

The Stages in the Contradiction Life-Cycle Can Be Summarized:

0. Objective contradiction independent of consciousness
1. Consciousness-formation through THOUGHT (intrasubjective)
2. Articulation through SPEECH (intersubjective)
3. Mobilization through ACTION (private and/or public)
4. Struggle among mobilized actors:

– violent or nonviolent
– quick or slow
– without or with outside parties mediating
– with less or more polarization = decoupling

5. Outcomes of struggle:

[a] prevalence or compromise – back to [0]-[4]
[b] transcendence = a new reality:

– negative transcendence under a new actor
– positive transcendence as new coupling

Through the [1]-[2]-[3] sequence a party becomes an actor pursuing goals by more or less adequate tactics chosen from [4].

[5a] does not end the lifecycle of a contradiction, only a lid on it or a blunting of it, as has been argued above.

[5b], transcendence, is the end of that contradiction lifecycle. This does not mean the end/death of the system as it may harbor other contradictions at various lifecycle stages.

Transcendence, going beyond, is the creation of a new reality:

• negative transcendence, neither-nor; goals not achieved
• positive transcendence, both-and; goals achieved, with a twist.

Take the Ecuador-Peru conflict over where to draw the border in a contested 500km2 zone up in the Andes, with three wars to settle the issue. Military victory for one of them, annexing the zone to their national territory, is “prevalence”. Drawing a border, for instance along a ceasefire line, is “compromise”. Negative transcendence could be to give the zone to the UN or the OEA, creating a new social reality. And positive transcendence could be a binational zone, owning it together, with the twist that neither country has monopoly. A new reality. And both new realities, systems, would in turn produce their own contradictions.

Time has then come to explore the problematic relations between objective and subjective contradictions.

A social system comes with differences between categories– like genders, generations, races, classes, nations, territories– which then become relations in an interaction system; which then become fault-lines, usually because the interaction is on unequal terms; which then may lead to polarization and a structure of discrimination accompanied by a culture of prejudice. All known societies harbor more or less of these inequalities and inequities.

An empire uses such structures and cultures as building blocks, and can be seen as a two (or multi-) tier system linking domestic and global faultlines. There is a Center and a Periphery in the global system of countries. Inside the Center, and inside the Periphery, there is also a center and a periphery. All three systems may be based on the logic of quadruple inequity (for killers-killed sometimes substitute the softer guards-prisoners).

The linchpin in the system is the harmony between the center in the Center and the center in the Periphery.[10] The USA is right now (Summer 2003) trying to construct an Iraqi center in harmony of interest with the USA state/corporate center. The Iraqi center must do the four jobs locally and deliver the fruits of unequal exchange such as economic value, wanted terrorists, obedience, conditioning to the center in the (USA/UK) Center, keeping a commission. They are rewarded with material living standard at a US elite level.

What has just been described is a simple empire linking three systems of unequal exchange, two domestic and one global. The US empire is complex; being a world hegemon no domestic system is entirely delinked from that empire. The EU empire links 15 (soon 25) Center countries to 100+ Periphery countries, but softly so.

There are also other divisions than the faultlines in domestic and global society, like among political parties in more or less democratic societies, and groups of countries in an undemocratic global system. Social movements, the subjective contradictions, more or less conscious, articulated and mobilized across some primordial or newly created dividing lines, prepolarize the system, and are ready for [4], struggle. But for what?

Ideally for the objective contradiction, with an unresolved issue at the center which then has to become the cause of the movement. And that gives rise to basic problem of adequacy in the coupling between subjective and objective contradictions, between the causes and the issues. Both are parts of social reality. But the movements may have an inadequate consciousness and cut the issues wrongly. And the issue may be an orphan, waiting to be picked up by a movement with adequate consciousness. There may be a contradiction between movement contradiction and issue contradiction. And the result is bad, derailed politics.

Thus, the subjective contradiction in Myanmar/Burma between the autocratic military government SLORC and the pro-democracy movement headed by a woman, identified with one nation in a multinational society, one upper/middle class in a very poor society, married to a Westerner in a country developing its own identity, may be inadequate for the objective contradictions of the country. From a Western point of view the basic contradictions are autocracy vs (Western) democracy and closure vs openness of the country to economic and cultural penetration. The subjective contradiction is adequate for those issues. But there are other issues. Inadequacy may derail the process. The objective and the subjective must somehow mirror each other.

Thus, Gandhi had literally speaking to divest himself of his Westernness and his high caste paraphernalia, become very Hindu and share the living conditions of the lower castes and untouchables before he could lead Indian masses toward freedom and democracy. The leader of Free India, however, Jawaharlal Nehru, was very Western, very high caste, very secular and steered India exactly in that direction. Gandhi wanted an India based on the “oceanic circles” of autonomous, self-reliant villages; Nehru a modern, secular, industrial, socialist India. The subjective matters.

Liberals tend to study the subjective movements and marxists the objective issues. The argument here is for both-and, and more particularly for the contradiction between the two contradictions.

An example from Norway: the objective contradiction a century ago between the “well conditioned” and the majority “populace”, in steep livelihood gradients, and the subjective contradictions in the party system. The populace lived on farming, fishing, hunting, and as employees; the well conditioned from fortune, as employers or self-employed. There were grey zones. The Labor Party, through an act of political genius, created an alliance of farmers, fishermen and industrial workers, very adequately posited against the well conditioned. They won the elections, prevailed for two generations, and created a new social reality, the welfare state.

That society had its own objective contradictions, positing a minority of aged-womenfrail/handicapped-foreign workers against the rest. Uncarried by adequate subjective contradictions the objective contradiction deepens in the midst of plenty. The Labor Party was totally inadequate. And the issue remains unsolved.

Movements against the US Empire: social reality is complex.

Only when cause and issue coincide will the movements be adequate.

Notes:

[1]. From Susan George, “The Corporate Utopian Dream”, The WTO and the Global War System, Seattle, November 1999. He is missing the political dimension and might have added “a fair amount of bullying” or “arm-twisting” after killing.

[2]. For this way of seeing reality, see Johan Galtung, Peace By Peaceful Means, London: SAGE, 1996, chapter 2.

[3]. That not very intelligent term obscures the difference between those who are against both Republic and Empire (americaphobia?; very few, it seems) and those who are against one but not the other. Unconditional love for both, (americaphilia?) is quite frequent. It should be noted that “America” actually refers to the whole hemisphere, making the term “anti-American” also a sign of geographical confusion.

[4]. Many pairs come to mind, we just pick five as examples:
Mossadegh was intervened, the Shah’s dictatorship not;
Very much has been done to overthrow Castro, not Batista;
very much was done to overthrow the Sandinistas, not Somoza;
very much is being done to overthrow Chavez, not Jimenez;
Lumumba was intervened and killed, not Mobutu. The basic criterion is “free trade”, not democracy/dictatorship.

[5]. Johan Galtung, The Decline and Fall of Empires: A Theory of De-development, Geneva: UNRISD, 1995 (but not published by them), see www.transcend-nordic.org.

[6]. Johan Galtung, with Tore Heiestad and Erik Rudeng, On the decline and fall of empires: the Roman empire and Western imperialism compared. Oslo: University of Oslo, Chair in Conflict and Peace Research, 71 pp. (Trends in Western civilization program, 15), (Oslo Papers, 75). Also published at: Tokyo: UN University, 1979, 71 pp (HSDRGPID-l/UNUP-53), and in Immanuel Wallerstein (ed.) Review. New York: Research Foundation of the State University of New York, IV, 1980, 1, pp. 91-154. Condensed version in: Comprendre: revue de politique de la culture, XLIII/XLIV, (1977/78), pp. 50-59.

[7]. Johan Galtung, with Dag Poleszynski and Erik Rudeng, Norge foran 1980-årene (Norway facing the 1980s). Oslo: Gyldendal, 1980, p. 85.

[8]. But Canada and New Zealand, also Anglo-Saxon dominated, did not follow suit. Because they are more diverse, with non-Anglos like the French-speaking and First Canadians in Canada, and the Maoris in New Zealand to take into account? clearly, there is no longer a massive Anglo-Saxon bloc.

[9]. In the USA the alternative is often seen in terms of a Chinese Empire, in line with the old Anglo-Saxon tradition of seeing the relation between No. 1 and No. 2 in power as zero sum game. For England, the country allegedly with no permanent friends, no permanent enemies but permanent interests, this used to be France, but after the country was beaten by united Germany in 1870-71 and displayed its industrial prowess the Germany was appointed enemy. China as enemy disregards thousands of years of Chinese history with no imperial systems outside the borders of the Himalayas, the Gobi, the Tundra and the Sea. China is self-centered in its development/modernization and still tends to see the world outside those borders as South, West, North and East Barbarians.

[10]. Thus, the author’s “A Structural Theory of Imperialism” (in Essays in Peace Research, Volume IV, Copenhagen: Ejlers, 1980, pp. 437-91) is underlying the development of the theory of imperialism into its decline and fall in this essay.

___________________________________

The Fall of the U.S. Empire — And Then What? Successors, Regionalization or Globalization? US Fascism or US Blossoming? — by Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of TRANSCEND International and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University.

19 January 2026

Source: transcend.org

By Prof. Jan Oberg

His Gaza proposal reveals a far larger and world-threatening project. It’s a bid to replace the UN — and this MAGAlomania must be stopped now. See warning at the end.

18 Jan 2026 – There are moments in political life when the surface events are so loud, so chaotic, so distracting that they obscure the deeper shift taking place beneath them. We focus on the headlines, the personalities, the daily provocations — and miss the architecture being built in the background.

But every once in a while, a document appears, a proposal emerges, or a pattern becomes visible enough that it forces us to stop, step back, and look at the larger design.

Trump’s so‑called Gaza “Board of Peace” is one of those moments.

It is not the outburst of an impulsive leader. It is not a one‑off improvisation. It is a window into a political project that has been unfolding for years — a project that treats institutions as disposable, alliances as leverage, and entire regions as assets in a personal geopolitical domain.

A project that is no longer hiding its contours. A project that now speaks openly in the language of authority, hierarchy, and replacement.

The charter of Donald Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace,” revealed by Haaretz on January 17, 2026, is not a Gaza policy. It is not even a Middle East policy. It is the latest — and clearest — expression of a long‑running project that has defined Trump’s political style for years: the construction of what I describe as a Personal Occidental Empire, a sphere of influence built not on institutions or alliances but on personal (narcissist) authority, loyalty networks, and transactional dependency.

The Gaza initiative is simply the newest brick in that architecture.

According to Haaretz, the charter was quietly sent to around 60 heads of state. Yet the document itself does not mention Gaza at all. Instead, it claims a sweeping mandate to “restore dependable and lawful governance and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict,” and — in a phrase that should alarm every democratic government — to do so “in place of other organizations.”

This is not a reconstruction committee. It is a claim to global jurisdiction, but only over the parts of the world Trump considers within his reach.

This logic is not new. It is the same logic that drove his attempts to buy Greenland, pressure Canada, threaten Mexico with military action, make himself a Viceroy in Venezuela, and reshape NATO into a loyalty‑based protection racket.

These were not random provocations. They were early signals of a worldview in which Western states and territories are not partners but assets — components of a personal geopolitical domain.

Trump’s charter makes the architecture explicit. It opens with a denunciation of existing international structures, calling for “a more nimble and effective international peace‑building body” and urging the world to abandon “institutions that have too often failed.” This is not the language of reform. It is the language of replacement — a hallmark of Trump’s broader governing style, in which established institutions are treated as obstacles to be bypassed, hollowed out, or supplanted by leader‑controlled alternatives.

But the most revealing feature of the charter is its structure of authority.

As Haaretz reports, the chairmanship is not tied to the U.S. presidency, not subject to elections, and not limited by term. It simply states: “Donald J. Trump shall serve as inaugural Chairman of the Board of Peace.” From that point on, the document reads like the constitution of a personal dominion.

Trump alone would invite or expel member states, appoint or dismiss the executive board, veto decisions at will, create or dissolve subsidiary bodies, interpret the charter, and even dissolve the entire organisation. He would also designate his own successor.

This is not multilateralism. It is not even unilateralism. It is personal rule — the defining feature of Trump’s broader political project.

Membership rules reinforce the pattern. While most states would serve three‑year terms, Haaretz notes that countries contributing more than $1 billion in the first year would be exempt from term limits. In other words: pay enough, and you can stay indefinitely — as long as the chairman approves. This is not sovereign equal cooperation; it is a transactional hierarchy, entirely consistent with Trump’s long‑standing preference for loyalty networks and personal dependency.

And crucially: this empire is selective. Trump is not trying to build a universal body. He is not trying to include Russia, China, Iran, or any state that would resist personal subordination. His empire is Western, Atlantic, and strategically convenient — a sphere of influence composed of states he believes he can bend, pressure, or purchase. And regions where he can build his United States of Autarchy if and when the world has turned its back on him and the US

Seen through this lens, the Gaza “peace” board is not an aberration. It is a continuation. It reflects the same logic that shaped his approach to Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, NATO, and Europe. The charter simply makes the architecture visible: a system in which institutions are not independent actors but instruments of his personal authority, excercise in 100% defiance of laws, norms and normal respect for others.

What the Gaza “peace” board exposes is not a sudden improvisation but the underlying architecture of a political project that has been unfolding for years.

The pattern is unmistakable: a leader who treats institutions as disposable, alliances as leverage, and entire regions as assets in a personal geopolitical domain. It is the logic of a Personal Occidental Empire — a sphere of influence defined not by shared values or collective security but by proximity to one man’s authority.

This could never become a new United Nations. It is not even an alternative multilateralism. It is an empire without a fixed territory but with all the familiar features: hierarchy, dependency, loyalty, and the steady erosion of institutional constraints.

The Gaza charter simply strips away the last remaining ambiguity. It shows, in black and white, a system in which global authority is concentrated in the hands of a single individual, insulated from elections, oversight, or constitutional limits. It reveals a worldview in which international governance is not a shared responsibility but a personal prerogative. And it demonstrates how easily the language of “peace” can be repurposed to legitimize structures of power that have nothing to do with peace at all.

And here is where most geo-political commentators have understood so little:

The old disciplines can no longer explain what we are living through; only psychology/psychiatry, theology, philosophy — and perhaps the inspiration from (science) fiction and the Theatre of the Absurd — may be able to help.

A warning

We are not reliving the 1930s, and I disagree strongly with geopolitical and other people who predict World War Three to vent their own fears, but do not think of how they deprive their readers of the wish to do something and how they prevent every discussion of solutions and constructive visions for the world.

If this is the direction of the coming years, then the international system is not facing a policy disagreement or a diplomatic rupture. It is facing the emergence of a personalised, extra‑state authority structure that seeks to reorder Western politics around the will of a single leader and tendentially confront everybody else, friends and foes.

We are not reliving the 1930s, and I thoroughly disagree with all the geopolitical experts who predict World War 3. They have no theory behind that claim, but merely vent their own frustrations, deprive people of hope and the will to act, and make it impossible to discuss solutions and visions of a better future for humanity.

That said, some of the structural pressures that once led to global conflict are re‑emerging in new forms – and, no, Trump does not appear yet in military uniform, albeit now with a golden fighter aircraft as a lapel pin. Western militarism is as rampant as it is destructive for the West itself.

The lesson of history is to act before such pressures become irreversible. Or we shall again conclude that the only thing we can learn from history is that we learn nothing from it.

The question is no longer whether this project exists. The question is whether anyone will recognise it in time — and whether the world is prepared to confront the dangers it poses.

Prof. Jan Oberg, Ph.D. is director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research-TFF in Sweden and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.

19 January 2026

Source: transcend.org