The simplified mind tends to attribute more power to the United States than it actually possesses. What is striking about this global phenomenon is that it sees only the negative side of American power. In this view, the United States fails to find solutions, yet somehow always succeeds in plotting conspiracies. In the popular imagination, the "American conspiracy" has taken the place once occupied by the "British game" during the era of British dominance.
In reality, US power is indeed formidable, but it is not magical. In the current conflict, even the major fleets were unable to deter Iran or bring the battle to a conclusion within an acceptable timeframe. Yet that immense power was able to inflict on Iran a level of destruction beyond anything most people could have imagined. The same applies to the human losses inflicted by the United States and Israel on Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza.
Accounts emerging from Iran since the war have painted a horrifying picture of the scale of the devastation. A report in The New York Review of Books speaks of "many thousands of dead" in Iranian cities, including, of course, Tehran. Semi-official estimates, meanwhile, place the death toll across the region at around 10,000, with roughly 50,000 wounded.
A decisive outcome has yet to emerge. A ceasefire, too, remains elusive. Regardless of the extent of the damage inflicted on Iran, the absence of a declared American victory would once again tarnish the standing of the world's leading power.
What is certain is that the uncertainty surrounding the scale of the disasters that have struck the region's conflict front since October 7 has stripped the notion of victory of its meaning. Many cities have become part of a single battlefield, itself transformed into a long expanse of rubble and death.
The United States could have eased the scale of the destruction by restraining Israeli military actions and limiting their brutality in Gaza and Lebanon. Instead, it insisted on maintaining its role as Israel's unconditional ally.
