Suez 1956 and Hormuz 2026: The Moment of Imperial Unveiling.. Washington Can No Longer Impose Its Will

The crisis of the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt in 1956 was not merely a war over the Suez Canal, nor simply a reaction to a sovereign decision made by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser to nationalize the canal. It was, in its essence, a pivotal historical moment that revealed the fundamental contradiction within British imperialism itself. The empire that had ruled the seas for centuries, and that was accustomed to imposing its will on the world, suddenly found itself unable to continue its military project without the approval of the new center of power in the global capitalist system, namely the United States of America. The defeat suffered by Britain and its allies (France and Israel) was not a military defeat in the traditional sense, but rather a structural defeat par excellence: the collapse of British capital's ability to continue as an independent dominant force in the global system reshaped by World War II. The crisis proved that Britain, despite its military arsenal and European allies, was no longer able to wage a major war against Washington's will, and that the era of solitary empires ruling by pure force had irrevocably passed. The strength of empires is not measured by the number of their soldiers, nor by the size of their fleets, but by their ability to organize global production relations, control capital flows, and impose the conditions for the reproduction of the capitalist system on an international scale. It was precisely here that the British Empire fell. With the rise of American capitalism after World War II, the geopolitical and economic center of gravity shifted from London to Washington, and from the pound sterling to the dollar as the global reserve currency. The Suez War came as a desperate attempt by a declining British bourgeoisie to reclaim its historical position and seize a moment of victory that would restore prestige to its diminishing role, but the result was completely contrary to those aspirations: the war cemented London's complete dependence on the Washington-led system, and showed the world that Britain was no longer more than a subordinate ally in the Western camp. Today, after the outbreak of open military confrontation between the United States and Israel on one hand, and Iran and its regional allies on the other, the same question resurfaces, but in a different and more complex historical context: Are we facing an American "Suez moment"? That is, are we witnessing today the beginning of the unveiling of the internal contradictions of the American Empire, just as Britain was unveiled seventy years ago? It is clear that the United States does not resemble Britain in the mid-20th century in terms of the enormous size of its military power, or its economic influence, or its ability to regulate the global financial system. But it shares with Britain a crucial characteristic that may be fatal: reliance on a complex and interconnected global system to consolidate and reproduce its hegemony. This system, which is based on three main pillars: the petrodollar (i.e., pricing oil in dollars and linking the global economy to the American currency), complex global supply chains that extend across continents, and extensive military alliances (such as NATO and deployment bases in Asia and the Middle East), is not an expression of absolute power possessed by Washington, but rather an expression of a fragile balance between multiple and competing centers of global capital. And it is a balance that can quickly be disrupted if subjected to a major shock. Herein lies the central contradiction that the American Empire is experiencing today. The war on Iran did not come in a political or strategic vacuum, but rather erupted in the heart of a complex regional and international network of intertwined interests. Iran is not an isolated state that can be subdued by a single decisive military strike, as happened with Iraq in 2003. Iran is a central actor within an extended structure of regional powers and alliances, stretching from Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria to Yemen and the Gulf. As the scope of the confrontation expands and its fronts become more intricate, repercussions that transcend all direct military calculations have begun to emerge: a serious disturbance in global energy markets, military escalation through proxy forces in more than one country, and increasing friction with major international powers (such as China and Russia) that are cleverly seeking to exploit this confrontation to reshape global power balances in their favor. And it is precisely here that the most obvious and significant material comparison between the two historical moments emerges: just as the Suez Canal in 1956 was a vital artery for global trade and international navigation, the Strait of Hormuz today represents one of the most important arteries for the flow of oil and gas in the world, indeed it can be said to be the most important energy transit point on Earth. The closure of the canal then disrupted trade and energy movement between Europe and Asia, and clearly revealed the fragility of the economic structure on which the British Empire relied to manage its colonies and interests. Today, with Iran partially or completely closing the Strait of Hormuz, and global oil prices rising to over $100 per barrel and above, the same scene is repeated, but in a much more complex and dangerous form: a chokehold on the global energy artery that immediately impacts every economy linked to the globalized capitalist system, from Tokyo to Berlin, and from Beijing to New York. In both cases, the issue was not merely a military battle between two armies, but a struggle over a central node in the global economic network. And if the closure of Suez contributed to accelerating the unveiling of British impotence and the acceleration of its global decline, the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz today unequivocally reveals the extent to which the US-led system relies on stability that Washington does not fully control, but rather stability that depends on delicate balances with regional and international powers that cannot be tamed by force alone. Here lies the great historical paradox: the more the empire resorts to military force to protect its system and interests, the more it simultaneously reveals the limits and fragility of that system. War is no longer, as it was in previous centuries, an effective tool for reproducing hegemony and imposing will, but can turn into a dangerous draining tool for capital, and an accelerating factor in the disintegration of the complex structure on which that hegemony rests. Every bomb dropped, every oil tanker targeted, and every rising barrel price is additional evidence that the empire is paying a heavy price to maintain a situation whose costs are becoming unbearable. History does not repeat itself mechanically or literally, of course, but it teaches us that empires, no matter how powerful, great, and arrogant, carry within them the seeds and conditions of their downfall. At a certain historical moment, they begin to work against the general human current, transforming from a rising historical force defending a renewed system into a burden on the movement of history itself. They become a hindering, obstructing force, paying an increasing price just to stay in the same place. And while Iran's civil and cultural history extends for thousands of years, it has not been an ideal model of social justice in the modern sense, nor has it been socialist at any stage of its history, but it also has not historically formed as an expansionist imperialism based on draining its human and economic surroundings in the way that modern Western empires (British, French, and then American) have known. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, a political and moral discourse emerged that positioned itself as a supporter of the "oppressed" in the world, and a defender of national liberation issues in the face of Western hegemony, which reflects, regardless of the political evaluation of this discourse or its internal contradictions, a different direction in conceiving the relationship with the world, a direction that presents itself as a moral alternative to the dominant imperial model. This civilizational disparity reflects a deeper conflict than just a border military confrontation: it is a conflict between two civilizational models, one of which originated and grew in an expansionist imperial context based on exploitation and domination, and the other presents itself, at least theoretically, as a moral alternative or effective resistance to that model. It is a battle between the logic of "imposing will" and the logic of "resisting imposed will." From here, this war can only be understood as a historical test of the nature and limits of contemporary imperialism. Either the United States succeeds, through a combination of military force, economic pressure, and diplomatic alliances, in re-establishing a balance that serves the continuation of its hegemony over the region and the world, a possibility that becomes more difficult and complex with each passing day, or this long and comprehensive confrontation will reveal the limits and fragility of that hegemony, just as the Suez crisis revealed the limits of the British Empire seven decades ago. And if we carefully consider the Suez lesson, we will find that the 1956 war was not the sudden end of the British Empire, but rather an official declaration of its end, that is, the moment when the world realized that Britain was no longer the great power it once was. And perhaps this Iranian war today is a similar moment: not necessarily the fall of the American Empire, but the moment when the world begins to deal with the United States as a power no longer able to impose its will as before, as the beginning of the unveiling of its limits to a world no longer managed from a single center, and in which centers of power have become multiple and competing, and capable of exploiting the empire's mistakes to their advantage.