I was reading an article by Professor Mark N Katz in The National Interest, published on 27-28 July, 2023, about the need for the US to get smart again about dividing America’s adversaries. He cited what he considered, from his point of view, success stories made by the US in dividing its rivalries from the Sino-Soviet dispute in the 1970s, to the exit of Yugoslavia from the Soviet bloc, to Iraq, Libya, Vietnam and many instances.

Recalling the history of what was cited here should be read under a very different light and given a different title, that of America’s history of igniting conflicts and wars among countries, as the US was not using disputes, but creating disputes in order to weaken all parties and stay as the most hegemonic power in the equation.

The writer laments two issues:

The first is that American adversaries have become much more successful at exploiting differences not only between the United States and its other adversaries, but also between the United States and its traditional allies, which has made it difficult for the US to take advantage of disputes among its adversaries. He concludes by proposing that American diplomacy “needs to focus not just on taking advantage of differences between America’s long-established adversaries, but also on blunting growing rapprochements between its adversaries and traditional US allies”.

I would like to draw the attention of Professor Katz to the fact that what he has described, and the remedy he has prescribed, are no longer within the reach of American diplomats and their diplomacy. There is a very important point that Mr. Katz did not mention at all, which is the assessment of these countries he referred to as “United States adversaries” and their evaluation of the US interventions in their policies or in their relations with US allies or adversaries. What professor Katz described as “taking advantage of disputes” is seen by the people of these countries as igniting and creating disputes, which proved to be destructive to all sides, except the United States.

After living or witnessing so many experiences of US interventions in countries’ affairs, and the disputes and wars it ignited among people, only to reduce their strength and ability to grow so that they would remain a prey to US policies and greed, most people all over the world have matured and become truly aware of the objectives of the US in any of its endeavors to torment them one way or other.

In our recent history, our people and most people of the world have seen how the US has destroyed Iraq, the pride of and the richest country in the Arab nation, both in its human and oil resources. The whole world has seen how the US handled its disastrous intervention in Afghanistan, which knocked this country a hundred years back and left it under the rule of the extremist Taliban. The entire world saw how the NATO Forces shelled and destroyed Libya for no reason except to loot its wealth and rich natural resources. The world has seen how the US replaced ISIS in Syria and started looting its natural resources, and invented illegal economic sanctions on Syria only in order to keep looting its resources and prevent any rapprochement between Syria and Iraq.

The true history of US interventions is very different from what Mr. Katz explained, and that is most likely why the US can neither take advantage of disputes nor ignite them, because its true intentions and purposes have become vivid to all in Asia, Africa and Latin America. That is precisely why the US is no longer able to do what it used to do in the past. The future will hold more unpleasant surprises for those who still believe in American or Western hegemony and its super ability to do what it likes in the world.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has created a much deeper consciousness of the US role, not only with its adversaries but with its partners and allies. The US has victimized the European people and subjected them to great economic difficulties in order to feed the war in Ukraine, although the European people have suffered a great deal due to US decision. The US is subjecting both Russia and the EU to a war of attrition in which the Euro is losing value while the dollar is gaining.

Besides, people nowadays read a very different narrative emanating from China about joint prosperity, common values, and common destiny, and they see the ascending BRICS and many other regional and international consortiums as saviors from colonial Western hegemony, which has focused on partitioning countries, weakening them, and igniting wars on their territories to keep supplying them with armaments to keep its military-industrial complex working. That is why blunting growing rapprochements between adversaries and traditional US allies would no longer work, as both allies and adversaries can clearly see what United States policies and diplomacy stands for: they stand for achieving the United States’ interest at the expense of the interest of all other people.