US on Iran: Does the World Need a Superpower Running Amok?

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s the situation the United States finds itself in vis-à-vis Iran solely due to Trump, or is it the result of a process that has been unfolding in plain sight since the end of the First Cold War? Will it be actions arising from the US streets—that is, from the grassroots—that bring Trump down, or will the fact that the warnings issued by the establishment in the past are finally being heeded, albeit belatedly, prevent this course of events?

On Wednesday, 25 March 2026—the 26th day of the war—an interesting report was broadcast on the US media outlet NBC. According to at least three sources within NBC’s management, Trump was being briefed on the course of the war solely through two-minute videos featuring the US military’s successful attacks. Consequently, he only became aware of the destruction of US tanker aircraft during the attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia through the media. Although this report by NBC was denied by the White House Spokesperson, it could serve as an important reference point for explaining the content of Trump’s statements regarding the course of the war, which do not align with reality.

Furthermore, if Trump has been receiving information about his country and world history in the same manner as these war briefings, the situation in which the US finds itself becomes clearer. At this point, I would like to make a brief aside regarding the concept of the ‘war’ Trump is waging against Iran. Interestingly, Trump is currently avoiding describing the events unfolding in the Middle East as a ‘war’.

Moreover, he has borrowed a phrase used by Russian President Putin regarding Ukraine: ‘We are not at war; we are conducting a special operation’. It is possible, albeit difficult, to justify Putin’s use of this phrase under the pretext of protecting the Russian-speaking population living on Ukrainian soil. But if, according to Trump’s definition, the US military is not at war whilst spending approximately 2 billion dollars a day, what exactly is it doing?

Kennan had warned about Israel before Kent

There was no need to wait for the resignation of Joe Kent, Director of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, on 17 March 2025, or for the reasons he gave for his decision, to understand where Trump and his team went wrong regarding Iran, and why and how they failed. A similar warning had been issued to another US president exactly 78 years ago, immediately following the establishment of the State of Israel. See how John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt describe the warning given to US President Truman regarding Israel in 1948 in their work *The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy*:

“When Israel was established in 1948, US policymakers did not regard Israel as a strategic asset… Truman’s decision to recognise Israel stemmed not from strategic reasons, but from his sympathy for the suffering of the Jewish people… Key advisers, including Secretary of State George Marshall and Director of Policy Planning George Kennan, opposed this decision on the grounds that it would strain US relations with the Arab world and allow the Soviets to gain influence in the region. According to a secret note written by Kennan in 1948, ‘supporting the extreme objectives of political Zionism was contrary to the United States’ security objectives in the Middle East’. In Kennan’s view, this decision to recognise the state would increase the opportunities available to the Soviet Union in the region, jeopardising oil revenues and the base rights the US had secured there.”

If you replace ‘Soviet Union’ with ‘People’s Republic of China’ in Kennan’s warnings, you can see exactly where the current war stands. George Kennan was no fortune-teller. On 22 February 1946, he sent the longest telegram in history—8,000 words—from Moscow to Washington, outlining Stalin’s true objectives and setting out the framework for the strategy required to contain the Soviet Union. Kennan, who was serving at the US Embassy in Moscow, had in a sense written the manifesto of the First Cold War in 1946, and by 1948 had accurately identified the troubles Israel would cause for the US.

However, it was not just Trump; from Kennedy onwards, US Presidents not only failed to heed Kennan’s warning but, particularly through legislative measures during the Nixon era in 1972, handed over the reins of US policy to the Zionist lobbies. Let us now turn to the Trump administration’s lack of strategy.

The US’s 35-year strategic debacle

Trump’s contradictory statements and constantly shifting objectives throughout the first month of the war are sufficient proof that the US embarked on this adventure without a strategy or political objectives of its own, merely tagging along behind Israel. The fact that, from the 20th day of the war onwards, the sole objective was reduced to merely ‘reopening the Strait of Hormuz’ speaks volumes about how the process was conducted without any strategic acumen.

The strategic failure the US has been experiencing since 2026 is not merely a problem that emerged with Donald Trump’s presidency and can be resolved by his departure. Andrew Marshall, known as the “Pentagon’s Yoda” and who served continuously as Director of the US Department of Defence’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA) from 1973 to 2015, was another figure who, like Kennan, had foreseen these times, having served eight US presidents. In 1973, US President Nixon established the ONA within the Pentagon as a think tank.

The organization’s purpose was to identify threats to the US and formulate military policies for at least the next 30 years. Nixon appointed Andrew Marshall, then an assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, as the head of this institution. Marshall did not merely steer US military policy; he also prepared psychological profiles on leaders whom the US perceived as threats, notably Putin. Figures such as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad and Donald Rumsfeld were groomed under his tutelage.

Lieutenant General Chen Zhou, who authored between four and nine White Papers—depending on the source—outlining the defense doctrines of the People’s Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China between 1998 and 2015, stated in an interview in 2012 that, from the 1990s onwards, his country had drawn upon Marshall’s views in reshaping its defense doctrines. Indeed, when Andrew Marshall, shortly after the victory in the First Cold War in the 1990s, issued a research directive to the office he headed titled ‘Why Can’t the US Produce Strategists Anymore?’, many, intoxicated by the victory over the USSR, greeted this directive with derision. Just as they had laughed at the warnings in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1995 book *Out of Control*, written by the National Security Advisor during the Carter administration.

In his book, Brzezinski highlighted, through a manifesto of some 20 points, that the US was in the midst of a social, economic and moral collapse. He pointed out that, to prevent this collapse, defense spending—which had become redundant following the USSR’s withdrawal from the scene—must be redirected immediately towards the reconstruction of the US and the enhancement of domestic prosperity. Instead of heeding these warnings, US administrations embarked on a policy of expanding NATO to reach the Russian border as quickly as possible; they encouraged the Saddam regime to invade Kuwait through a false-flag operation; and, following Israel’s lead, set about dismantling the unitary structures in the Middle East.

The rationale for US presence, rather than NATO, should have been questioned

The US-Israel duo, adrift in a sea of intellectual and moral destitution, might even risk the use of tactical nuclear weapons to defeat Iran militarily. However, one must not confuse this victory with triumph. The economic and political consequences of the war for the US will continue to be debated for many years to come in terms of the global order that needs to be reshaped. The prediction that the US would face a new ‘Vietnam’ should it launch a ground operation is also unrealistic.

Even the Vietnam War ultimately yielded positive results that facilitated the US’s rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China. However, this struggle with Iran will yield no result other than further isolating the US within “the prison designed by Israel”. Just as being captivated by Adolf Hitler’s charisma did not absolve the German people of their crimes, so too will Trump’s having been persuaded by Israel to support the genocide in Gaza that began in 2023, the occupation of Lebanon and Syria, and the declaration of war on Iran, fail to absolve the US of its sins.

Trump’s dismantling of the UN-centered global order did not merely divide the streets of the US. It also plunged the country’s bureaucracy, politics, EU-US relations, the balance of power within the NATO alliance, and the US’s relations with the Gulf states into irreversible crises. Trump’s equating of Democratic Party MPs with Iranians on 28 March, or the remarks he made about the Saudi Crown Prince at the Miami Investment Forum on 27 March, have pushed both his administration and his country to the brink of a “worthless isolation”.

In the debates that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 and continue to this day—‘Is NATO still necessary? Does NATO still have a mission?’—it is clear that the questions have always been asked incorrectly. Perhaps the fundamental question that should have been asked was: “Do we need a aimless, adrift nuclear superpower that has made its own currency the dominant global currency, yet lacks any strategy?”

(Originally published in Turkish by Kriter)