Speaking on Thursday, September 4, about what he correctly observed as “the end of Western hegemony in political/economic/social spheres and a new world order in making,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said we are seeing a transformation in the world order which may well become the hallmark of the 21st Century - a triple clash between politics, economics and radical changes in society.

According to Ayatollah Khamenei, “Contemporary developments clearly suggest that Western hegemony is in decline, mainly in the spheres of theory/vision and military/politics. Equipped with beautiful words such as freedom, democracy and human rights, the West managed to impose its phony vision on the rest of the world for 70 years. But that hegemony is now in decline,” in a world where nations are increasingly impatient with the status quo.

As maintained by Iran’s Leader, Western governments have been unable to adjust their politics to the global changes or respond to the associated economic challenges of the 21st century. Instead, obsessed with political/social/religious self-interest, they continued to swing from excessive foreign interference to extreme isolation. To this end, the US Empire of Chaos and the fallen European empires unsuccessfully locked arms, coups, as well as economic and soft power (in covert and overt) efforts to save what can be saved in the ex-colonial lands throughout the Greater Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Indeed, radical changes are taking place in the world order and at least one aspect deserves special attention: The reliance on violence, terrorism, extremism, sectarianism and war to slow down and delay the inevitable - because the greater the sense and fear of imperial decay and decline, the greater the colonial hubris and arrogance of power:

1-Korean War (‘50s)

2-Vietnam War (‘60s)

3-Iraq War Against Iran (‘80s)

4-Persian Gulf War Against Iraq (1990-1)

5-Bosnian & Kosovo Wars (‘90s)

6-Invasion of Afghanistan (2001)

7-Invasion of Iraq (2003)

8-ISIL & al-Qaeda Wars on Syria & Iraq (since 2011)

And when that was not enough, a fake “War on Terror” was launched to convince the gullible American/European public of the need of continued massive military spending and surveillance. The bright side of it all is that the US has been losing its wars, though!

At the same time that the informal US Empire was bankrupting itself through extravagant military spending, it has been relentlessly pushing its weight around everywhere in the world, subverting or trying to subvert democratically elected governments in places like Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Haiti and Venezuela, and even seeking to undermine governments in states like Russia, Ukraine, China, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. Something had to give, and as Iran’s Leader correctly notes, “Something finally has given.”

But that was not the end of it. America’s bluff is now being called. Fed up with the bullying of American foreign and economic policy as well as the sanctions regime, and emboldened by the weakness of both the American dollar and bloated and over-stretched military (as evidenced by its inability to defeat minimally armed and trained forces in Afghanistan and Iraq), Russia, China and Iran are realizing that they “don’t have to take it anymore.”

Even NATO, that Cold War relic that the US has been using as a fig leaf to cover its aggressive policy of encirclement and gradual subversion of Russia, is now showing signs of collapse – despite Obama’s beautiful words of “alliance”.

The fallen European empires are angry at revelations about massive NSA spying on America’s purported “allies”. The latest effort to enlist Europe in a full-press program of economic sanctions against energy-rich Russia for its defiance on Crimea and Ukraine have also fallen flat, with Germany balking at any serious economic sanctions against one of its largest trading partners.

There is no denying that history is replete with empires that crumbled under their own hubris and ambition, and that American Empire is past its peak. However, although America’s splendid era of overseas “boots on the ground” and “regime change” is beginning to draw to a close, it cannot be tragic after all.

Looking at the incredible death, destruction and grotesque waste of resources that can be directly attributed to the US and its imperialist program since the end of the Second World War, the international community, particularly the Muslim world, can only see its demise – in the words of Ayatollah Khamenei – “as a positive development and a historical opportunity to seize in order to claim their rightful place in the concert of the new world order of the 21st century.”