On an American Suez

A major Anglo-Saxon power begins a war far away from home with the help of Israel and without the support of its allies. The main objective is the control of one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes, but the aggressor may have to back down — partly from the rising oil prices at home. This could either describe the 1956 Suez crisis, when Britain and France invaded Egypt over their nationalisation of the Suez canal, or the contemporary Israeli-American bombing campaign and blockade of Iran (“Operation Epic Fury”). Is the war in Iran then an American Suez? There is currently a cultural meme spreading about the American empire’s1 decline from dominance. This has many names, and in the academic ir tradition it is most often refereed to as a transformation toward a “multipolar” international system, in contrast to the unipolar one that followed the collapse of the Soviet Empire(s) between 1989 and 1991. This feeling, at least in my own personal experience, seems to be more of…