I agree the U.S. is in charge. I think, once in awhile, the US “allows” Israel to take the lead when world opinion starts to focus on the U.S. in a negative way. I look at this situation as a Trump-led reality TV show where the US unveils its “evil” tendencies when safe to do so. Otherwise, the US lets Israel take the heat, especially Netanyahu. The U.S. may be a tool for the wealthy pro-Israel mob in the US but in the end, I think the U.S. is ultimately the lead imperialist regime. Look at how the US ensured NATO survive, with a 5% increase in their fees, when most members said 2% is all they would pay. I believe the whole “show” is televised to ensure confusion in America, as to who is the leader of this mob. Yet, I think the current US government, etc. knows their mask is off because of the genocide in Palestine and the failure of the US to abide by international laws and the UN Charter. Now it is evident that Trump and his mob are “training” Americans by the use of ICE internal attack dogs to instill fear and ensure obedience to the current destruction of democracy and the regime. What Americans will be able to do about this is yet to be determined. Certainly it is evident to some of us that both political parties are involved in this situation and the democrats are playing the part of “good” cop to the republican “bad” cop to sell the show. I think the comparison to Rome is apt but I don’t see the emergence of a more powerful entity to stop the U.S. hegemony yet. Maybe BRICS will be the emerging multi-nodal power but that remains to be seen. Justin sure has provided some amazing food for thought. Thank you!
Israel is the US unsinkable aircraft carrier from which it can bully its way to complete hegemony in West Asia using a proxy that gives it plausible deniability when needed. The very existence of the Zionist colony depends on the US, financially and militarily. The US runs its war rooms and oversees the genocide, even now providing yet more proxies to oversee aid distribution and murdering more Palestinians. When the colony is no longer needed, it will be dropped as callously as Ukraine, as it serves a similar purpose in America’s wider geopolitical strategy against Russia and China.
And AIPAC and the wider Zionist lobby? Again, this is about plausible deniability. It gives cover to the Deep State that “it’s all the Jews’ fault”, protecting the real interest groups who profit from control of West Asia and will use any, just any means to retain that hegemony.
Remember Trump’s Golden Gaza video? This was a vision that had nothing to do with Israel, as Trump made clear. Using Gulf money (which is all US $) to reconstruct Gaza, a massively profitable enterprise, as has been the reconstruction of Iraq. The same capital forces that made profits through the Military Industrial Complex in running the war, profit from repairing the damage, and this will also happen in the Zionist colony.
You don’t need the heavy geopolitical analysis of Shahid Bolsen, or EvanWritesOnX, just re-read Catch-22: Milo Minderbinder spells it all out. The Empire has its capital in Washington (or the finance centres of New York), and that centre can move or disperse amongst a global elite. But its centre is not Tel Aviv.
I’ve been thinking along these lines as well but I don’t disagree with Justin either. BTW the capitalists are the rich—correct? I ask because that’s where I’ve landed on where the problems lie. $ to government, MIC, by the rich and big corporations. Government cooperation with same for the $ and to stay in power to keep the rich getting richer. Government deregulations approved by the government concerning monopolies, big corporations etc. and no tax by the rich, subsidies to the rich corporations, black water. But I still do wonder if Israhel1 DOES have a stranglehold on governments through infiltration of many agencies (not just government agencies) and blackmail. So maybe the capital of the empire is now in Israhel1?
Israel is being set up by the Empire to take the blame/fall for all the wars in West Asia. The Empire has been planning how to attack Iran for decades - the Brookings Institute policy document from 2009 ‘Which Path to Persia’ plots out different scenarios. The one Trump chose is called in the document “Leave it to Bibi”.
It has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, and nothing to do with protecting Israel. Its purpose is to isolate Russia and China, as part of the wider geopolitical project to retain the Empire’s hegemony, which requires it to weaken any potential rival.
Russia is weakened via the Empire’s proxy Ukraine.
The Empire’s proxy Israel will weaken Iran as the last strongly independent state in W Asia.
The Empire will then target China, using Taiwan, and Indonesia as a proxy.
Iran is important not as a rival but an ally of Russia and China, with oil, sea and trade links that help them resist sanctions.
Israel gives the Empire plausible deniability. And people keep falling for it. Take a step back: Israel couldn’t exist without US money and arms. Both have continued to flow despite the genocide. Why?
Because Israel is doing the Empire’s work for it, but it’s Israel that bears the blame.
Check out YouTube channels such as ‘The New Atlas’ and ‘Middle Nation’. They are excellent at long term geopolitical trend analysis. If you want to understand scapegoating of Israel, check out Shahid Bolsen’s YouTube video “Message to the Israelis (Part Two)”. Do your research…
Yes. I’ve done some research and I know about the decades long plan by US. But I’m wondering in the deals and infiltration of Mossad operatives along with CIA and the threat of assassinations literally and personally if Israhel1 has a stranglehold on our government. Yes trump and congress are following the plan but what if they have made missteps and now lost control? Mossad is dug in deep in UK and France. I believe they and their fanatical supporters are also dug into the US. It was one of many concerns of US founders. Ive heard from other channels everything you’ve stated. But as I dig further I do have to think about other things to get a better picture. And I’m not laying all the blame of these atrocities on Israhel1. Oh no no no. I see the US trying to get Americans onboard with war with Iran. I see them supporting Israhel1 in this genocide and pretend ceasefires. And I’m expecting an awe and shock in the US to get us on board with a war! I hope Americans don’t fall for it. I’m afraid how far our government will go though. Thank you for the reminders.
Yeah, the author simply declares that Tel Aviv is the new Empire capital, presenting no evidence. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. The Zionists here and in Tel Aviv KNEW the latter was going to get hit severely in the war designed and ordered in DC, yet went ahead with it anyway. Israel is our proxy.
When Israel was created, by the declining British Empire, the US had few interests in West Asia because oil had not been of strategic importance.
When Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt in the 'Suez crisis', the US didn't have Israel as an ally. As oil became more important, the US needed a base, and the zionist entity provided that and also a strategic power base against the influence of the USSR. The transition from British dominance in the region to the US, is explored in Elizabeth Monroe's book "Britain's Moment in the Middle East" - a Chatham House expert, one of the UK Foreign Office's 'Arabists'. The idea that the US only became embroiled in West Asia BECAUSE of Israel is far from the truth.
Perhaps you need to look back in history more. How the Gulf states came under US influence has a complex backstory, relating to Cold War antagonism between the US and USSR.
If Israel didn't exist they would have had to invent it, through the usual colour revolution pathway. Arab countries have long, complex histories and cultural interactions : the zionist entity was a blank slate, open to colonisation, it was a solution with an open door.
"Perhaps you need to look back in history more. How the Gulf states came under US influence has a complex backstory, relating to Cold War antagonism between the US and USSR."
Your statement is so vague as to be unfalsifiable, not to mention it isn't relevant to the point - the US doesn't need Israel for the gulfie despotates to be dependent on the United States.
That argument makes no sense. They are now dependencies. They couldn’t have become, or been maintained as, dependencies without the US having Israel as its proxy. Whether that relationship still needs Israel is a different question. If you’re arguing that dependency status could have been achieved without Israel? 🤷♂️
This is an interesting analogy and a strong argument. The Romans moved the capital closer to the frontier for logistical reasons before the empire split and the East (still West) settled on Constantinople. Today, Tel Aviv is the frontier and Washington is symbolic. For the dead Republic, I think that it is. I agree with that. As for Israel, it’s starting to look like an unholy, fascist hybrid of the Vatican and apartheid South Africa: no wonder why people throughout the world see the colony for what it is and hate it.
So, we’re inhabitants of the empire, that is if you’re reading this article in the West. Our citizenship has been diluted, elections are mostly ceremonial—every so often a figurehead is appointed, gender and race irrelevant. This is like what happened to the Roman Republic. Regarding the British Empire, I didn’t see the connection fully until now. I’m from the vile settler-colony itself, the USA, and for many reasons I wished that the British had won the civil war. British settler colonists committed treason and started a civil war, which they would’ve lost without European support. For the slaves and Native Americans, it would’ve been better if Parliament had won, but only in the short term. Having read your article, the Anglo-American elite would’ve done something heinous anyways in southwest Asia.
It’s worth taking your analogy further. The Roman Empire was a network, not a country or nation-state (like Macedon or the pre-WWII states). This was the case before the Imperial crisis of the third century. That period of anarchy is comparable to the World Wars and subsequent Cold War. They’re not perfectly analogous, but we can see a similar trajectory for decline…you know, for anyone who hates evil and is worried right now that it’s going to win. Empires don’t voluntarily withdraw or do us a favor by committing suicide. They expand until resistance contains it. Have you all noticed how casualty adverse all Western armies are? They’re low on manpower, even if the Anglo-American armies and their proxies aren’t quite as craven and cowardly as the IDF. In Vietnam, imperial casualties were 315,000 dead; let’s not focus just on the US citizens, it was an imperial army, with legions, auxiliaries and levies from client states, just like Rome, just like every empire. Like the late Roman army, the empire practiced divide and conquer. We’re seeing this in Eastern Europe. The Ukrainians are like the Goths, and other Germanic tribes, who sometimes fought for empire. Fortunately, we’re past Teutoburg (Vietnam), and we’re at Adrianople (Al-Aqsa Flood).
Lastly, the Roman Empire is, in part, a cultural memory. Memories are real, but they’re also fictions. It’s not a contradiction; the word “fiction” even derives from the Latin fictum, to form or shape. So much evidence has been lost about Rome, and almost everything has been lost about the nations that resisted. Still, there’s enough left for meaningful comparison like Justin’s article. So, Professor Podur, thank you the article, and thank you for believing in the Roman Empire! That last part’s a joke, you know what I mean.
Empire requires an obedient citizenry which buys into the manufactured consent through its control of media and digital tools available in this age. it is a double edged sword, however.
The increasing popular dissent within Western capitals recognising the genocide has morphed into a simple 'black and white' narrative. The citizenry in the Imperial core across the West, for the first time, have been exposed to the graphic images generated by the Holocaust in Palestine. Gen Z, clearly resist this.
The hope is that mobilisation leads to organisation and organisation leads to a collective resistance.
Where Empire 'rules the roost', geographically I think, in a digitally connected age might be debatable but this is not important. Davos could meet on Musk's Mars.
I see Empire as a 3-headed beast, an Unholy Trinity.. why I call it USUKIS .. The UK is the more silent partner, but it's spooks & special covert Ops are the gold standard. I believe at the end of WW2, over centuries of colonisation the remnants of the British Empire retained a solid global network of espionage and intelligence assets built up over centuries while losing much of its other hard power. With US "brawn" the UK was often the "brains" with Israel being an extension and geographical outpost of both, and their elites are back & forth & comingled, and probably intermarried like medieval European royal families. They have geographical 'spheres of influence' - London for Europe, possibly Africa, Tel Aviv for MENA, Washington for the Americas & increasingly Asia.
Like recently Hegseth talked to NATO about a Division of Labour in Europe to keep Russia busy & pinned down.. under London. The sneakiest of all terrorists, they created the Muslim Brotherhood after all.
In "Which path to Persia?" There is a Chapter Heading "Leave it to Bibi".. so the US can finally 'pivot to Asia' & probably increase its looting in Latin America to help fund it's push into Asia.
Israel miscalculated in Iran, their assassination/sabotage insurgency was designed to be a quick 'knock-out' blow, months or years in planning, like the Hezb'Allah assassinations & pager attacks, but Iran recovered well enough within 8-12 hours - very impressive really, & forced Israel to go ask "Daddy" for help to de-escalate temporarily until they can revamp/regroup for some other plan of attack.
Tel Aviv & London have been delegated considerable power as 2-ICs within their 'spheres' but Washington is still the capital.
I'm not convinced. The US controls Israel way more than vice versa. Israel is completely militarily dependent upon the US, but the US is not similarly dependent upon Israel.
My interpretation of this mini-thesis is that the author is not attempting to show that one part of the empire is controlling another. The United States of America and Israel are inseparable—integrated politically, economically, militarily and technologically. So if the imperial capital has moved, certain dynamics change and the modus operandi will evolve. But it’s still essentially the same empire with the same imperial factions jockeying for position to call the shots in their favour.
“But I’m really unhappy with Israel going out this morning because of one rocket that didn’t land. That was shot, perhaps by mistake, and didn’t land. I’m not happy about that.” [...] “You know what? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing, do you understand that?”
Now, did the "capital" really "move to Tel Aviv"? - less poetic than the "tail wags the dog", but still hard to pin down. Especially since the move "from London to Washington" was described in hard and soft power terms - of which Tel Aviv has considerably less than even contemporary London.
The comparison between the Roman, British, and American Empires is apt in many ways, they latter even designing their architecture to resemble Roman imperial style.
In this context the institution of "amicitia populi romani" ("friends of the Roman People") comes to mind. This was a special status bequeathed to individuals - and by extension factions or whole tribes - who hitched their wagon to the Romans, did their dirty work, and sent their sons to Rome to foster there (like a certain Israeli prime minister), etc.
This was a keystone of "divide et impera" - "divide and rule". Perhaps you can do a 527 part Roman history installment when the historical podcast catches up to the present somewhere around 2034 ;-?
Likewise the US empire systematically grooms nationalist dissident emigres of rival states, gives them "amicitia" status, to eventually send them back to their home countries to take over or at least destabilize (see e.g. Yasha Levine's "weaponized immigrants" project).
Let's look at the company they keep:
Historically, US imperialists seem to especially like to enlist fascists - even though they did go to war against the Italian and German (but not Spanish) fascist states in WWII (eventually, after Hitler declared war on them).
They also like to throw in with fundamentalist "Islamists" - even though they sometimes have to turn their guns on them when they get too enthusiastic and produce iconic videos killing Americans.
At the really extreme end, they even co-opt Leninist turned Bookchinist Kurdish ground troops - but only until they outlive their usefulness. Got to maintain some standards.
With friends like these, how refreshing to have a proper military outpost / military tech startup incubator! A proper neo-liberal stratified capitalist high GDP society with a white* upper class firmly in charge. (* they actually look pretty much exactly like their neighbors who we insist are brownish). Sure, they are loud and a bit uppity, but you know how hard it is to get decent attack-dogs these days?
Letting them play out their genocidal fantasies is a small price to pay, really, even in the absence of military strategy or logic, as even the German chancellor had to attest. (The last Israeli prime minister to care about such matters opted to withdraw from Gaza, seal it off, and focus on the West Bank instead).
To be fair, the most cynical abscess in my cynical brain only half-expected the US and especially European elites to also throw strategic thinking out of the window and be openly nostalgic about the paleo-colonial and genocidal instincts of their favorite but willful pawns.
Hence I am slow to dismiss Justin's conspiracy-lite conclusions about international elites unified in their genocide project, and the capital having moved, etc. However, my somewhat less cynical brain tissues still cling to Noam Chomsky's analysis of the US-Israel relationship.
We will see when and if the global spotlight moves elsewhere again, e.g. should the waltzing empire finally manage that "pivot to Asia". I suspect this will get the ruling elites somewhat sober again, with but hazy recollections of the guilty pleasures of binge-watching the Nakba season 76-77 (when that new Ukraine series really started to drag).
I still mildly disagree with this. One of the most clarifying things to me that Justin ever said during this genocide is that the Israeli elite and the American elite are one and the same (I also include the Western European vassals + Australia/NZ).
They may have minor internal disagreements, but they remain firmly united. The undisputed head remains the United States, now even more than ever.
The U.S. ordered its Israeli frontline to ‘pause’ open attacks on Iran and they complied immediately. The exposed groveling text sent by the NATO head to the U.S. President is another good example.
What is happening now is that the pretend ‘divisions’ that were such a smokescreen have fallen apart.
Jan Smuts beloved ‘grand racial aristocracy’ is now laid bare for all to see.
They lost their old settler garrisons in Africa - apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia. They are working overtime to prevent the loss of their remaining overt settler garrison in Asia. (Hong Kong/Macau were lost to China).
“The U.S. ordered its Israeli frontline to ‘pause’ open attacks on Iran and they complied immediately”
This is patently untrue. Israel begged the US to make Iran stop the missiles. Trump unilaterally announced a non-existent ceasefire agreement. It suited Iran to go along with it for the time being.
I think we are in agreement. Israel did want a pause desperately. I was merely referring to their inevitable arrogant reflex to respond after being bombed right to the last moment (a fate they usually impose on their ‘inferiors’). They were ordered to stop.
The U.S. knows its limits and applied the leash as needed. Thanks to Iran’s projection of its own sovereign power.
With all due respect, I disagree with the basic premise. It seems to me that in the "dog/tail dilemma" whether you like it or not, you are choosing the far less convincing variant - namely the "tail/dog version".
You are quite right to notice the shifts in the systems of imposing imperial power, but you unnecessarily attribute this to the geographical shift of the "capital" (Washington to Tel Aviv). Namely, capital is omnipresent, although it is not uniformly "smeared" everywhere. It turns out that in Israel it is a relatively thin coating.
Israel was and remains a "border fortress". Of course, if (when) it falls - the path to the "capital" is open. Only then does the battle with capital itself lie ahead.
With all the current theatrics, it may look as if Israel is now leading. But reality says America is 300 million strong and produces all the ordinance, for 3 million and a mad dog in Israel. A mad dog makes a lot of noise, is an excellent proxy attacker. It doesn’t care how much damage it inflicts, or it receives, it will continue biting until it dies. It is a very valuable asset to its owner who can claim the dog is beyond its control whilst continuing to feed and nourish it. When expedient that dog will be rehoused in a Miami kennel for old war dogs. I suspect old American showman habits die hard, and the whole drama is for the global audience, a theatrical performance, not actual capital transfer.
I agree the U.S. is in charge. I think, once in awhile, the US “allows” Israel to take the lead when world opinion starts to focus on the U.S. in a negative way. I look at this situation as a Trump-led reality TV show where the US unveils its “evil” tendencies when safe to do so. Otherwise, the US lets Israel take the heat, especially Netanyahu. The U.S. may be a tool for the wealthy pro-Israel mob in the US but in the end, I think the U.S. is ultimately the lead imperialist regime. Look at how the US ensured NATO survive, with a 5% increase in their fees, when most members said 2% is all they would pay. I believe the whole “show” is televised to ensure confusion in America, as to who is the leader of this mob. Yet, I think the current US government, etc. knows their mask is off because of the genocide in Palestine and the failure of the US to abide by international laws and the UN Charter. Now it is evident that Trump and his mob are “training” Americans by the use of ICE internal attack dogs to instill fear and ensure obedience to the current destruction of democracy and the regime. What Americans will be able to do about this is yet to be determined. Certainly it is evident to some of us that both political parties are involved in this situation and the democrats are playing the part of “good” cop to the republican “bad” cop to sell the show. I think the comparison to Rome is apt but I don’t see the emergence of a more powerful entity to stop the U.S. hegemony yet. Maybe BRICS will be the emerging multi-nodal power but that remains to be seen. Justin sure has provided some amazing food for thought. Thank you!
Sorry Justin, I can’t agree with this. The recent attack on Iran followed exactly the US policy outlined in https://www.brookings.edu/articles/which-path-to-persia-options-for-a-new-american-strategy-toward-iran/ from 2009, including the chapter “Leave it to Bibi”.
Israel is the US unsinkable aircraft carrier from which it can bully its way to complete hegemony in West Asia using a proxy that gives it plausible deniability when needed. The very existence of the Zionist colony depends on the US, financially and militarily. The US runs its war rooms and oversees the genocide, even now providing yet more proxies to oversee aid distribution and murdering more Palestinians. When the colony is no longer needed, it will be dropped as callously as Ukraine, as it serves a similar purpose in America’s wider geopolitical strategy against Russia and China.
And AIPAC and the wider Zionist lobby? Again, this is about plausible deniability. It gives cover to the Deep State that “it’s all the Jews’ fault”, protecting the real interest groups who profit from control of West Asia and will use any, just any means to retain that hegemony.
Remember Trump’s Golden Gaza video? This was a vision that had nothing to do with Israel, as Trump made clear. Using Gulf money (which is all US $) to reconstruct Gaza, a massively profitable enterprise, as has been the reconstruction of Iraq. The same capital forces that made profits through the Military Industrial Complex in running the war, profit from repairing the damage, and this will also happen in the Zionist colony.
You don’t need the heavy geopolitical analysis of Shahid Bolsen, or EvanWritesOnX, just re-read Catch-22: Milo Minderbinder spells it all out. The Empire has its capital in Washington (or the finance centres of New York), and that centre can move or disperse amongst a global elite. But its centre is not Tel Aviv.
I’ve been thinking along these lines as well but I don’t disagree with Justin either. BTW the capitalists are the rich—correct? I ask because that’s where I’ve landed on where the problems lie. $ to government, MIC, by the rich and big corporations. Government cooperation with same for the $ and to stay in power to keep the rich getting richer. Government deregulations approved by the government concerning monopolies, big corporations etc. and no tax by the rich, subsidies to the rich corporations, black water. But I still do wonder if Israhel1 DOES have a stranglehold on governments through infiltration of many agencies (not just government agencies) and blackmail. So maybe the capital of the empire is now in Israhel1?
Israel is being set up by the Empire to take the blame/fall for all the wars in West Asia. The Empire has been planning how to attack Iran for decades - the Brookings Institute policy document from 2009 ‘Which Path to Persia’ plots out different scenarios. The one Trump chose is called in the document “Leave it to Bibi”.
It has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, and nothing to do with protecting Israel. Its purpose is to isolate Russia and China, as part of the wider geopolitical project to retain the Empire’s hegemony, which requires it to weaken any potential rival.
Russia is weakened via the Empire’s proxy Ukraine.
The Empire’s proxy Israel will weaken Iran as the last strongly independent state in W Asia.
The Empire will then target China, using Taiwan, and Indonesia as a proxy.
Iran is important not as a rival but an ally of Russia and China, with oil, sea and trade links that help them resist sanctions.
Israel gives the Empire plausible deniability. And people keep falling for it. Take a step back: Israel couldn’t exist without US money and arms. Both have continued to flow despite the genocide. Why?
Because Israel is doing the Empire’s work for it, but it’s Israel that bears the blame.
Check out YouTube channels such as ‘The New Atlas’ and ‘Middle Nation’. They are excellent at long term geopolitical trend analysis. If you want to understand scapegoating of Israel, check out Shahid Bolsen’s YouTube video “Message to the Israelis (Part Two)”. Do your research…
Hope that helps.
Yes. I’ve done some research and I know about the decades long plan by US. But I’m wondering in the deals and infiltration of Mossad operatives along with CIA and the threat of assassinations literally and personally if Israhel1 has a stranglehold on our government. Yes trump and congress are following the plan but what if they have made missteps and now lost control? Mossad is dug in deep in UK and France. I believe they and their fanatical supporters are also dug into the US. It was one of many concerns of US founders. Ive heard from other channels everything you’ve stated. But as I dig further I do have to think about other things to get a better picture. And I’m not laying all the blame of these atrocities on Israhel1. Oh no no no. I see the US trying to get Americans onboard with war with Iran. I see them supporting Israhel1 in this genocide and pretend ceasefires. And I’m expecting an awe and shock in the US to get us on board with a war! I hope Americans don’t fall for it. I’m afraid how far our government will go though. Thank you for the reminders.
Yeah, the author simply declares that Tel Aviv is the new Empire capital, presenting no evidence. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. The Zionists here and in Tel Aviv KNEW the latter was going to get hit severely in the war designed and ordered in DC, yet went ahead with it anyway. Israel is our proxy.
Before Israel, the US had no enemies in the middle east.
When Israel was created, by the declining British Empire, the US had few interests in West Asia because oil had not been of strategic importance.
When Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt in the 'Suez crisis', the US didn't have Israel as an ally. As oil became more important, the US needed a base, and the zionist entity provided that and also a strategic power base against the influence of the USSR. The transition from British dominance in the region to the US, is explored in Elizabeth Monroe's book "Britain's Moment in the Middle East" - a Chatham House expert, one of the UK Foreign Office's 'Arabists'. The idea that the US only became embroiled in West Asia BECAUSE of Israel is far from the truth.
So if oil were the underlying factor, why choose proxy that has no oil to speak of?
The Saudis and the other gulfie tyrannies are US dependencies, with or without Israel.
Perhaps you need to look back in history more. How the Gulf states came under US influence has a complex backstory, relating to Cold War antagonism between the US and USSR.
If Israel didn't exist they would have had to invent it, through the usual colour revolution pathway. Arab countries have long, complex histories and cultural interactions : the zionist entity was a blank slate, open to colonisation, it was a solution with an open door.
"Perhaps you need to look back in history more. How the Gulf states came under US influence has a complex backstory, relating to Cold War antagonism between the US and USSR."
Your statement is so vague as to be unfalsifiable, not to mention it isn't relevant to the point - the US doesn't need Israel for the gulfie despotates to be dependent on the United States.
That argument makes no sense. They are now dependencies. They couldn’t have become, or been maintained as, dependencies without the US having Israel as its proxy. Whether that relationship still needs Israel is a different question. If you’re arguing that dependency status could have been achieved without Israel? 🤷♂️
If West Jerusalem is now the capital of the Empire, then it is comparable to Ravenna being the capital of the Western Roman Empire in its last days.
Very amusing three panel illustration; other than that I'm not making an effort to rejoinder this. :)
Excellent history outline!
Thanks for the thought-provoking essay, and including the pictures, especially of the genocidal, diaper- and lingerie-wearing 'israeli' soldiers.
Beautifully explained
This is an interesting analogy and a strong argument. The Romans moved the capital closer to the frontier for logistical reasons before the empire split and the East (still West) settled on Constantinople. Today, Tel Aviv is the frontier and Washington is symbolic. For the dead Republic, I think that it is. I agree with that. As for Israel, it’s starting to look like an unholy, fascist hybrid of the Vatican and apartheid South Africa: no wonder why people throughout the world see the colony for what it is and hate it.
So, we’re inhabitants of the empire, that is if you’re reading this article in the West. Our citizenship has been diluted, elections are mostly ceremonial—every so often a figurehead is appointed, gender and race irrelevant. This is like what happened to the Roman Republic. Regarding the British Empire, I didn’t see the connection fully until now. I’m from the vile settler-colony itself, the USA, and for many reasons I wished that the British had won the civil war. British settler colonists committed treason and started a civil war, which they would’ve lost without European support. For the slaves and Native Americans, it would’ve been better if Parliament had won, but only in the short term. Having read your article, the Anglo-American elite would’ve done something heinous anyways in southwest Asia.
It’s worth taking your analogy further. The Roman Empire was a network, not a country or nation-state (like Macedon or the pre-WWII states). This was the case before the Imperial crisis of the third century. That period of anarchy is comparable to the World Wars and subsequent Cold War. They’re not perfectly analogous, but we can see a similar trajectory for decline…you know, for anyone who hates evil and is worried right now that it’s going to win. Empires don’t voluntarily withdraw or do us a favor by committing suicide. They expand until resistance contains it. Have you all noticed how casualty adverse all Western armies are? They’re low on manpower, even if the Anglo-American armies and their proxies aren’t quite as craven and cowardly as the IDF. In Vietnam, imperial casualties were 315,000 dead; let’s not focus just on the US citizens, it was an imperial army, with legions, auxiliaries and levies from client states, just like Rome, just like every empire. Like the late Roman army, the empire practiced divide and conquer. We’re seeing this in Eastern Europe. The Ukrainians are like the Goths, and other Germanic tribes, who sometimes fought for empire. Fortunately, we’re past Teutoburg (Vietnam), and we’re at Adrianople (Al-Aqsa Flood).
Lastly, the Roman Empire is, in part, a cultural memory. Memories are real, but they’re also fictions. It’s not a contradiction; the word “fiction” even derives from the Latin fictum, to form or shape. So much evidence has been lost about Rome, and almost everything has been lost about the nations that resisted. Still, there’s enough left for meaningful comparison like Justin’s article. So, Professor Podur, thank you the article, and thank you for believing in the Roman Empire! That last part’s a joke, you know what I mean.
Thank you Justin.
Empire requires an obedient citizenry which buys into the manufactured consent through its control of media and digital tools available in this age. it is a double edged sword, however.
The increasing popular dissent within Western capitals recognising the genocide has morphed into a simple 'black and white' narrative. The citizenry in the Imperial core across the West, for the first time, have been exposed to the graphic images generated by the Holocaust in Palestine. Gen Z, clearly resist this.
The hope is that mobilisation leads to organisation and organisation leads to a collective resistance.
Where Empire 'rules the roost', geographically I think, in a digitally connected age might be debatable but this is not important. Davos could meet on Musk's Mars.
I see Empire as a 3-headed beast, an Unholy Trinity.. why I call it USUKIS .. The UK is the more silent partner, but it's spooks & special covert Ops are the gold standard. I believe at the end of WW2, over centuries of colonisation the remnants of the British Empire retained a solid global network of espionage and intelligence assets built up over centuries while losing much of its other hard power. With US "brawn" the UK was often the "brains" with Israel being an extension and geographical outpost of both, and their elites are back & forth & comingled, and probably intermarried like medieval European royal families. They have geographical 'spheres of influence' - London for Europe, possibly Africa, Tel Aviv for MENA, Washington for the Americas & increasingly Asia.
Like recently Hegseth talked to NATO about a Division of Labour in Europe to keep Russia busy & pinned down.. under London. The sneakiest of all terrorists, they created the Muslim Brotherhood after all.
In "Which path to Persia?" There is a Chapter Heading "Leave it to Bibi".. so the US can finally 'pivot to Asia' & probably increase its looting in Latin America to help fund it's push into Asia.
Israel miscalculated in Iran, their assassination/sabotage insurgency was designed to be a quick 'knock-out' blow, months or years in planning, like the Hezb'Allah assassinations & pager attacks, but Iran recovered well enough within 8-12 hours - very impressive really, & forced Israel to go ask "Daddy" for help to de-escalate temporarily until they can revamp/regroup for some other plan of attack.
Tel Aviv & London have been delegated considerable power as 2-ICs within their 'spheres' but Washington is still the capital.
I'm not convinced. The US controls Israel way more than vice versa. Israel is completely militarily dependent upon the US, but the US is not similarly dependent upon Israel.
My interpretation of this mini-thesis is that the author is not attempting to show that one part of the empire is controlling another. The United States of America and Israel are inseparable—integrated politically, economically, militarily and technologically. So if the imperial capital has moved, certain dynamics change and the modus operandi will evolve. But it’s still essentially the same empire with the same imperial factions jockeying for position to call the shots in their favour.
In 1996, Bill Clinton remarked privately after his first meeting with Bibi, “Who the fuck does he think he is? Who’s the fucking superpower here?”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/09/benjamin-netanyahu-should-be-careful-about-inserting-himself-too-much-into-the-presidential-race-between-barack-obama-and-mitt-romney.html
“But I’m really unhappy with Israel going out this morning because of one rocket that didn’t land. That was shot, perhaps by mistake, and didn’t land. I’m not happy about that.” [...] “You know what? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing, do you understand that?”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-iran-israel-what-theyre-doing-b2775841.html
Now, did the "capital" really "move to Tel Aviv"? - less poetic than the "tail wags the dog", but still hard to pin down. Especially since the move "from London to Washington" was described in hard and soft power terms - of which Tel Aviv has considerably less than even contemporary London.
The comparison between the Roman, British, and American Empires is apt in many ways, they latter even designing their architecture to resemble Roman imperial style.
In this context the institution of "amicitia populi romani" ("friends of the Roman People") comes to mind. This was a special status bequeathed to individuals - and by extension factions or whole tribes - who hitched their wagon to the Romans, did their dirty work, and sent their sons to Rome to foster there (like a certain Israeli prime minister), etc.
This was a keystone of "divide et impera" - "divide and rule". Perhaps you can do a 527 part Roman history installment when the historical podcast catches up to the present somewhere around 2034 ;-?
Likewise the US empire systematically grooms nationalist dissident emigres of rival states, gives them "amicitia" status, to eventually send them back to their home countries to take over or at least destabilize (see e.g. Yasha Levine's "weaponized immigrants" project).
Let's look at the company they keep:
Historically, US imperialists seem to especially like to enlist fascists - even though they did go to war against the Italian and German (but not Spanish) fascist states in WWII (eventually, after Hitler declared war on them).
They also like to throw in with fundamentalist "Islamists" - even though they sometimes have to turn their guns on them when they get too enthusiastic and produce iconic videos killing Americans.
At the really extreme end, they even co-opt Leninist turned Bookchinist Kurdish ground troops - but only until they outlive their usefulness. Got to maintain some standards.
With friends like these, how refreshing to have a proper military outpost / military tech startup incubator! A proper neo-liberal stratified capitalist high GDP society with a white* upper class firmly in charge. (* they actually look pretty much exactly like their neighbors who we insist are brownish). Sure, they are loud and a bit uppity, but you know how hard it is to get decent attack-dogs these days?
Letting them play out their genocidal fantasies is a small price to pay, really, even in the absence of military strategy or logic, as even the German chancellor had to attest. (The last Israeli prime minister to care about such matters opted to withdraw from Gaza, seal it off, and focus on the West Bank instead).
To be fair, the most cynical abscess in my cynical brain only half-expected the US and especially European elites to also throw strategic thinking out of the window and be openly nostalgic about the paleo-colonial and genocidal instincts of their favorite but willful pawns.
Hence I am slow to dismiss Justin's conspiracy-lite conclusions about international elites unified in their genocide project, and the capital having moved, etc. However, my somewhat less cynical brain tissues still cling to Noam Chomsky's analysis of the US-Israel relationship.
We will see when and if the global spotlight moves elsewhere again, e.g. should the waltzing empire finally manage that "pivot to Asia". I suspect this will get the ruling elites somewhat sober again, with but hazy recollections of the guilty pleasures of binge-watching the Nakba season 76-77 (when that new Ukraine series really started to drag).
I still mildly disagree with this. One of the most clarifying things to me that Justin ever said during this genocide is that the Israeli elite and the American elite are one and the same (I also include the Western European vassals + Australia/NZ).
They may have minor internal disagreements, but they remain firmly united. The undisputed head remains the United States, now even more than ever.
The U.S. ordered its Israeli frontline to ‘pause’ open attacks on Iran and they complied immediately. The exposed groveling text sent by the NATO head to the U.S. President is another good example.
What is happening now is that the pretend ‘divisions’ that were such a smokescreen have fallen apart.
Jan Smuts beloved ‘grand racial aristocracy’ is now laid bare for all to see.
They lost their old settler garrisons in Africa - apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia. They are working overtime to prevent the loss of their remaining overt settler garrison in Asia. (Hong Kong/Macau were lost to China).
“The U.S. ordered its Israeli frontline to ‘pause’ open attacks on Iran and they complied immediately”
This is patently untrue. Israel begged the US to make Iran stop the missiles. Trump unilaterally announced a non-existent ceasefire agreement. It suited Iran to go along with it for the time being.
I think we are in agreement. Israel did want a pause desperately. I was merely referring to their inevitable arrogant reflex to respond after being bombed right to the last moment (a fate they usually impose on their ‘inferiors’). They were ordered to stop.
The U.S. knows its limits and applied the leash as needed. Thanks to Iran’s projection of its own sovereign power.
With all due respect, I disagree with the basic premise. It seems to me that in the "dog/tail dilemma" whether you like it or not, you are choosing the far less convincing variant - namely the "tail/dog version".
You are quite right to notice the shifts in the systems of imposing imperial power, but you unnecessarily attribute this to the geographical shift of the "capital" (Washington to Tel Aviv). Namely, capital is omnipresent, although it is not uniformly "smeared" everywhere. It turns out that in Israel it is a relatively thin coating.
Israel was and remains a "border fortress". Of course, if (when) it falls - the path to the "capital" is open. Only then does the battle with capital itself lie ahead.
Hey Justin, I’m not really convinced.
With all the current theatrics, it may look as if Israel is now leading. But reality says America is 300 million strong and produces all the ordinance, for 3 million and a mad dog in Israel. A mad dog makes a lot of noise, is an excellent proxy attacker. It doesn’t care how much damage it inflicts, or it receives, it will continue biting until it dies. It is a very valuable asset to its owner who can claim the dog is beyond its control whilst continuing to feed and nourish it. When expedient that dog will be rehoused in a Miami kennel for old war dogs. I suspect old American showman habits die hard, and the whole drama is for the global audience, a theatrical performance, not actual capital transfer.
Sage words. May we see the empire collapse and wash away 🙏🏽
The USA is to blame, Israel could do nothing without our money and weapons.