Orange Cartman and the Collapse of America's Illusory Empire
Orange Caligula Becomes Orange Cartman
In my March 26, 2025, essay, “Trust Me Bro, They’re Bad People,” I called Donald Trump Orange Caligula, but after watching last night’s press conference, I realized that he is Orange Cartman (Eric Cartman of South Park fame).
This morning, three things are certain to me. First, Pandora’s box is open. Second, the America/Israel regime change war in Iran is a fitting climax to the two decade-long U.S. foreign policy rumspringa. Third, history will remember our decision to do Bibi’s most recent bidding in the Middle East as the final nail in America’s imperial coffin.
Regime change in Iran was always central to Israel’s “Clean Break Strategy” (1996) and the Neocons’ “Greater Middle East” fever dream. However, even the dimmest know that Israel, a nation smaller than Vermont, cannot topple Iran, a country almost as big as Europe, without the direct involvement of their rich Uncle Sam.
Even more laughable is the idea that this political objective can be achieved with air power alone. More laughable still is Netanyahu’s claim (rejected by U.S. intelligence) that Iran was weeks away from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Like a sucker puncher whose haymaker failed to knock out his opponent, Israel’s June 13th, American-assisted attack on Iran did not topple their government. Worse, it exposed the weakness of Israel’s overpriced air defense systems. After Tel Aviv and Haifa got pounded by Iranian missiles, Netanyahu was the bully with the bloody nose begging the U.S. to finish his fight.
Iran will not be another bullshit proxy war. China has already said that much. Foreign Minister Wang Yi made this explicitly clear last week when he announced that the world’s new superpower “would not sit by idle, watching the region slide into the unknown depths of purgatory.” In my May 3, 2024, essay, “Rock Bottom: The Student Protests and the Future of Israel,” I wrote:
“What those on both sides of this emotional political debate fail to realize is that Israel v. Palestine is merely the start of a much larger geopolitical conflict that has already begun: Israel/U.S. v. Palestine/Iran/Russia/China. This is the bitter harvest of two decades of U.S. foreign adventurism that grew out of the arrogant myth that America was a ‘unipolar power.’ Immune to reality, U.S. and Israeli leaders believe they can turn Carl von Clausewitz’s most important maxim on its head. By ignoring this fundamental geopolitical fact, our battlefield wins since 9/11 have been rendered meaningless because we can’t translate them into lasting policy victories. To them, policy is an instrument of war and every political problem has a military solution.”
The bill for 25 years of U.S. foreign policy failures, arrogance and corruption is long past due. Today, America spends almost three times more ($877 billion) on defense than our closest rival (China $293 billion), and the whole world knows that we don’t win wars, much less stand behind our allies. Without clear and obtainable political objectives, the regime-change war in Iran will end like our military and political failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.
If nothing else, in this subliterate age, Trump and his cabinet of Fox News spokesmodels are uniquely qualified to cosplay statesmen.
Kowtow to Israel...
and oversee the fall of America’s collapsing empire.
“This time there really is nobody flying the plane,” wrote Hunter S. Thompson at the start of the American imperial experiment in 2004. “We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they’re dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It’s the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic.”
