Trump's Iran gambit is exposing just how irrelevant Putin and Xi really are
If you listened only to the ossified mandarins of international affairs, you'd think the age of American supremacy was already dead. ''Multipolarization' is a fact,' declared the latest report of the Munich Security Conference, a stale international relations gathering that has accomplished almost nothing in its 60 year history. Such people believe – or perhaps even hope – that American power has diminished and will continue to do so, a process some wish to hurry along by constraining Washington's freedom of action within their 'rules-based' international order.
What must they be thinking now? As the White House contemplates joining Israel's strikes against Iran, observers may want to ask how many other nations maintain a long-range bomber fleet on a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, capable of flying more than four thousand miles to drop the world's largest conventional bombs – 30,000 pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators – on Iran's most heavily protected nuclear facilities.
They might also question what the other supposed 'poles' of the international order are doing. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who rules a country with an economy smaller than Italy's and a population lower than Bangladesh's – and who has for more than three years proved unable to win a war against a much smaller state – has been left languishing on the sidelines.
Last week, he urged the two sides to reach a negotiated settlement. Recent reports suggest that Russia may be willing to play a role in such talks, but this is hardly a defiant stance for a country that in January signed with Tehran a 'comprehensive strategic partnership treaty'. The world is now seeing exactly how 'comprehensive' it truly is.
Delusions of a multipolar world might also crash on reactions to the Middle East crisis in Beijing, where Chinese president Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that 'all parties should work to de-escalate the conflict as soon as possible and prevent the situation from worsening further'. A foreign ministry spokesman followed up with a public call on 'countries that have a special influence on Israel' – almost certainly meaning the United States – 'to take up their due responsibilities' and 'take immediate actions to cool down the situation'.
Given such desperate pleading, clearly no Chinese expeditionary force will be rounding the mountains of Fordow to save Iran's underground uranium enrichment facility in a great power standoff against the United States. Instead, China's diplomatic chatter appears limited to urging its citizens to leave Israel and Iran as soon as possible. China's weak statements came on the same day that Trump, who made no acknowledgement of them, demanded Iran's 'unconditional surrender' and hinted that he has the ability to kill its supreme leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at will.
Trump has now set a two-week deadline to decide if the US will join Israel's strikes against Iran. Regardless of what he chooses to do, however, he stands as the only world leader who can comprehensibly project either military force or diplomatic leverage into regions far from home.
Those who criticise his 'America First' agenda as 'isolationist' would do well to realise that the United States continues to maintain not just Diego Garcia, where the B-2s might well be revving their engines to fly out the world's biggest bomb, but at least 120 other military bases and facilities in 55 countries. Despite Biden-era cuts, US military spending still exceeds that of the next nine nations combined and is projected to increase in the coming years. Meanwhile, despite predictions of continuing decline, US economic growth has surged ahead of that of rival countries, and far exceeds its competitors in innovation, technology, and enterprise.
It should be no surprise that after just five months back in office, Trump has initiated the first meaningful peace talks between Russia and Ukraine since their war erupted in 2022, brokered a standing peace deal between India and Pakistan in another potentially nuclear hot spot, claimed trillions of dollars in new foreign investment in the United States, moved toward more equitable trade relations with other countries, and restored national borders to a historic level of security.
No other 'pole' could come even close to one of those feats. Munich's ageing mandarins may not live to see it, but the real American century could well be the current one.
Paul du Quenoy is a historian and president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute
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