The strikes on Iran today – February 28, 2026 – mark a grim milestone in the unravelling of American imperial legitimacy. In a joint operation codenamed ‘Roaring Lion’ by Israel and ‘Epic Fury’ by the United States, the forces of both countries bombarded targets across Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj and other sites, aiming to cripple Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities while openly calling for regime change.US President Donald Trump, speaking from the White House, declared the launch of ‘major combat operations’ to ‘eliminate imminent threats’ and deliver ‘a safe nation’ – rhetoric eerily reminiscent of the pretexts used for Iraq in 2003, yet delivered with even less pretence of multilateral restraint or diplomatic exhaustion. Trump explicitly urged Iranians to ‘take over your government’, framing the strikes as an opportunity for internal upheaval that could end the regime ‘for generations’.These attacks came amid ongoing diplomatic channels, however strained, and despite repeated Iranian signals of willingness to negotiate limits on its programme in exchange for sanctions relief. The timing is no accident. It exposes the bipartisan continuity of US primacy politics, now turbocharged under Trumpism. What was sold to the American worker as ‘America First’ restraint – a rejection of liberal elite-driven forever wars in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan’s catastrophes – has revealed itself as merely a tactical pivot. The ruling class, through its foreign policy establishment, liberal and conservative alike, has long pursued global hegemony.MAGA was never a genuine break but a populist rebranding designed to rally a disillusioned base behind a slightly more brazen, less veiled version of the same strategy.This pattern echoes a darker chapter in US history: the repeated negotiation and subsequent violation of treaties with Native American nations. Time and again, the United States entered into solemn agreements recognising tribal sovereignty and land rights – often when Native resistance was strong or settler expansion required temporary pacification – only to break them as military superiority grew or economic imperatives such as land acquisition, resources and railroads demanded.Aftermath of an Israeli-US strike in Tehran., February 28, 2026. Photo: AP/PTI.Treaties such as Fort Laramie (1851 and 1868) promised vast territories to the Sioux and Plains tribes, yet were undermined by gold rushes and military campaigns leading to reservations and massacres such as Wounded Knee. Forced pacts in the Southeast, including the Treaty of New Echota (1835) with the Cherokee, paved the way for the Trail of Tears. These were not aberrations but structural features of settler-colonial logic: negotiate from expediency when weak, renege when strong and justify betrayal as progress towards ‘civilisation’.Today’s diplomacy with Iran – signals of negotiation overridden by pre-emptive strikes and regime-change calls – mirrors this imperial modus operandi, in which agreements function as leverage points, conditional on total compliance and discarded when primacy requires escalation.Also read: West Asia Tensions Escalate After US-Israel Strike on Iran; Attacks Reported in Israel, GulfTrump’s second term has stripped away the illusions. The executive order of September 2025 restoring the ‘Department of War’, with Secretary Pete Hegseth embracing the title, was no mere symbolic flourish – it signalled the return of explicit imperial language, discarding the post-Second World War euphemism of ‘defence’ for the blunt honesty of ‘war’. Add to this persistent threats to annex Greenland, military rhetoric towards Mexico and a military budget soaring past a trillion dollars, and the picture is clear: American empire is not in retreat but in aggressive reassertion, led by a bipartisan consensus that lost public legitimacy after endless wars and had to be repackaged through Trumpism to survive.Yet the US has marshalled broad international support, or at least acquiescence, for these actions, revealing the hollowness of recent proclamations about the death of the liberal international order. Just weeks ago at Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that the ‘old world order is not coming back’, describing a ‘rupture’ in the rules-based system amid great-power rivalry and economic coercion. Canada now explicitly backs the strikes, affirming US efforts to prevent Iranian nuclear acquisition and labelling Tehran the ‘principal source of instability and terror’ in the Middle East – exposing the irony of mourning a faded order while endorsing actions widely seen as illegal under international law.Australia has similarly endorsed the operation, aligning with Washington to counter regional threats. Even the European Union and France, while expressing alarm and calling for de-escalation, maximum restraint and UN Security Council intervention, with French President Emmanuel Macron terming it an ‘outbreak of war’ with serious consequences, have not outright condemned the US-Israeli moves and continue pressuring Iran through sanctions, tacitly prioritising Western non-proliferation goals over strict adherence to multilateral norms.Gulf states, longstanding foes of the Iranian regime, have offered no serious criticism of the US-Israeli strikes. GCC members eventually condemned these attacks – including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – but their positions remain cautious rather than principled. Nor have they invoked Muslim solidarity with Iran. Instead, their more forceful condemnations target Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes on US-linked bases and territories across the region, including the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, with explosions reported in Saudi Arabia.Saudi Arabia denounced the Iranian response as ‘brutal aggression’ and a ‘flagrant violation’ of sovereignty, expressing ‘full solidarity’ with targeted states and pledging support. The UAE described it as a ‘cowardly act’ and ‘dangerous escalation’, reserving the right to respond. Qatar and Bahrain similarly framed Iran’s actions as blatant sovereignty violations, activating defences and coordinating with allies. This relative silence regarding the initial strikes, alongside the focus on Iran’s retaliation, reflects deep hostility towards Tehran, viewed as an existential threat via proxies, missiles, nuclear ambitions and regional meddling.Also read: With Eight-Minute Video, Trump Announces ‘Major Combat Operations’ in IranWhile pre-strike diplomacy urged restraint to avoid blowback, the attacks align with Gulf interests in curbing Iran’s capabilities. Many appear to view regime change as a distinct possibility, or even probability, despite risks of chaos, refugee flows or radical successors, prioritising the weakening of the ‘Shi’ite Axis’ over discomfort with US and Israeli unilateralism.This forms a global anti-Iran axis encompassing the United States, Israel, Gulf states, Canada, Australia and tacit support or non-opposition from parts of Europe and elsewhere, united in viewing Iran’s regime as a core threat, with regime change now a plausible outcome in many strategic calculations. Exceptions stand out sharply. China and Russia have condemned the strikes as escalatory violations of sovereignty and international law, with Russia warning of catastrophe in line with its strategic partnership with Tehran and opposition to US hegemony.Latin America has shown limited unified response, though key voices reflect scepticism towards US unilateralism. Venezuela and Cuba condemned the strikes as aggressive interventionism, while Brazil expressed grave concern. Mexico and Argentina have focused primarily on calls for restraint without strong endorsement. India has adopted a cautious posture, refraining from condemnation while issuing security advisories for its nationals and balancing ties with multiple actors.Although longstanding allies such as the UK have recoiled somewhat, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer distancing London from the strikes, refusing participation or the use of RAF bases, and senior figures including former national security adviser Peter Ricketts questioning their legality under the UN Charter, Western alignment underscores a key truth: opposition to Trump from liberal quarters often concerns methods and tactics rather than the underlying goals of primacy and containment.Carney’s Davos eulogy for the liberal order therefore rings hollow as his government rallies behind these attacks, suggesting that ‘America First’ may be rescuing Western hegemony in multipolar times – at least for now – by forging coalitions against perceived threats such as Iran.Yet what appears as unassailable strength may ultimately hasten imperial decline. Domestically, contradictions are mounting. ICE raids terrorise communities, tariffs impose costs on working-class households through higher prices and job disruption, and attacks on democratic norms alienate even segments of the MAGA base that once viewed Trump as an anti-establishment champion. Fractures within ‘America First’ are increasingly visible as personality politics collide with genuine anti-interventionist sentiment, evident in growing discontent over escalations in Venezuela, support for Gaza operations and now Iran.Mass resistance – cross-ideological protests echoing the anti-Vietnam and anti-Iraq movements – is gaining traction, fuelled by the stark betrayal of promises to end forever wars.Globally, multipolarity accelerates the reckoning. China’s rise, the resilience of the Axis of Resistance and alliances challenging US unipolarity, from BRICS expansion to shifting Gulf dynamics, erode Washington’s ability to dictate terms unilaterally. Today’s strikes, far from restoring hegemony, risk strategic overstretch by provoking Iranian retaliation against US bases and inflaming the region.Trumpism’s days may indeed be numbered, not through sudden moral awakening of the elites but through exposure of its true colours and the mounting costs at home and abroad. The American worker, once divided by blame directed solely at ‘liberal elites’, now sees the fuller picture: empire serves the ruling class as a whole.As contradictions sharpen, domestic resistance and global counterforces converge towards a more balanced world order. Painful as the transition may be, history suggests that overreach often catalyses positive change, empowering movements demanding accountability at home and reinforcing a multipolar reality abroad that constrains imperial hubris. The reckoning is coming, driven by domestic exposure and the limits of coercive coalitions.This is not the end of empire but another chapter in its longer reckoning. Today’s strikes on Iran are both assertion and symptom – a desperate bid for primacy amid systemic decay. The question is whether Americans – and the world – will allow the cycle to continue or seize the moment for something better.Inderjeet Parmar is professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and writes the American Imperium column for The Wire. His Twitter handle is @USEmpire. He is the author of several books, including Foundations of the American Century, and is currently writing on the history, politics, and crises of the US foreign policy establishment, and Trump and American Empire.Bamo Nouri is a Visiting Lecturer at City, University of London, an independent investigative journalist and writer with interests in American foreign policy and the international and domestic politics of the Middle East.