The Superpower Mirage: Why the 'West' That Demands Iran Disarm Doesn't Actually Exist

I am poor in the richest country on Earth. This paradox is the dirty secret of the so-called “Western superpower” that lectures Iran about nuclear weapons while sitting on enough warheads to destroy the planet dozens of times over. The same nations demanding Tehran disarm are the ones whose militaries have bombed, invaded or overthrown governments in over 50 countries since the end of World War II. But here is the question we are never allowed to ask: Who, exactly, is doing the demanding?

Because the “West” that issues these “moral” ultimatums (read Epstein Files) is not the people huddled in tent encampments in Los Angeles and New York, nor the food bank queues in London and many other places. It is a tiny, unaccountable elite, billionaires, defence contractors and multinational executives, who have hijacked the world’s flags, citizens’ identities and monies to wage wars that enrich them while the rest rot. 

And they have built an elaborate propaganda machine to make sure the “west” cheers for these executioners.

Here are the numbers they don't want you to see. Let’s begin with the domestic reality that punctures the “superpower” myth. The United States (the self-appointed leader of the “free world”) presides over an empire of squalor that would shame a developing nation. Fifty-three million Americans live in abject poverty. One in five children goes to bed hungry. Homelessness has reached the highest recorded level in history, with entire cities transformed into tent cities while politicians debate tax cuts for corporations.

Americans are told the nation cannot afford universal healthcare, free college, or affordable housing. Yet somehow, the predators can always afford nearly $1 trillion annually for the military; more than the next nine nations combined. The USA can afford to fund NATO's $1.59 trillion war machine and Israel with billions, and which now outspends Russia by a huge margin. 

The arithmetic is obscene. The wealth of just five tech billionaires exceeds the combined GDP of entire continents. The top 0.001%, fewer than 60,000 people, control three times more wealth than the bottom 5 billion human beings.

This is not a superpower. This is a industrial kleptocracy with nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers to distract you from the theft. And worse. Most Americans are in the dark. How?

The Propaganda Machine. That is how they made USA gullible. To maintain this system, the elite needed to manufacture the consent of the Americans. To believe that their suffering was justified. So they built the most sophisticated propaganda apparatus in human history.

First, they took their education.

They sanitised the history books. Americans learned about the “discovery” of America, but not the genocide of its indigenous people. They learned about the “liberation” of Europe, but not the CIA coups that toppled democracies in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. They stripped critical thinking from curricula replacing them with job-training programs designed to produce obedient workers, not questioning citizens. By the time they graduate, they have no indication that their country is capable of murderous atrocities.

Second, they captured their media. (Read Noam Chomsky’s: Manufacturing Consent.)

Six corporations control 90% of what they watch, read and hear. They decide what is “news.” A politician's gaffe is breaking news; the Pentagon losing trillions of dollars, is not. They parade “experts” on screen, always former generals (from the Israeli playbook), think-tank fellows funded by defence contractors, who frame every conflict to instil fear and force the question: “How should we respond?”. Never “should we respond at all?” When the US bombs a wedding in Afghanistan or a mosque in Iraq, it is a “tragic malfunction.” When Iran conducts a military exercise, it is “destabilising aggression.” The messaging is relentless, and it works.

Third, they created enemies. 

Every generation needs a bogeyman. First it was the “Red Menace.” Then it was "Islamic Terrorism" or "Fundamentalists" or "Radicalised Muslims". Now it is the “Authoritarian Axis” of China, Russia and Iran. They bombard Americans with fear-based narratives 24 hours a day until they genuinely believe that a country 7,000 miles away, with a military budget 1% of the USA, poses an existential threat to their way of life. Then Americans cheer for sanctions that starve children in Baghdad (almost a million died during the fake WMD story) and Tehran while their own children also scratch for food in bins. They have been conditioned to fear the wrong predators.

Fourth, they distracted Americans with spectacle.

They cannot afford a home, but they can watch the Super Bowl. They cannot afford healthcare, but they can stream the latest Marvel movie where the US military saves the world, (once again) from aliens. They cannot afford to retire, but they can scroll TikTok for 12 hours a day. 

So. What is the real purpose of “disarmament”? Now that there is an understanding of the game, the original question: "Why must Iran disarm?" can finally be answered.

Because the entire structure of Western dominance depends on a monopoly on violence. The elite reserves the right to bomb anyone, anywhere at any time. The only thing that stops them is a credible deterrent.

Look at the history. The US has invaded or intervened militarily in country after country: Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, always with the same justifications, always with the same disastrous results, always with the same corporate beneficiaries collecting the spoils.

When Libya's Muammar Gaddafi gave up his WMD program, he was praised. A decade later, NATO bombed his country out of existence and he was dragged through the streets and killed. Tehran understands this: disarmament leads to destruction.

So Iran watches. It sees the $1 trillion defence budget. It sees the bases surrounding its borders. It sees the sanctions that strangle its economy. It sees the scientists and leaders assassinated by Western (read Israeli) intelligence. And it sees the bombs that fell on its territory just months ago. And the “West” has the audacity to demand trust?

Why do Western populations accept this? Why do they cheer for wars that bankrupt themselves? Because, for them, the alternative is too painful to contemplate. If they admitted that their government is not a force for good, that their military is not a defender of freedom, that their leaders are not working in their interest, what would that make them? What would that make their parents, who taught them to salute the flag? Liars? What would that make their friends who enlisted in the army and died “for democracy”? Were they lied to all the time? 

So they cling to the fiction. Respect the myth. They tell themselves that the poverty is their own fault, that the bombs are necessary and that the billionaires earned their wealth through merit. They have become the propaganda's most effective enforcers, attacking anyone who questions the narrative as “unpatriotic”. The elite counts on this. They laugh about this. They know that if they control the information long enough, the citizens will do their work for them.

Is there a way forward?

There is, but it requires a radical awakening. It requires Americans to understand that the “West” is not the citizens. It is them: the billionaires, the defence contractors, the media moguls, the politicians they own. These are the people who benefit from war and division. 

So, when Americans demand that Iran disarm, they are speaking in a voice that is not their own. They are parroting the talking points of an elite that would sacrifice the Americans just as readily as they sacrifice children in Gaza or Baghdad or Tehran.

The only moral position, is to demand the same standard for all. Either nuclear weapons are abhorrent, in which case the US and all its allies must disarm immediately and completely. Or they are a legitimate tool of national defence, in which case Iran and other nations have every right to acquire them.

The current arrangement, where some nations are allowed the bomb and others are bombed for seeking it, is not a rules-based order. It is a protection racket dressed up as international law.

So, Americans, Britons and Europeans should look at their bank accounts and at their homeless neighbours. The crumbling schools and unaffordable healthcare. And then look at the trillions of dollars disappearing into the Pentagon's black hole.

They are being played. The enemy is not in Tehran or Beijing or Moscow or Venezuela. The enemy is in the boardrooms and the gated communities and the corporate media studios. They have stolen the future and they have convinced the “west” to blame everyone but them.

The superpower is a mirage. The only real power is the power of people to see through the lies and refuse to participate in our own destruction.

Author's Note: This piece is adapted from a series of conversations and readings about propaganda, empire and the manipulation of the public consciousness. It is offered in the hope that someone, somewhere, might read it and begin to ask the questions people to have been trained not to ask.

* Shabodien Roomanay is the board Chairman of Muslim Views Publication, founding member of the Salt River Heritage Society, and a trustee of the SA Foundation for Islamic Art. 

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.