Twenty years is a flick of a finger in the long river of history, but for the United States, these two decades have changed too much.
In 2001, the United States was full of vigor and national strength reached the peak of history. In the aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush famously delivered a speech at a joint session of Congress and the two houses of Congress, saying that every country "has to decide" and that "you are either with us or with the terrorists."
In 2003, despite the opposition of other countries, including European countries, the United States bypassed the United Nations and launched the Iraq War, and the United States' control of the Middle East reached its peak. At that time, there was only one Iran in the Middle East that had not yet been resolved, and the world's oil depots were almost in the hands of the United States. In addition, with the launch of the Afghan war by the United States in 2001, the US military has long entered Central Asia, directly threatening the hinterland of China and Russia.
It was the highest moment in the history of the United States, and the United States also thought that the world was invincible and that it was alone in seeking defeat. But the United States, which does not understand dialectics, does not know that dialectics begins to work, and the moment it reaches its peak, the decline begins. The United States, without Soviet competition, lost external pressure, and American capital began to let itself go and start the process of deindustrialization on a large scale, and the result would be faster than the decline of the United States in the face of Soviet competition.
We Chinese speak dialectics, and the sentence "when the water is full is overflowing, when the moon is full, is lost, and complacency is defeated", and then the sentence "the movement of the opposite way" sums up the process of the decline of the United States from the peak to the present.
Whoever refuses to accept the dialectic must be re-educated in the dialectic.
Today, 20 years later, the United States is at a loss in the face of the "Red Sea crisis" in the Middle East, and its embarrassment is fully revealed. The whole world is watching the jokes of the United States, and the whole world understands the extent of the decline of the great powers.
The historical issue of the United States is no longer to contain China and Russia, but how to overcome the hurdle of the Houthis.
Recently, the United States has been thinking hard about a "transnational escort operation" to "gather a wide range of international forces to contain the Houthis", but after mobilizing for a long time, it has gained a lonely harvest.
Even the Indian Ocean island country, which has a population of only 100,000 people, and Bahrain, which has a population of more than 1 million, have been added to make up the numbers, and only 10 countries can barely be made up.
But before the operation began, the Spanish military announced its withdrawal.
Of the remaining ones, Norway has ten staff officers, which is already full of sincerity compared to Canada's three staff officers. Canada doesn't have to be embarrassed either, as there is also a Dutch team with only two staff officers at the bottom.
Britain, France and Italy are stronger, so they should contribute more, but it doesn't seem to work. Britain was the most interesting and sent a destroyer to cheer the scene. France sent out a frigate, and also stated that it would listen to the French command alone. Although Italy has decided to send a warship to participate in the escort operation, it is not known when it will be in place, and the Italian Defense Ministry said that the move is only to protect its own interests and has nothing to do with the US escort operation.
This is the entire power of the "transnational escort operation" except for the United States. Surprised?
In the Iraq war in 2023, although there is no United Nations mandate, the United States still cobbled together 34 countries to participate.
A comparison, you know how bleak the United States is now?
This is the chain reaction after the lion showed inadequacy, not only did there become more and more challengers, but his younger brothers also refused to follow.
It is better for the United States to engage in such a transnational joint operation, and in the end it will have to face the Houthis alone.
As soon as the Houthis struck, the cloak of US maritime hegemony was stripped off. The whole world knows that the United States is no longer reliable, and they are rethinking how to take sides.
The United States will not be able to climb out of the hole dug by Israel this time.
The United States wanted Saudi Arabia to participate in its own actions, but people ignored it at all. At a time of heightened tensions in the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia and Iran traveled to Beijing together to attend the first vice-ministerial meeting of the China-Saudi Arabia-Iran Trilateral Joint Commission, which emphasized the need to fully implement the Beijing agreement and continue to improve relations between the two sides.
What is the next step in the comprehensive reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran? The big countries in the East have pointed out the direction: The fate of the Middle East should be in the hands of the people of the Middle East themselves. China will, as always, support the people of the Middle East in independently exploring the path of development, and support the solidarity and cooperation of Middle Eastern countries in resolving regional security issues.
The United States has fallen to such an extent in the Middle East, and the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement has come to this point, and Saudi Arabia is unlikely to get on the US ship again to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for US military protection commitments, and the United States may not even be able to protect its own security in the Middle East in the future.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has not yet ended, but the two main factors that hinder and threaten the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran have been shaken: first, the military threat posed by the US troops stationed in Middle East countries, and second, the character of the "little bully in the Middle East" established by Israel through five Middle East wars, the former of which has been dissipated by Iran and the Houthis, and the latter has been almost deconstructed by Hamas.
In the future, Saudi Arabia can only follow the path of reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia opened up by the eastern powers, and with the support of China and Russia, Sunni and Shiite countries will achieve great unity and jointly build a collective security architecture in the Gulf region.
The Gulf countries need two key conditions to establish a collective security mechanism: First, Iran and Saudi Arabia will move from confrontation to reconciliation and end the confrontation between Shiites and Sunnis. Second, the Middle East has been liberated from the military threat posed by the US military.
If you look at these two conditions last year, anyone who sees them will shake their heads, because it is too difficult to achieve. As a result, by the first half of 2023, the first condition has been initially met, and with the development of the situation in the Middle East to the present, it will be difficult to be reversed by the United States.
The second condition, although not yet met, will be accelerated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Red Sea crisis.
The Red Sea crisis will first become a crisis of US maritime hegemony and security dominance in the Middle East, and then a crisis of the petrodollar.
The future of Saudi Arabia and the GCC can only turn to the rising East, participate in the great alliance of China, Russia and Islam with the Shiite arc, first form the integration of the Asian continent, let the "world island" take shape, and fundamentally disintegrate the hegemonic foundation of the maritime empire.
Not only did the US maritime hegemony begin to collapse in the Red Sea in the Middle East, but there was also a situation in the Strait of Malacca that the United States could not control. Malaysia's prime minister announced on December 20 that with immediate effect any Israeli-flagged merchant ships would be banned from calling at Malaysian ports, as well as any ship destined for Israel, from loading in Malaysia, and announced that this was a permanent ban.
Muslim countries outside the Middle East have taken such practical actions, and Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries in the Middle East will have no choice but to take a tougher stance against Israel and form a solid anti-Israeli united front with the Shiite arc of resistance.
If the United States continues to stand with Israel, then the anti-Israel united front will gradually escalate into an anti-US united front, which will indicate that the conditions for the establishment of a new collective security architecture in the Gulf region will begin to be established, and the US military force will begin to be squeezed out of the Middle East.
Time is running out for the United States, and if it does not come up with a way to counter the Houthis as soon as possible, the process will become irreversible.
In this way, the hegemony of the United States and the position of the dollar will end in the Middle East from dependence on the Middle East, and then the Asia-Pacific strategy of the United States will also begin to collapse, which is a domino effect.
On July 23, 1993, the United States used fabricated accusations in the waters of the Middle East to create the "Yinhe" incident that shocked the world, becoming one of the "three major humiliations" of contemporary China. At that time, the United States was using its maritime supremacy.
Today, 30 years later, U.S. maritime hegemony is shaken in the waters of the Middle East.
This is 30 years to the east of the river, 30 years to the west of the river.
What will become of the United States in another 30 years? Much will depend on our efforts.
The key at the moment is to prevent the spiritual Americans from helping the United States turn the tables on the tables. The recent trend in this area is very unusual, we have talked about it in the previous article, and if you are interested, you can read the original article "The Comer is Not Good" by the public account "Mingren Mingli".
(The author is a researcher at the Kunlun Ce Research Institute; source: Kunlun Ce Network [author's authorization], reproduced from "Mingren Mingcha")