Editor’s note: Speaking at the East-West Forum held in Istanbul on September 26, Andrew Day, senior editor at The American Conservative, assessed regional proxy wars through the lens of US domestic politics and foreign policy perspective. Recalling The American Conservative’s founding anti-war stance, Day stated that opposition to foreign interventions is now gaining stronger traction within conservative circles, noting that American public opinion is shifting rapidly, particularly regarding US-Israel relations and the War with Iran. Day characterized the war against Iran as an unnecessary war of aggression, stating that it has accelerated the relative decline of the US, the depletion of weapons stockpiles, and the unraveling of the liberal order.

Hello, everyone.

I see that we are supposed to be talking about regional proxy wars. Since my country, the United States, seems to be responsible in large part for all of those wars, I will offer some comments on the domestic political situation in the United States, which I hope will shed light on the geopolitical situation.

That geopolitical situation is obviously very grim, perhaps even grimmer than the organizers expected when they first planned this conference. Nevertheless, I will try to identify some grounds for optimism. That can be a rather lame thing to do, but I am not going to invent these grounds for optimism. I think they are real.

You can see on the screen behind me that I am a senior editor at the American Conservative. If you are unfamiliar with the magazine, you might be surprised to learn that it was founded in 2002 in opposition to the Iraq War.

Obviously, the Iraq War had not yet begun when the magazine was founded in 2002, but we knew it was coming. Our co-founders, most prominently Pat Buchanan, wanted a magazine on the right that was antiwar and fiercely opposed to the coming war in Iraq.

As for grounds for optimism, one thing I will say is that, as much as I might like to puff myself up, it requires very little courage these days to be a conservative campaigning against war. It is nothing like 2002, when Pat Buchanan started the American Conservative.

He was subjected to a deluge of attacks on his character. He was marginalized and maligned as an antisemite. Of course, people still say nasty things online, but it is very different now. It is easier to get the word out, and you are more readily accepted as a member of the conservative movement and as representing a right-wing tendency that is genuinely strong in the United States: scepticism of these foreign wars and fierce opposition to them.

I think that is a genuine source of optimism. It points to an important fact: American public opinion has changed enormously on various issues, including the US-Israel relationship. This is a real development, and it is happening at an incredible rate.

Nevertheless, the story within the political establishment is different, and it is quite disappointing. No matter what politicians say on the campaign trail, it seems that between their election victory and their inauguration, they must attend some secret national security establishment university.

Anatol Lieven used a phrase earlier. What was it? “Weird world of illusions.” I think that might be the curriculum at this national security establishment university that all these politicians attend. By the time they are in office, they are all spouting the same clichés, which have no evident correspondence to today’s geopolitical situation.

As for the craziness they spout, China hawkishness is quite crazy. Russia hawkishness is quite crazy. But clearly the craziest form of hawkishness in America is Iran hawkishness.

Iran is a middle power on the other side of the world, not a peer competitor and not a nuclear state. It was not only willing to reach a nuclear deal with the United States; it actually signed one. According to Trump’s own administration during his first term, Iran was complying with the nuclear deal it had signed.

Nevertheless, we withdrew from it. We all know what happened next.

I think the Iran War is an accelerator. At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, a journalist asked the French novelist Michel Houellebecq: “What do you think the social transformation brought about by Covid will be? What do you expect things to look like at the end of this?”

He said: “There won’t be a transformation. It will be the same, but worse.”

I think the Iran War similarly intensifies certain pre-existing tendencies: the decline of the United States relative to China, the depletion of our weapons stockpiles, which was already happening because of the Ukraine War, and the collapse of the liberal order. That includes the good parts of the liberal international order, such as international shipping.

But I do not know whether things will necessarily just be worse. I do not want to look for silver linings in the Iran War because I regard the US war on Iran as a war of aggression: totally unnecessary and totally stupid. It is bad for America and, of course, bad for the Iranian people. On the first day of strikes, we killed 160 schoolgirls. I am not going to look for silver linings there.

I will say, however, that on the other side of this war, the political establishment in the United States might finally recognize that the margin for error is not what it used to be. It is much narrower. The blowback is much greater, and it now comes back to us and hurts politicians politically.

It really must be stressed that this war is very unpopular in the United States. That is not just because of petrol prices. It was unpopular from day one, when all we knew was that Khamenei and the Iranian leaders had been killed. Pete Hegseth could say, “We have won this great, great victory in Iran.” The American people were not buying it.

This is the most unpopular war in American history. That is an enormous change from the Bush administration, as I indicated earlier. The Iraq War was very popular when it began. The Iran War, not so much. I think that reflects some important trends worth highlighting.

I also think that China’s rise could have considerable geopolitical benefits, including for the United States.

I agree that the Cold War now emerging seems, in some ways, worse than the first Cold War. One reason is that our political leadership in the United States is so unfocused and unstrategic.

Regardless of what you think about Zbigniew Brzezinski or Henry Kissinger, and you may hate them for various reasons, they were intellectual giants compared with the intellectual pygmies who now run the State Department.

Compare Brzezinski with Blinken. Brzezinski was plausibly a genius. Blinken barely seems to have any consciousness behind his eyes. He can speak only in platitudes.

I think you can make a similar comparison between Kissinger and certain conservative secretaries of state, one of whom might be in office right now.

This degeneration of America’s strategic acumen is deeply troubling. It is very concerning, and somewhat mysterious, to the foreign policy thinkers in my network in the United States.

There are capable people whom Trump could put on professional diplomatic teams to talk to Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing. He does not have to send his golfing buddy, Steve Witkoff, to all these places.

Nevertheless, he does, and that is concerning. But China’s rise may focus the mind, as happened during the Cold War. Perhaps, in the best case, our strategic thinking will return to something approaching normality, if not brilliance.

Thank you.

Editor’s note: Speaking at the East-West Forum held in Istanbul on September 26, Prof. Abdullah Baabood addressed the heavy toll that wars and destruction in the Middle East have inflicted on the peoples of the region. Noting that the attack on Iran has also imperiled the Gulf states under the American security umbrella, Baabood stated that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has adversely affected oil and natural gas trade, imports, and regional economies. Stating that relations with the US and the future of the American military presence in the region are now being questioned more than ever, Baabood stressed that regional states must shape their own security through a shared understanding rather than leaving it to the decisions of foreign capitals.

First of all, good afternoon, everyone. I hope you are still awake.

Thank you, Pascal. I also thank Tunç and Harici for their kind invitation.

Being the last speaker is always a great thing because you can recycle all the good ideas you have heard throughout the different panels. But I will spare you that and offer something quite different.

I had thought I would be talking about something else, but I have changed my mind because some of the topics I wanted to address have already been covered.

Let me offer some reflections from someone who comes from the region. Although it says I come from Waseda University, which is in Japan, and we both worked at the same university, where I still work, I am originally from Oman. That is why it says Muscat there.

When you look at the Middle East today, since the British withdrawal, or even before, what do you see? Conflict, destruction, and wars lasting for decades.

We ask ourselves how much longer this will continue. When we look around us, we see devastated states and people being killed almost every day.

Not only in Palestine, which is a separate issue and has already been discussed. Look at Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Iraq.

I was once speaking to a diplomat and said: “All of this is happening. Could this be a conspiracy theory? I don’t believe in conspiracies.”

He said: “If it is not a conspiracy, what is it? How can you explain all of this?”

I still cannot figure it out. Perhaps you can.

The few remaining countries in the region that were stable, secure under the American umbrella, as it were, and prosperous because of oil and gas were the Gulf states.

What happened? President Trump decided to attack a neighbouring country unlawfully, knowing full well that Iran would retaliate against the American presence in the region.

What does that mean? It means our countries in the region would be attacked by Iran, as would some of our infrastructure.

Not only that, but the Strait of Hormuz is now closed. It was open; now it is closed. All the Gulf states, with the possible exception of Oman, rely on the Strait of Hormuz for their oil and gas exports and their imports.

Their economies are now suffering. It has been six or seven months, and we do not know how much longer this will continue. The region is paying a very high price for someone else’s decision.

Someone in Tel Aviv and someone in Washington decided that they wanted to do this. We do not even understand the reason.

If it was the nuclear issue, that had already been settled a long time ago through the JCPOA. Iran has also always said that it would never enrich uranium to produce nuclear weapons or a bomb.

Even before the war, the Omani foreign minister was negotiating with the Iranians and the Americans, and the Iranians had agreed to almost everything President Trump wanted.

That prompted the Omani foreign minister to appear on television and say that he was surprised the decision to go to war had already been taken while negotiations were still underway.

From the region’s perspective, we look at this and think: You have devastated everything. The entire region around us is devastated, and now we are too. Yet we are your allies. We are under the United States’ umbrella.

We have given you all the support you needed. We ensured that you received oil and gas. We ensured that the global economy functioned well and received the energy it needed.

We invested the revenues from oil and gas in your economy, your technology, your know-how, and your weapons. This is how we are repaid.

I think many questions have now been raised about the future of the relationship with the United States, including the future of American bases and the American presence in the region.

I believe America has shot itself in the foot in this case, perhaps even more than that.

At the public level, there is considerable resentment. It is not only because of the unconditional support for Israel in Gaza, the massacres, and the genocide that people have witnessed, but also because of what is happening now.

Many questions will therefore be raised. I think this conflict will further accelerate the changes taking place globally.

Let me conclude with one point. I think the region must begin thinking outside the box and beyond reliance on American or other foreign security umbrellas.

It is time for the region to start thinking about its own security. Its security does not have to be decided in Washington, London, or anywhere else. It must be decided within the region, through collaboration among regional countries.

Many countries in the region can help support its security and stability. This does not mean saying goodbye to the Americans. They will remain allies. But we also need to diversify our relationships with China, Russia, India, and other powers.

Türkiye is, of course, playing a very important role here. So is Pakistan.

I think we need a regional mechanism that ensures security, stability, and economic development, while making us less dependent on foreign powers to secure our region.

Thank you very much.

Editor’s note: French geopolitical analyst Georges Kuzmanovic, in his speech at the East-West Forum held in Istanbul on September 26, emphasized that the West, particularly the European Union, is in a profound political and moral collapse. Stating that Western leaders are completely detached from reality and constantly fuel war out of resentment born from failed globalization, Kuzmanovic pointed out that Europe has lost its sovereignty to neoliberal oligarchies and US tutelage. Expressing that the sabotaging of the 2022 Istanbul Accord by NATO and the relentless sanctions ended in failure, he conveyed that the West cannot come to terms with the independent rise of the Global South.

Well, thank you first for organizing this gathering. This is a great idea, this East West Forum. And I am here also to say to everybody hello from Emmanuel Todd, who was not able to come. He was invited, but he had family issues. And yeah, I would like to see the comeback of the European Enlightenment. But I think that we are first to hit the wall and this is what we are doing. As Thomas expressed, we are in a rapid decline. And in order to have a new Europe, we need to have a change of our leaders. And as Mikael von der Schulenburg said, our leaders, most of them are completely disconnected from reality in a point that is really Orwellian.

And that’s why EU right now is really a pole of instability. It’s always about war talks, war talks, war talks. Firstly against Russia, of course, but not only, of course, Iran. And somewhere somehow with China and in the future with India, it’s already started to build up the mindset again against India because it is rising. And the reason, the profound reason, is because all these leaders, especially the politics and mediatic leaders, a little bit less the industrial businessmen, but they are pissed off. They are pissed off because the globalization went completely wrong. They organized it in order to get all the benefits and all the rest of the planet to work and to be thankful to be working for the Western elite. Well, that doesn’t go well.

And also they’re speaking about European values, democratic values, respect of human beings. But the problem is that you cannot have these values if 10% of the population is consuming 50% of world resources. So that’s the basic problem. And the rest of the world is saying it’s enough and they are not accepting it. So that’s why they’re in complete panic, I think. And that’s why they are more and more vassalized to the United States in the hope that somehow the next strike, the next bomb, the next attack will change something. Because of course all these people who are running Russia, Iran, China, India, Modi is a bad guy, everything. Well, if there is a one strike, the people will rise and change the government because we are the good. And these people of course understand the good. And all their leaders are bad. So there is no space for negotiation. And when you don’t have space for negotiation, well, you cannot find any solution.

And there is a saying from a French humorist, it’s very funny, translate in French is the enemy is stupid because it doesn’t understand that he is the enemy. That’s exactly the mindset. And that’s why all the enemies are somehow Hitler. So Milosevic was Hitler and Saddam Hussein was Hitler and Gaddafi was Hitler and of course Putin, he’s Hitler. And it’s absurd. First Hitler loses hands. If everybody is a Nazi, then nobody’s a Nazi, which is a problem. And of course you cannot discuss with a great evil, so you cannot find solutions.

And I feel the same. I come from the left. I’ve been a long time political leader in the left parties and I have the same feeling with left parties. Until five, six years ago, they were very much about anti globalization protest and gatherings. But if you have noticed, there is no more anti globalization gatherings because it was all about left people from left, European left parties or American explaining to the south, global, global south people how to, how to become something, how to make the revolution, how to grow. But now that these global south countries are organizing by themselves, it’s less interesting.

Yeah, of course we, we need to, if we, if we want Europe to come back on international stage, we need to get back our sovereignty. This has been already told. So of course we lose it. We lost it for united Europe, for sorry, for the European Union, for NATO, but also and eventually for our own oligarchs. And that’s maybe the main problem is that this neoliberalism dogma created an oligarchy in western countries that has taken power. If I take, if I take the example of France, it’s nine billionaire controls like 95% of the medias and six among them are producing weapons. So here we are.

And they are also pissed off because as it was said in 2022 with the memorandum of Istanbul, which was a good solution. A few weeks after the start of this terrible war in Ukraine, which is kind of a third European suicide. Well, as you know, the story will not repeat. NATO countries, especially Boris Johnson went to Kyiv and said, guys, you have to continue the war. And they were convinced the deal was hold the line six months against Russian soldiers. We will defeat them economically and this doesn’t happen. And since they are in complete disarray, so we are on the 21st, 22nd, I don’t know, bunch of sanctions. It didn’t work.

And at the same time, Americans have lost a war in five weeks in Iran. So it’s terrible for people who consider themselves as the leader of the world. And as NATO even said, they have unconscious belief that they are the tops of the world and the rest are the barbarian. Well, if you don’t quit that mindset, then you cannot advance. You can do nothing. It’s so crazy that they are not even interested in what’s going on in Global South. I know because with my friend we created this media fragrance, popular Pedro, who is here. We are traveling around the world to cover the BRICS summits. Well, we are about the only European journalist to be there. It’s crazy. This is not covered even recently in New Delhi.

Well, to summarize with leaders that are, as Colonel Davis said and the others are blocked in 92 and in the Fukuyama concept of the end of history, with people that cannot see the world, that only see the world as war and they have to win the wars, even if it’s absurd, they have not the means to defeat the opponent. I think we have a bigger role. That’s why it’s here. What you’re doing is fantastic. It’s that we have to push for peace. As Professor Zhang Weiwei said, as the first of the six pillars is peace. And what we are all doing as we can is to push for peace. And because it went very wrong.

I think I wouldn’t agree with your interpretation of socialism, because it’s of course based on the Marx work. And if you read Marx, it’s not against violence. It’s not about peacefully achieved upgrade of the human society. On the contrary, it’s a violence blood, even more blood would uprise the majority. It’s like injustice of the humanity that found itself embodied like Haitian way into a working class. And that is why all these injustice allegedly embedded in a working class. Given that working class right to forcefully by war, by killing, overtaken the society and impose violently that imaginary society of communism. So it’s not socialism is like. It’s not democrat socialism of the post second World War Europe. No, it’s something else.

I wanted to add something else, but now I forgot. Yes. In the Second World War, in Croatia, nowadays, Croatia, there was Ustaše state with of course, fascist ideology. Puppet state, they say. But not puppet state, but ally state of Nazi Germany, where Catholic Church was hand in hand with this Ustaše movement. And not a single priest would say no to killing of around 1 million Serbs, Jews, Roma in a system of concentration camps. So even there were priests involved in killing and baptizing these Serbs, like rebaptizing into Catholicism. So we. Well, it’s a very complex phenomenon.

Yeah. It’s about the rapid decline and schizophrenia of our countries. As Colonel Davis is often saying on Deep Dive. It’s bizarre because our leaders are preparing us for war against Russia since already four and a half years. Last year, in the gathering of the mayors of France, which is not the place, the chief of staff took the microphone and it was a speaker and he said that we have to prepare for war in 2030 against Russia. Okay, why not? But there is no conscription, no off conscription, no more tanks built, no more ammunitions. And it’s strange, but there is one thing that is that the boat, a lot of tanks for civil arrest, for the gendarmerie and for the police, and both units are armed to the teeth.

And I think that, okay, they cannot make peace with Russia right now. And all these talks, war are, if I take the example of France, in which we have a presidential election, it is to avoid the main discussions which are why our debt is so crazy, why and is rising very fast, why interest rate is rising very fast, almost eating 5% for the 10 years or 80. Why, why the young people cannot have employment, why the wages are so, so, so, so small, why the diesel price will hit €3 per liter, which is completely insane, and nobody will be able to work on that price. So in order to avoid that and to prepare for the civil unrest will come. They’re speaking about war in Russia, but I’m saying that they’re preparing more to fight their own people.