There’s a certain grim inevitability to what is unfolding: the intensifying push to dismantle the Iranian state is not an isolated reaction to present-day provocations, it is the culmination of a decades-long imperial design. Most Westerners remain blind to this trajectory, lulled into apathy by a mainstream media apparatus that functions more as a theatre of managed narratives than a space for critical inquiry. And so, Iran’s defiance is once again being framed not as sovereign resistance, but as a threat to global peace. The pretext? Nuclear capability. But those who know the playbook understand it has always been about far more.
To grasp the moment we are living through, one must look beyond headlines and into the machinery of Western grand strategy. That machinery has been in motion since the 1990s, when U.S. policymakers, emboldened by the Soviet Union’s collapse, believed they had a brief window to reengineer the world in their image before another superpower arose. As General Wesley Clark later revealed, this intent was made clear in conversations at the Pentagon: the U.S. would move quickly to take out regimes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. The rationale wasn’t security, it was the preservation of hegemony.
This doctrine of perpetual preeminence took institutional form through think tanks like the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), whose 2000 report Rebuilding America’s Defenses famously noted that their desired military transformation would be slow “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor.” That event came, almost prophetically, on 9/11. The attacks not only shocked the world but provided the psychological reset needed to begin implementing the grand imperial vision. What followed was a new phase of American foreign policy built not on diplomacy, but deception, subversion, and preemptive war.
The so-called “War on Terror” was a blank check for intervention, regime change, and occupation. Iraq was invaded under the now-debunked claim of weapons of mass destruction, a lie that led to over 300,000 deaths. Afghanistan became the staging ground for a twenty-year war justified by equally dubious intelligence. Libya was shattered by NATO’s “humanitarian” war, turning Africa’s most prosperous nation into a failed state. Syria’s war was engineered through one of the largest covert CIA operations in history, partnering with regional actors to topple Bashar al-Assad by arming jihadist factions. Yemen was turned into a killing field, with Western support for Saudi-led bombings causing the deaths of more than 100,000 people.
All of these campaigns were sold to the public using calculated propaganda: Saddam’s WMDs, Gaddafi’s alleged genocide of civilians, Assad’s supposed use of chemical weapons. These narratives were either outright falsehoods or grotesquely distorted, designed to manufacture consent. The goal was never human rights. The goal was never peace. The goal was control.
Underneath the noise, the true target, always lingering, was Iran. Iran, with its independent foreign policy. Iran, with its strategic ties to Russia and China. Iran, which supports resistance groups across the region and refuses to bow to U.S.-Israeli diktats. The public is told the threat is nuclear, but Israel already has hundreds of nuclear warheads and refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The real “threat” is that Iran represents a geopolitical obstacle to Western and Israeli dominance in the Middle East.
This is why today’s escalation must be understood as part of a broader arc. It is not simply retaliation or deterrence, it is regime change by other means. What began with false flags, secret memos, and neocon doctrine has matured into full-blown systemic warfare. The original sin of 9/11, now widely recognized among critical scholars as a false flag operation, provided the justification to launch the very wars that have destabilized entire regions and birthed terrorist networks the West now pretends to fight.
We are witnessing the late-stage operations of an empire in decline, desperate, erratic, and unrestrained. With each passing conflict, it must burn down more of the world to maintain the illusion of control. But illusions do not last. Russia and China are no longer passive observers. The global order is shifting. Iran will not be Iraq. The resistance this time may not only be regional, it may be global.
Where this leads is uncertain. Will the Iranian regime survive this onslaught? Will a broader war engulf the region? Will Israel, now openly waging genocide in Gaza, drag its Western allies into irreversible escalation? Could this be the prelude to World War III? These are not abstract questions, they are becoming geopolitical realities.
But one thing is certain: Western citizens can no longer claim ignorance. The trail of lies and blood is too long. The patterns too obvious. The consequences too grave. These wars are not defensive, they are aggressive. These governments are not liberators, they are occupiers. And their legacies are not of justice or peace, but of ruined nations and shattered lives.
The Western empire may speak the language of democracy, but its true dialect is deception. Its grammar is propaganda. And its legacy, if nothing changes, will be one of war.
Let history record not just the crimes, but the complicity. And let no one say, “We didn’t know.”
By Oblong Media Editorial Desk
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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