https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/06/karen-kwiatkowski/the-us-empire-is-retrenching-bringing-imperialism-home/

By Karen Kwiatkowski

June 15, 2026

The US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding may be signed already. If it is, 60 days of retrenchment, rejuvenation and rest may be on tap. Donald Trump certainly needs it, and so does the world.

The latest US war – for Israel, as admitted by Trump, Rubio and Hegseth – has truly changed the Middle East, but not in the way Israel intended, nor the United States. The national security states in both the US and Israel no doubt had different expectations. For Israel, accelerating its ongoing genocide in Gaza, further fracturing the West Bank, and expand the northern “border” to the Litani River, seizing a fifth of Lebanon’s territory and permanently displacing a quarter of the Lebanese population, were among them. For the United States, perhaps the fundamental objective was nothing more than please let this be the last time we have to fight a war for Israel.

On the surface, this latest episode of Bomb Iran! served Israel’s territorial ambition more than Washington’s. The US lost as many as 14 bases in the Gulf region, located and funded by former allies Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. As these bases were heavily targeted and damaged by Iranian counterfire, the real damage was done to US credibility among her heavily cultivated Arab financiers and hosts, who were unceremoniously reminded on February 28th and beyond exactly how much the United States government holds them in contempt.

Our military footprint in the Gulf and the region has contracted; this will continue. What we just watched over the past 100 days was an unusually vivid moment in the long slow collapse of the US military and financial empire.

Conversely, tiny Israel saw its fluid borders expand in all four directions. The cover of this war coincided with new bases in Somaliland, new gas fields through occupation of southern Lebanon and Gaza, massive Israeli expansion through land and political purchase in Greece, Cyprus, and Albania, and the exponential erasure of Gazans, Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians.
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