There's no doubt that we are experiencing a historical period of profound global upheaval. Future historians will study these years as those of a shift in the balance of global power, the rise of a new empire in global hegemony. But it would be the same old story: one that analyzes macrophenomena, the dynamics of power, while ignoring the subtleties of events, the minute social and political dynamics, and, above all, conceives of the popular masses as inert material to be shaped and directed according to the needs of the only dimension that matters: power. And war expresses this representation of reality in an almost banal way. The new war fomented by the United States and Israel against Iran, yet another episode in the Great War, the endless war, the piecemeal Third World War-as our times, which have seen a proliferation of military conflicts since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet bloc, have variously been defined-is fully part of the ongoing inter-imperialist conflict, regardless of the contingent motivations and ideological cover-ups put forward by governments and states. The Iranian nuclear threat, the need to overthrow a brutal and liberticidal regime, Israel's efforts to weaken or even annihilate its historic enemies in the Middle East, the objectives or miscalculations of Trumpian America. All these reasons or hypotheses capture partial aspects, but fail to provide a general understanding of the broader context. They tell us little about the extreme motivations for the upheavals underway, and, primarily, impose an absolutist and necessitating view of events, a spiral of history that can only have one evolution: that of inevitable conflict, of imperialist succession, of the perpetuation of capitalist and competitive development.
There has been much discussion in recent weeks about the nature of this war, the weight of the use of artificial intelligence, the spread of new instruments of death, drones first and foremost. But ultimately, the attack against Iran, to which Israel deemed it necessary to add Lebanon-since it was there!-is unfolding like all wars, past and present, in the sense that it presents elements of continuity and discontinuity: the use of new technologies (and this too is nothing new), the constant massacre of defenseless civilian populations (as well as soldiers, it goes without saying). Perhaps these discussions serve to give war a statute, that is, to include it among the admissible things. But then every argument is immediately debunked; Ukraine was written as harking back to the wars of the 20th century, those fought inch by inch; now the use of drones is emphasized, then it's said that complete control of the territory can only be achieved with the deployment of troops on the ground. Will the Marines about to arrive in the area be used for this? Beyond everything else, what is certainly worrying is that after years and decades spent by states and elites exacerbating conflicts and disagreements, this war, or some incident of it, could spark a more generalized or direct clash between powers: in short, we are walking on the edge of the abyss and perhaps we don't realize it or don't want to. However, precisely because the issues are becoming increasingly tangled, we must try to gain clarity on the fundamental dynamics driving events.First of all, it would be misleading to think that the deterioration of the situation can simply be blamed on Trump's initiatives. Certainly, the American president's peculiarities are undeniable, but holding him almost solely responsible, alongside Netanyahu or Putin, for today's complex events isn't very helpful; it only serves to postpone the problems. That Trump, instead, falls within the framework of US policy over the past decades is clearly expressed in the editorial of last February's issue of Limes, which, after reviewing the policies of various American presidents in the Middle East-from Bush to Obama to Biden-concludes: "Trump is, in short, the latest, most disruptive epigone of a tendency toward the massive and systematic use of military power that very different administrations tend to consider a saving Gordian sword."
However, even this interpretation-of a profound crisis in American capitalism and society-is partial because it reproduces and accepts existing dynamics, adopting the unshakeable rules of authoritarian, competitive economies and societies founded on profit and exploitation. It's not just American capitalism in crisis, but a global system of relations centered on competitiveness, aggression, and violence, aimed at the hoarding of widespread resources and energy. Empires, states, and economies are headed for a clash.
However, even this interpretation-of a profound crisis in American capitalism and society-is partial because it reproduces and accepts existing dynamics, adopting the unshakable rules of authoritarian, competitive economies and societies, founded on profit and exploitation. It is not only American capitalism in crisis, but a global system of relations centered on competitiveness, aggression, and violence, aimed at the hoarding of widespread resources and energy. Empires, states, and economies are thrust into constant political, economic, financial, and military conflict for access to increasingly scarce resources, in a degraded and limited environmental and natural context.
It might also be correct to say that the geopolitical conflict between the United States, China, and Russia is the driving force and the framework within which the new global order is being defined, so the attack on Iran is also a way to slow China's advance by striking one of its energy sources. However, this vision erases the complexity of reality, seeing only the perspective of strength and the strongest (Trump interprets this with frightening consistency, yet even he, with his about-faces, is forced to reckon with reality), and it confines us within a single, homogenizing dimension.
But we know that if we do not want to succumb to the abyss of endless wars and violence in which we now find ourselves immersed, we must open ourselves to multiplicity, diversity, and experimentation, activating and reactivating those energies of humanity, but also of awareness, that last September and October enlivened the streets of the entire world. In particular, those young energies that some have called the Gaza generation, which a tired political system seeks to force into an institutional and accommodating fold: just look at the statements of the leaders of the Italian parliamentary opposition following the outcome of the referendum on justice. To do so, however, we must first dismantle the geopolitical narrative that justifies the existing and views the world as an indifferent and aseptic game of Risk.
Angelo Barberi
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/2026/05/12/qual-e-la-via-duscita/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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