TORONTO ¨C The United States is spending billions of dollars to lose a war in Iran that is enriching its oligarchs, impoverishing its citizens, sabotaging its alliances and strengthening its enemies. The war is exposing a guiding principle of U.S. President Donald Trump¡¯s foreign policy: superpower suicide. Empires rise and fall, but to my knowledge no state has ever deliberately and systematically killed its own power ¡ª much less with such speed.
This strategic suicide can be difficult to admit: One still hopes that Trump¡¯s misadventures are based on some understanding of the American national interest. They are not.
At a minimum, a superpower must be a modern state that includes, through the rule of law and other institutions, a substantial body of citizens committed to a common endeavor. But the Trump administration treats the U.S. not as a modern state but as a commercial opportunity for a select few.
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