Iran and the American Decline
Foad Izadi
Hakimeh Saghaye-Biria
The issue of America's decline has long intrigued experts in international relations. Given the tense relations between Iran and the United States, it's natural for this subject to hold particular interest in Iran. There is a growing global consensus on the shifting balance of power and wealth from West to East and the resulting "Westlessness,” a term outlined in the final report of the 2020 Munich Security Conference. This trend underscores a diminishing Western influence in global affairs, particularly that of the United States. For Iran, a country that has historically enjoyed better relations with Eastern countries than Western ones, this is a welcome development. Some analysts refer to this phenomenon as a "termite-like decline," suggesting that the United States, like earlier Western empires, has been on a path of gradual decline for years. When assessing the decline of U.S. power on the international stage, experts consider both the extent to which the U.S. achieves its strategic objectives and the broader mechanisms of power projection—across military, political, economic, and soft power dimensions.
America’s failure to achieve its objectives through military force is evident in several key examples: the humiliating withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan after two decades of occupation; the continued resistance of Hamas in defending its territory despite over a year and nine months of U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza; and the sustained, effective attacks by Yemen on U.S.- and Israeli-linked vessels in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, despite months of intense American military strikes.
Despite the full support from both Biden and Trump administrations for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the isolation of the United States and Israel in international forums regarding this issue indicates a decline in America’s political influence within international institutions. In terms of economic decline, whereas in 1960 the U.S. economy accounted for 40 percent of the global economy, today that figure has been cut in half.
Experts identify four levels of analysis when examining the mechanisms of power relations that the United States established, particularly after World War II, to project its influence globally: network position, structural power, soft power, and ideological hegemony. From this perspective, the decline of the United States should be assessed by evaluating the effectiveness of these mechanisms. Accordingly, efforts to accelerate the American decline would necessitate the gradual creation of parallel structures of power relations at the international level.
The concept of network positions suggests that powerful nations influence international dynamics not merely through bilateral relations, but by engaging in complex networks of communications, alliances, and agreements that interlink governmental structures and civil societies across various levels. As stated by Mark Carney, the winner of this year's Canadian election, “Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open global trade anchored by the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for country for decades is over. These are tragedies, but it's also our new reality.” Trump's initiation of tariff wars has further destabilized the network position of the United States among allied nations.
At the second level of analysis, “structural power” refers to the ability to shape the frameworks within which states interact. When a nation possesses substantial material advantages, as the United States did after World War II, it can position itself within these structures to maximize its influence over others. It is important to note that even if the material superiority underpinning these global structures erodes, the resilience and adaptability of the mechanisms themselves can slow the pace of decline. Therefore, only focusing on the diminishing resources of American power compared to others, or its inability to achieve certain goals, is not sufficient to measure the degree of US decline.
What can disrupt this equation and accelerate American decline is the creation of alternative power structures that can support rival powers during the transition away from a liberal international order. In the short term, this can bolster resilience against the structural and network pressures from the United States, and in the long term, it can reduce America's ability to extend its influence and delay its decline. The role of soft power and ideological hegemony is also crucial in evaluating the state of America’s decline. Numerous global public opinion surveys in recent years have clearly indicated a noticeable erosion of U.S. soft power and ideological hegemony.
Despite the evident decline in various aspects of America's power resources, some experts remain optimistic that the United States can mitigate the impacts of this decline by preserving its structural power on the international stage. They believe that this approach could help contain China's rising influence through structural means. In response, emerging powers are actively working to build new power structures designed to counter such strategies.
The United States has employed all four levels of power — network position, structural power, soft power, and ideological hegemony — in its approach to rival states, including the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its efforts to dismantle the Axis of Resistance and to prevent the strategic deepening of Iran's relations with Russia on the one hand and with China on the other, are aimed at managing the network position of Iran and other competitors vis-a-vis the United States.
Thus, Iran's strategy in countering America's hybrid warfare has rightly focused on the activation of all dynamic and influential resistance capabilities across these levels of power. The Islamic Republic of Iran has achieved considerable success in its "network position" through building strategic relations within and beyond the region, including but not limited to, China and Russia, as well as joining emerging global networks like BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In the realm of soft power and countering the ideological hegemony of the liberal order, Iran has secured a meaningful position among nations striving for independence and a more just global order. What remains is the imperative to strengthen Iran's ideal as well as structural power. The increasing pressures from the United States on Iran can be understood as a struggle to preserve the existing mechanisms of dominance during this transitional period.
Historically, the United States employed every means at its disposal to prevent the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution against the Pahlavi regime, including support for the notorious SAVAK, deployment of military advisors, and even attempts at orchestrating a coup in the final days of the Pahlavi regime. Despite these efforts, it failed to suppress the will of the Iranian people and ultimately “lost Iran.” In the years that followed, the United States has employed all the mechanisms of its power relations in attempts to counter the Iranian nation. The liberation of Iran within the global power structure would accelerate shifts in the emerging international order and steer them in a direction favorable to independent nations. Today, it seems that the Islamic Republic, as a leading power in the non-Western power bloc, is enhancing its political, economic, cultural, military, and security cooperation with other non-Western powers such as China and Russia within the alternative power structures framework.
Experts identify internal inefficiencies as major obstacles to the United States’ ability to effectively manage its global decline. Factors such as rising economic inequalities, stagnant wages, political paralysis due to deepening polarization, and demographic shifts —most notably the transition toward a white minority population— have rendered political inefficiency increasingly unmanageable. The re-election of Trump along with the erosion of traditional American institutions (described by some as a “soft coup”) have exacerbated these damaging economic and political trends. These domestic challenges, compounded by Trump’s destabilizing foreign policies, are expected to accelerate the pace of America’s decline.
Although this article does not seek to provide a comprehensive analysis of Iran–U.S. relations, one key question arises in this context: How does American decline affect Iran-US relations? This question is particularly significant given the longstanding tensions that have defined the bilateral relationship since the Anglo-American coup of 1953. Despite multiple efforts by Iran to reduce hostilities, these initiatives have consistently failed due to the United States’ persistently antagonistic policies. Yet, amid this bleak history, a more hopeful prospect is beginning to emerge: once the United States’ colonial behavior and mindset runs its course, the cycle of antagonism can end, and new horizons may open. This has happened with other powers like Portugal — the first colonial power that invaded Iran around 500 years ago. The same could happen to the United States when it transitions to a normal country.
