Gaza war as indicator of West’s crumbling dominance

The Gaza crisis serves as a reflection of the crumbling unipolar rules as the world is embracing multipolarity and seeking new approaches to simmering conflicts. The erupted conflict is the result of a string of mistakes made by the international community and the US, in particular, during its unipolar moment, according to Alexander Asafov, political scientist, member of the Russian Association of Political Consultants.

“It was [the US] who sowed the seeds of these mistakes, which have led to these smoldering conflicts,” Asafov told Sputnik. “And, of course, we see a clear manifestation. [The current crisis] in the Middle East, this is the result of just such a conflict. After all, it was [US President Donald] Trump who moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The Americans did a lot of things to prevent pacification in this area, not to mention the implementation of the 1947 UN Security Council decision on the creation of an Arab state in Palestine. Therefore, of course, this is a clear manifestation of the fact that there is no longer any Pax Americana, no unipolar world. And now the world is entering a new transition period, towards multipolarity, including through pain, blood and awakening conflicts.”

Sputnik’s interlocutors warned that the US and UK’s naval deployments near the region could fan the flames of the crisis even further instead of calming it down since Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah might consider the Western military buildup as a provocation and a direct threat.

Per Asafov, old rules of show of force and intimidation don’t work, and international players need to tread carefully to avoid bigger conflicts. Thus, the irresponsible militarization of Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel will make the world less safe and more turbulent.

“The fact is that only this way they could show that their old rules, bloc rules – not civilizational ones based on values, but colonial rules based on financial gain, and pumping out resources from other countries – still work and can defend themselves. This could only be demonstrated in this way. This is what they do,” said the political scientist.

However, these colonial rules no longer work, per the academic, meaning that global and regional players would have to sit at the negotiating table as equals and find the solutions to the urgent crisis including the unfolding conflict in the Gaza strip.

President Biden labelled the Hamas attacks as “pure, unadulterated evil.” Such “logic” leads to the inescapable conclusion that the United States must support Israel enthusiastically and without reservation. The New York Times established the tone in an October 9, 2023, editorial. Members of the editorial board stated that “President Biden is right to express America’s full support for Israel at this painful moment. The United States, as its closest ally, has a critical role to play,” notes Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute and a senior fellow at the Libertarian Institute, he also posts a 37-year career at the Cato Institute.

It is the same script that America’s pro-war elites used with respect to the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, the two wars with Iraq, and the disastrous meddling by the United States and its allies in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. The motive is the same as well – to whip-up public support for the client that the U.S. government is backing and visceral hatred for the “aggressor.” Such imagery also is designed to create sentiment in favor of a possible direct U.S. military intervention.

The United States needs to end its rote solidarity with Israel. It is a sad situation when the Secretary of State feels it necessary to delete a bland tweet simply calling for a cease fire in the Israeli-Hamas conflict. In his Farewell Address, President George Washington cautioned his fellow citizens that a “nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” It was a prescient warning that applies with special intensity regarding U.S. policy toward Israel. Too many American opinion leaders act as though Israel is an integral part of the United States rather than a foreign country with its own biases, interests, and agendas.

Administration officials especially must end any flirtation with the notion of attacking Iran as a response to the violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Venturing down that path will lead only to greater tragedy for all concerned. The last thing that America needs is to launch another bloody, debilitating, unwinnable war, stresses Ted Galen Carpenter.

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