Do Your Own Research: The Iran War Will Collapse the American Empire w/ Alfred McCoy

In this incisive episode of Novara Media, historian Alfred McCoy, a living legend in the field of imperial critique, unpacks the hidden architecture of American global power through the lens of covert operations and geopolitical strategy. Drawing from his groundbreaking 1972 book *The Politics of Heroin*—which exposed the CIA’s complicity in the heroin trade during the Vietnam War—McCoy reveals how the U.S. and its allies have long relied on 'men on the spot': rogue operatives who, in the vacuum of decolonization, shaped wars, regimes, and economies from the ground up. His new book, *The Cold War on Five Continents*, reframes the Cold War not as a binary struggle between Washington and Moscow, but as a series of regional conflicts across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East that collectively caused 20 million deaths. McCoy argues that the U.S. victory in the Cold War was not due to military superiority, but to a brilliant geopolitical strategy of encircling Eurasia with military alliances and bases, while using covert operations to destabilize adversaries. He warns that the current crisis in Iran—where a massive U.S.-Israeli air assault has crippled Iranian defenses—mirrors the 1956 Suez Crisis, where Egypt’s symbolic act of closing the Suez Canal exposed the limits of imperial power. Iran’s asymmetric response, using cheap drones to threaten global oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, may already be a strategic victory. McCoy ties this to a deeper transformation: the U.S. empire, built on oil and fossil fuels, is being undermined by China’s rapid green energy revolution and a global shift toward renewables. He warns that the U.S. under Trump is actively sabotaging its own energy transition, while dismantling humanitarian institutions like USAID, liquidating the idealistic aspects of American hegemony. The result, he predicts, is not just a decline of U.S. power, but a more dangerous, multipolar world marked by nuclear proliferation and transactional diplomacy, where China’s rise brings not moral clarity but a cold, trade-driven order. Key takeaways include: 1) The U.S. won the Cold War not through direct confrontation, but through a global network of covert operations and strategic encirclement; 2) The real power of empires lies not in their armies, but in their ability to manipulate local actors and control information; 3) The current crisis in Iran is not a military defeat but a strategic victory for asymmetry, echoing Nasser’s 1956 defiance; 4) The energy transition is not just technological—it’s a geopolitical earthquake, with China leading the charge and the U.S. resisting; 5) The collapse of the American empire will not be sudden, but a slow erosion driven by geopolitical miscalculation, energy transition, and the abandonment of global humanitarian ideals.