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War On Iran: – Borg Concedes Loss Of Control In Middle East
At least a part of the U.S. foreign policy borg has come to the conclusion that the U.S. has lost its primary role in the Middle East. There seems to be little appetite to regain the position.
The purpose of this post is to collect these voices.
Marc Lynch writes in Foreign Affairs:
The End of the American Middle East – Iran and the Last Gasp of a Failed Order (archived) – Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct 2026
The American Middle East is finished. The regional order that has prevailed since 1991 has been one of the many casualties of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. The American and Israeli failure to dislodge the regime in Tehran has proved the bankruptcy of decades of sanctions and violence. The inability of the United States to protect its Gulf allies from Iranian attacks or to keep the Strait of Hormuz open has fatally undermined the core security bargain that justified its network of military bases in the region. And Israel’s increasingly threatening posture and abandonment of any pretense of interest in reaching an accommodation with the Palestinians have ended Washington’s decades-long mission of bringing its Arab allies and Israel together into an enduring security partnership.
Nevertheless, at the end March Lynch, being a liberal interventionist, argues to further ‘spread democracy’ in the name of ‘human rights’ in the Middle East. It is what the instinct of the ‘liberals’ in the Democratic party prescribes. It is the reason why the Democrats, should they regain power, would likely support a prolongation of the war against Iran.
In the Atlantic the neo-conservative Robert Kagan ponders the consequences of the U.S. defeat:
Iran Unleashed – The dominant power in the Middle East from now on will not be the U.S. or Israel but Iran. (archived) – Atlantic, Aug 23, 2026
For years, Iran confronted a balance of power in the Middle East that tilted against it. The region was dominated by a hostile American superpower, a nuclear-armed and militarily superior Israel, and significant local actors—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates—that were strategically and economically aligned with the United States.
Today finds Iran in entirely new circumstances. It has gone head-to-head with the superpower and Israel, withstood a pounding from their most advanced weapons, and more than survived. As a result, Iran has, with American help, completely reconfigured the power structure of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The dominant power in the region going forward will be Iran, not the U.S. or Israel. Neighboring countries are already making their adjustments to this new reality. More distant powers will too. For years, the world has been dealing with an Iran constrained. It will now discover what Iran unleashed looks like.
Kagan says that Iran does not need an MoU, or any other agreement with the U.S. It does not even need nuclear weapons. Sanctions against Iran wont help:
Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz is a more useful instrument of power than a nuclear weapon would be. A nuclear weapon might deter an attack, but control of the strait gives Iran leverage every day, over dozens of countries. With it, Iran can reward friends, punish enemies, extract revenue, force the loosening of sanctions, and make governments think twice before opposing Iranian policies. It can do all of this without firing a shot, and while preserving the ability to threaten violence when necessary.
The sanctions strategy that for decades served to isolate Iran rested on international cooperation. Nations that depend on access to the strait—Japan and South Korea, for example—will have to choose between access to a reliable energy supply and participation in American-backed sanctions. Will they choose solidarity with Washington—this Washington—over their economic interests? In the new order that Iran is creating, a global sanctions regime is likely to be unsustainable.
In an op-ed in the New York Times Rosemary Kelanic of Defense Priorities makes an economic argument to end the blockade against Iran and to let it collect tolls from ships passing the Strait:
Let Iran Control the Strait of Hormuz – NY Times, Aug 24 2026
Financially, transit fees are a better deal for the United States and the world than a prolonged semiclosure of the strait. … If the Hormuz standoff causes oil prices to spike, the economic damage could be severe, especially for the United States, whose economy is far more oil-intensive than those of other great powers like Russia and China.
…
As embarrassing as Hormuz taxes would be for the United States and for Mr. Trump personally, monetizing safe passage would encourage Iran to allow through as many ships as possible so it can collect more tolls. And if Iran grows dependent on revenue from administering the strait, closing it in the future for political reasons becomes more difficult.
General McCaffrey (ret.), a hawk who had ordered the Highway Of Death slaughter during the 1991 war on Iraq, is lamenting the need of a U.S. retreat:
Barry R McCaffrey @mccaffreyr3 – 23:54 UTC · Aug 22, 2026
In my judgement, the US Armed Forces have probably permanently lost access to 15 Persian Gulf bases. Iran now poised to control access the Gulf States. US will have to negotiate new access in western Saudi Arabia, Israel, southern Europe.
The Financial Times is asking accordingly:
Are America’s vast Gulf bases worth rebuilding? (archived) – FT, Aug 24 2026
“There is not a lot of utility in rebuilding some of these sites,” said Nate Swanson, a former director for Iran at the US National Security Council, who noted the need to fund a rebuild of otherwise unwanted installations could accelerate existing trends. “I would be very surprised if there is not a westwards move.”
Giving up on the bases means more than a military move. It implicates a loss of control:
“This is a situation where the military and diplomatic imperatives cut in opposing directions,” Brands of Johns Hopkins said. “You have to combat the perception that you are cutting and running.”
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“The Carter Doctrine does appear to have collapsed,” said Gregory Brew, a historian and analyst at the Eurasia Group, adding that there was a sense that Washington had come full circle. “The Islamic Revolution compelled the Carter Doctrine, and it was war with Iran that caused it to collapse,” he added.
The Carter Doctrine, which threatened the use of U.S. force to control the Persian Gulf, was a response to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The danger it was supposed to fight is, of course, no longer exiting.
The ‘China threat’ is too vague to justify the extremely high costs of its revival.
It is therefore likely that the U.S., probably after some additional skirmishes, is forced to retreat.
Through out this entire conflict the US political and military leadership have shown a shocking level of incompetence on all levels of decision making, attacking a nation during peace talks, assassinating the other country’s leadership, assassinating the diplomats that were talking to the US’s own diplomats, starting a war without a strategic plan or logistical support for a prolonged conflict, failure to consider counter responses from Iran, failure to consider how other nations (China, Russia) might respond to such an attack. All of these failures are unforgivable, but the worst of all of them is the failure to respect the Iranian capacity to retaliate. Throughout this conflict the US has repeatedly disregarded, downplayed or derided the Iranian’s ability to military defend themselves and inflict pain on American assets. This blithe attuite of the Americans towards the Iranians has resulted in the loss of more than 90 US military aircraft, worth more than 10 billion dollars, the operational destruction of at least 16 of the 20 US military bases in the Middle East built over the last 40 years, the destruction of the 5th fleet’s naval HQ, the destruction of all 8 major radar instillations in the Middle east worth between 5-8 billion dollars, officially at least 18 US military deaths (unofficial numbers that include US private military, US civilian contractors and soldiers who died “later” due to their injuries are over 1500!) and of course the loss of roughly 15% of world wide oil production and oil-related products (fertilizer, sulfur, helium, nitrogen, asphalt, etc..). The Americans have constantly talked about Iran as if it was a rotten house and one good kick would bring down the entire rotten structure, Knowingly or not, in using this phrase, the Americans are harkening back to World War 2 when Hitler made the exact same comment about the Soviet Union in the weeks leading up to Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Soviet Union. Although his invasion inflicted massive suffering on the Soviet people, ultimately it was the Germans who were defeated and subjected to a crushing defeat that they still have not recovered from, could it be that the Americans are on the same path as the Germans? If you do not respect your opponent, history has shown time and time again that a crafty opponent can triumph over an enemy who is notionally stronger on paper.
But how did this happen, how did the US political and military elite lose all of these key attributes required for statecraft and war. I propose that these failures are a result of loss of civic virtue within the US institutional elite and that this loss of civic virtue is making it impossible for the state to form logical, function policies. I will not dive deeper into that subject now, so suffice it to say that I believe an oligarchical economic elite has usurped control of the US political process through the 2 major political parties AND has also seized control of US security and governmental agencies thorough the integration of these agencies into non-governmental think tanks and advocacy organizations (NGOs), which form a self-referential, self-reinforcing group think that overrides traditional state interests in favor of oligarchical interests. How does this destroy civic virtue and how does that render the US incapable of planning an effective war? I will explain; since these NGOs are used as influence peddlers by the oligarchical economic elite, they have to disavow rational realpolitik State interest in favor of an ideological framework where NGO policies are morally “good” and on the “right side of history” and realpolitik political and national economic self-interests are morally “bad”, it is simply a happy coincident that the policies these NGOs support also support the economic interests of the oligarchics that fund the NGOs. In doing so, the NGOs act as a middleman carrying the “bribes” of the oligarchics (the bribes in this case being speaking agreements, book deals, awards, travel expenses, board positions, advisory positions, council memberships) to government officials. In doing so the NGOs act as a sort of a cult, “love bombing” government figures with accolades and praise when they follow the NGO line and condemning them when they step out of line. Eventually this process creates a group think where party line and party purity totally supplants rational state policy discussions and this is where the decline of civic virtue becomes an issue. If you’re a 4 star General, why should you plan out a prolonged military engagement, if you’ve been told this victory is a slam dunk, in and out in a single weekend as Trump famously said? Actually, isn’t planning a prolonged military slog over 2-3 years a bad idea, if the political consensus said the war will be over in a SINGLE WEEKEND! Doesn’t that make your realistic plan for a prolonged conflict involving large armies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, tens of thousands of allied deaths and 100s of billions in additional spending sort of a vote of non confidence in the plan, isn’t that DISLOYALITY? Better not plan that out, instead protect your future career and show your party loyalty by saying you believed in the group think too and no one could have seen this coming. I mean yes, billions of dollars in damages will be done to your own side and thousands of your own people will be killed and wounded that could have been easily avoided. But its’ not like the Iranians will win the war, I mean their bad, evil people who kill thousands of their own people not like when we kill and wound thousands of their people or allow thousands of our own people to be killed and wounded because we fail to take appropriate precautions, those are completely different things because we are good and they are bad.
Here’s a specific example, the Pentagon just fired the entire senior leadership of Stars and Stripes (Editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, publisher Max Lederer, and Middle East reporter Lara Korte), the US military’s newspaper of record. Officially they were fired for insubordination for criticizing Pentagon policies, however the editor believes they were fired for breaking the news story about the multiple attempted suicides of US sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln 2 weeks ago and they had been receiving pressure from the Pentagon over their criticism of Pentagon planning of the war on Iran over the past 2 months. This is an excellent example of how group think and party loyalty destroys civic virtue and eventually destroys the very institutions political consensus is supposed to protect. Stars and Stripes sole point of existence is for members of the US military to discuss relevant issues and concerns affecting service members. Due to their special and unique role within the US military, Stars and Stripes even have journalist independence from the Pentagon written into US law to ensure they are able to do this. The Pentagon in the name of enforcing group think and party loyalty just threw Stars and Stripes into the woodchipper in order to prevent the unforgiveable crime of “constructive criticism”. Every Journalist at Stars and Stripes now knows that if they break a story about embarrassing to military leadershuip, offers suggestions to avoid future errors or crises affecting US troops, their careers will be destroyed. What will that mean? well, it means Stars and Stripes will stop reporting about actual issues negatively impacting US service personal, it may even become an worthless propaganda rag, totally disassociated from the people it is supposed to represent in its writings. Some of the staff “the virtuous” will probably leave because of these firings even though they weren’t targeted but because they don’t want to be part of this new direction. They will be replaced by people who either don’t care about the actual purpose of Stars and Stripes or who actively support the group think message, allowing a lower class of people, who lack such moral integrity, into leadership positions they would not normally be allowed into.
Taking a step back, we can use this same logic to look at how the US military might be impacted at a larger level. I have no doubt that there are “virtuous” US military officers and NCOs who will look at this and say, “this is bullshit; I will not risk the lives of the soldiers under my command because senior leadership is not willing to make realistic military plans and assessments because it will hurt their career, I quit”. They too will be replaced, but they will be replaced by “immoral” people who look at the same situation and say “yes, I’m ok with risking the lives of my soldiers trying to fulfil impossible plans in order to enforce party discipline and advance my career”, this will filter down the ranks into the enlisted personnel and you will get a return of the Vietnam US military, where the enlisted soldiers despised the officers and actively sabotaged missions in order to maximize their personal chances of survival, the frontline officers in turn lied to their superiors about results and the command staff itself eventually ended up with a completely delusional picture of military situation on the ground which caused them to make in more ridiculous plans. It took 20 years for the US military to rebuild after Vietnam (remember George H.W. Bush saying the US had finally “kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all” in 1991, after the Gulf war). By outlawing constructive criticism the US is putting itself on a path to yet another military defeat and perhaps a strategic disaster (so we’ve had Afghanistan, Iraq, Libia, Syria, Ukraine and now Iran)
Posted by: Kadath | Aug 24 2026 11:09 utc | 6
If you keep repeating USatan propaganda, you keep failing to understand the Past, and keep failing to make way for a better Future:
“The Carter Doctrine, which threatened the use of U.S. force to control the Persian Gulf, was a response to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The danger it was supposed to fight is, of course, no longer exiting.”
1) The Soviets did NOT invade Afghanistan;
2) Afghanistan had a Socialist oriented and secular Republic (the best government that country ever had!), that asked USSR for military HELP to defend against Taliban insurgency;
3) USatan then used that lie, “invasion”, to sell to its taxpayers the operation of financing and arming that insurgency;
4) the propaganda went as far as having the Rambo 3 movie dedicated to the “brave mujahideen” aka the Taliban, and have the usual Mainstream FakeNews Media to publish articles glorifying those Taliban and their Saudi leader: Osama bin Laden – a “hero” according to The Independent newspaper;
5) in the end, Afghanistan was DESTROYED by USatan, since the Soviet military help failed and the only democracy that ever existed in Afghanistan was overthrown, with a civil war being fought for years thanks to all the remaining weapons in the hands of insurgents, warring tribes, extremists, and specifically the Taliban and the first form of al-Qaeda: militants radicalized in Pakistan at USatan’s request;
Does thia remind you of something?
– Afghanistan Republic = Donbass Republics;
– Soviet “invasion” = Russian “war of aggression”:
– USatan givinf weapons to Taliban = USatan giving weapons to Nazis;
– prolonging a war (refusing peace) to weaken USSR = prolonging war (refusing peace) to weaken Russia (and China);
– radicalization of islamic extremists in Pakistan = radicalization of ukrainian patriots for decades in Ukraine (even before thr 2014 CIA coup) with USatan money;
And, of course, western PRESStitutes (and movies later doing back then what social media now does immediately) fooling all the western idiots and naive people.
What’s even more interesting, ironic, is that the USatan military presence in the Gulf regimes (dictatorial monarchic islamic states, NOT democratic socialist secular republics) is much greater than the military presence of Soviets inside Afghanistan, even during that “invasion” period.
And yet, the USatan is never accused of INVASION, not even IMPERIAL CONTROL, of these Gulf regimes.
The most obvious one is Bahrain: the majority of the people are Xiites, and have positive views of Iran, are unwavering friends of Palestine, want democracy, refuse zionist, and despise USatan occupation.
But the regime does the OPPOSITE, and had to violently/militarily repress those that were protesting on the streets during the first days of the USatan aggression against Iran.
See how a simple lie, repeated over and over again, becomes “truth”, shaping the minds and perception of generation after generation.
One of these days, I was explaining to a Portuguese fellow citizen how USatan is evil and how Russia is just being defensive.
His almost automatic answer was: “yeah? What about Russia invading Afghanistan?”.
He didn’t even remember/mention a single actual INVASION in that whole regiom committed by USatan… because “that’s different, yoi don’t understand”, it was “Saddam this”, “bin Laden that”, and “israel is what’s in the Bible”…
A similar thing happens with the “cuban” missile crisis.
It was not a crisis in Cuba.
Cuba was the SOLUTION.
The crisis started when USatan put its missiles in Turkey, threatening USSR.
The crisis was solved when the Soviets did the same in Cuba, forcing USatan to step back in its aggression/expansion.
But, after repeating “cuban” missile crisis for so many decades, people’s perception and collective “memory” now only has the “truth” that USatan wants.
So, please, stop repeating USatan’s lies.
The Soviets did NOT invade Afghanistan.
An Afghani secular Republic was destroyed by USatan arming insurgents and islamic extremists, including the Taliban led by Osama bin Laden, a saudi working for/with the CIA/Pentagon back then.
And Russia is not making an “unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against innocent democratic independent Ukraine”.
USatan made a coup, established a vassal dictatorship, financed and armed nazis, started a war against Donbass civilians, and violated a peace agreement, all part of a plan for “over extendind” Russia, and part of a broader plan to “contain” China and prevent multipolarity.
Also, there isn’t a “middle east conflict”.
There is, since 1947, a western/zionist illegitimate colonialism with ethnic cleansing and genocidal characteristics, and there is a 100% justified violent resistance from the Palestinian and Hezbollah side.
And the exact same thing will happen in Taiwan. USatan propaganda is already preparing the consent for another proxy war of aggression, and CIA/Pentagon make sure the vassals stay in power and have all the weapons necessary to “defend from Communist aggression”.
Posted by: Carlos Marques | Aug 24 2026 13:40 utc | 35
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