When the Iranian Revolution occurred, overthrowing the Emperor, the West had long supported a monarchy that mortgaged the country's economic future through leonine treaties and agreements resulting from the Yalta Conference. Persia had initially fallen under the British sphere of influence, which, after the Suez Canal Crisis, proved unsustainable for the old Empire. Then it came under tighter control by Washington. Revisiting that moment in history helps us understand why, since the Revolution and the rise to power of the ayatollahs, the West has done everything possible to bring the Iranians back into the world established by the Yalta Agreement. It’s simply a region that slipped from their grasp and that—in just a few years—managed to become a counterweight in the Middle East, culturally, geopolitically, and even religiously.

For those familiar only with the region's recent history, it may seem strange that Iraq was used as the West's spearhead against Iran in the infamous war that weakened them and in which the ruling party in Baghdad failed to achieve its objectives. The same Saddam Hussein who was later demonized by the Americans and overthrown following the 2002 intervention was, in those years, an ally, or at least a strategic partner, used as a battering ram. The West, and more specifically the Pentagon, has implemented the theory of checks and balances, developed by Henry Kissinger's school of international relations, in these types of conflicts. The objective has always been the same: to prevent Iran, historical Persia, from returning to its role as a power that dates back to ancient times. The current war in the Persian Gulf can be understood by reconstructing this historical lineage.

Iran not only recognizes its role in history but has also been aware that the West defends the order established by the Yalta Conference. This order, now crumbling with industrial decline and the fall of the old white powers, is facing the resurgence of the East (China and Russia). Neither Great Britain nor France could effectively participate in the conflict without being labeled militarily incapable. In fact, Trump was left isolated, with minimal logistical and strategic support. Some of the bases near Iran were simply wiped out by Tehran's missile power, and this is intolerable for a West that seems to be repeating the Suez Crisis. To refresh our memories, the latter was the swan song of the old European empires, which, unable to control this maritime passage, lost the key to trade routes and, consequently, their monopoly on a large portion of raw materials and global prices. It's pure geopolitics, now repeating itself with the Strait of Hormuz.

What we are witnessing, moreover, is a movement of history in a classic spiral. Modern empires of European origin (and here the American empire is an extension) are losing ground to the old Eastern empires. In the case of the latter, they must be understood not through the colonial logic of the last two centuries, but rather from the cultural notion of empire as a unity of peoples. That is to say, Iran as Persia, the Persia of many periods in its history, the one that united several civilizations. Beyond that, the Strait crisis The Strait of Hormuz and the United States' inability to maintain its position in international trade are weakening Washington's standing in the world. It no longer dictates commodity prices; in fact, it’s being harmed by fuel inflation and has had to lift sanctions on geopolitical adversaries. The war has turned, becoming a war of attrition in which Russia and China are not intervening but are nonetheless benefiting.

But there’s another detail that stems from this episode and relates to military doctrine: the strategy of high budgets and aircraft carriers to project external power has failed. Neither the expenditure of money nor the deployment of military assets overseas has had any impact on weakening the adversary, despite campaigns to decapitate the Iranian leadership. This leads to the second point in the analysis of military geostrategy: while the West possesses a vertical, command-and-control structure, with a political caste that decides on the movements on the ground and an operational apparatus; Iran has shifted toward a rhizomatic structure that decentralizes decision-making and transforms it into action commands with a well-defined mission.

So, you can decapitate Tehran, and just as many more heads will grow back; it's like a hydra. The third point of this war is Iran as the Ukraine 2.0 conflict. Just as Russia has turned the confrontation with NATO into a battle of deterrence, in which it also keeps the Atlantic alliance occupied and in constant expenditure and conflict, Tehran has managed to turn the issue of the Strait of Hormuz into a quagmire in which the United States' geopolitics have foundered, forcing it into expenditures, military casualties, and a record loss of military prestige. Both what is happening in Ukraine and in Iran are scenarios into which the West entered based on a supposed strategic superiority, but from which it now doesn't know how to extricate itself, despite having tried to establish treaties to its advantage.

Kissinger's school of thought is failing because—to exert checks and balances—it is necessary to project real power on a global scale and possess an absolute monopoly on force and the economy. That scenario does not exist today for the United States. Not even the Atlantic alliance has backed Trump, which is unprecedented. Its own counterweight within its bloc—Europe's role as an unconditional follower—has failed, and this is something that geopolitical analysts must understand. There’s no other way to understand it; there’s no external logic that explains it: the Yalta world is crumbling, and a new world is emerging in which forces are reconfigured around the vision of emerging powers with a less militaristic focus. It’s the inward-looking philosophy of old empires traditionally enclosed behind walls, whether man-made (China) or natural (Russia). The counterweight is no longer decided in Washington, but rather in the multilateralism of a new reality of countries that trade based on their own interests. This leads to another crucial element in this analysis: the crisis of liberal democracy as understood by the West, which, in its alternating power dynamics, cannot address its own decline because it lacks the opportunity to create coherent political projections beyond its disconnection as the ruling class. The failure in Iran is, above all, an issue that becomes an electoral battleground in the lead-up to November, while the true impact—the erosion of real power for the Anglo-Saxon superpower—is ignored. This results in an accumulation of systemic failures in the checks and balances that once benefited the United States and that lead to a decline in its global influence.

Whether the Strait of Hormuz is a new Suez Crisis will become clear in the coming years, when the passage of time allows. In the meantime, this is the current situation.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff