If there is one area of political knowledge that remains poorly understood, it is geopolitics. This field examines international power relations (domination and resistance, colonization, imperialism, war) as well as the strategies that actors deploy to preserve or strengthen their dominance and exert control over territories, resources, or strategic spaces (buffer zones, spheres of influence, ideological penetration). Conversely, it also incorporates strategies of opposition to these policies.
Obstacles to overcome
Research in this field is primarily funded by governments. The think tanks that conduct this research (Brookings Institution, Rand Corporation) have immense resources that allow them to exert influence, but they are very often subservient to the governments that fund them. Numerous similar organizations are also dependent on their donors. As everyone knows, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Another obstacle confronts those seeking to understand geopolitical realities. While investigative journalism exists at the municipal and national levels, and journalists readily criticize governments on these various issues, the situation is entirely different when it comes to international politics. The major traditional media outlets (mainstream or established media) no longer provide investigative journalism in this area. One must rely on a few foreign correspondents, who merely report events, leaving little or no room for analysis, and a handful of news agencies (AP, Reuters, AFP, Bloomberg). Alternatively, one can turn to the New York Times, a newspaper that maintains close ties with US officials, but which, for that very reason, often becomes a conduit for the information these officials want to see circulated.
In addition to these first two obstacles, there is the discretion of states, which do not always clearly disclose their foreign policy. They often act covertly (CIA, NED, USAID). Arms sales are conducted in secret, away from the media spotlight. Plans are hatched behind closed doors. Decisions are made in government offices to which no one has access. It is the heads of state and a handful of people in their inner circle who make the decisions. Elected officials, journalists, and the public, in general, are presented with a fait accompli.
Generally speaking, in the international arena, states issue interpretations that serve as the official line to be followed. The mainstream media and authorized “experts” repeat this line or offer variations on it. Criticism can only concern details, not the line itself. It is permissible to say that one’s country’s policy is not being implemented properly, but not that it is wrong, unjust, harmful, reprehensible, or contradicts solemnly proclaimed principles. The Western camp is treated with leniency, while those it attacks are vilified. There is even a quasi-standardized vocabulary that the traditional media adopt in unison to distort, deceive, or conceal reality. For example, the American-Israeli aggression against Iran becomes an “offensive,” bombings are referred to as “strikes,” and civilian victims as “targets,” assassinations are transformed into “decapitations,” Hezbollah is labeled “pro-Iranian” but Israel is not described as “pro-American,” Hezbollah and Iran are always “weakened,” countries attacked by the United States and/or Israel are denigrated as “regimes,” Israeli attacks are described as “retaliation,” and resistance to these attacks is labeled “violence” and “terrorism,” Russia and China are “threats,” and so on. On international issues, opinions are monolithic, and pluralism is discouraged, even prohibited, by a censorship that dare not speak its name. This is why the public distrusts mainstream media, in fact propaganda organs for US imperialism, and turns to alternative media, independent of political or economic power, where debate and critical thinking have not been stifled.
A fertile ground for conspiracy theories
The shortcomings of traditional media have fostered the growth of social media, where various participants share their opinions and analyses on government strategies. They fill the void left by mainstream media, which are conspicuously absent, and compete with subsidized research centers that mostly support the established order. While some offer a breath of fresh air with insightful analyses, others may develop fanciful opinions or so-called conspiracy theories. This is undoubtedly also why we have witnessed the parallel rise of fact-checkers —that is, individuals who make a career out of criticizing “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and “malinformation.” However, the pendulum has ultimately swung in the other direction, to the point where, according to some, it is even problematic to posit the very existence of any conspiracy whatsoever. Claiming that a conspiracy exists is now perceived as the product of a conspiracy theory. We find ourselves in the deplorable situation where the flaws of social media are added to the vices of mainstream media.
Rinky-dink geopolitics
In addition to facilitating the spread of conspiracy theories, the poverty of geopolitical knowledge on social media manifests itself in several other ways. As in mainstream media, conflicts are excessively psychologized and personalized by demonizing a head of state. When this persists over several years, the public end up forming opinions based on the portrait that has been painted ad nauseam. This has been the case with Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, and Vladimir Putin. It is easy to demonize them because, like all world leaders without exception, they can be criticized. The strategy is to focus solely and unilaterally on them, attributing only repulsive traits and ignoring the context. The caricature of the “villain” is the foundation of propaganda.
Another misguided approach is to project the characteristics of the domestic political regime onto external political reality, implying that all geopolitical events can be explained by the domestic situation. According to this view, authoritarian, fascist, or tyrannical political leaders behave correspondingly on the international stage. And all international issues should be explained by the personality of certain leaders or the nature of certain regimes. The international order would then showcase, on the one hand, fascist tendencies present in several societies and, on the other, democracy as it could, in principle (but not necessarily in reality), be experienced within our own societies. The opposition between fascist authoritarianism and democracy (in the abstract) is formulated in terms that relate to the nature of domestic regimes, but it is used as a sufficient framework to account for geopolitical reality.
It can happen that the two levels coincide. For example, its Zionist ideology and regime make Israel an aggressive and expansionist entity. But, in general, there is no automatic relationship. A liberal (supposedly “democratic”) state can be imperialist and belligerent; Western history offers several examples. Conversely, a tyrant internally can also be a victim externally. Despite having committed atrocities against the Kurdish people, Saddam Hussein and his country were nonetheless the targets of unprovoked aggression from the United States. Along the same lines, a reductive analysis of geopolitical events based solely on internal regimes will lead some to explain the rapprochement between Trump and Putin by the fact that they are both authoritarian heads of state, whereas, from a geopolitical perspective, this rapprochement (admittedly quite superficial) is explained by the fact that the United States is forced to acknowledge its defeat in the war it instigated. Our earlier article in Pressenza emphasized the difference between the two levels (“Resisting fascism, certainly, but imperialism as well!”) [1].
From a geopolitical perspective, the primary concern is to remain vigilant regarding imperialism and resistance to imperialism, inequalities in international power dynamics, behavior on the international stage, the distinction between aggressor and victim of aggression, and the right to security of all states and peoples, regardless of the nature of their regimes. Regime preferences do not grant any right to intervene in countries whose domestic policies do not align with our wishes. It is exclusively the prerogative of the populations concerned to decide their own internal political affairs, not of foreign powers, under any pretext whatsoever.
The Iranian issue
Let us now turn to Iran. (For an account of the current situation, see our Pressenza article “The American-Israeli aggression against Iran, Realpolitik, and world war.” [2]) Some recognize the existence of two specific political dimensions. They clearly distinguish between issues related to a state’s internal politics and those related to its external policy. However, with regard to Iran, they recommend, even in the present context, not to downplay the problems linked to the clerical regime that emerged from the 1979 anti-Shah revolution, and particularly the treatment of women. Those who stick to the geopolitical dimension and refuse to consider the internal dimension would de facto be in collusion with the regime and should be accused (in particular by those who are seeking salvation through imperialist interventionism) of “campism”, namely, of this propensity to accept en bloc all the positions adopted by a regime, both in its domestic and foreign policies.
The flaw in this argument is that it fails to recognize that domestic political issues concern Iranians, not the rest of the world. Neither the Mossad nor the CIA should interfere. The United States should not impose unilateral “sanctions” that lead to the deaths of thousands of Iranians. For example, in our previous articles, we fully condemned the genocide perpetrated by Netanyahu in Gaza (“Israel in Gaza: a genocidal enterprise?” [3]), but we did not address the other alleged wrongdoings that should bring him to justice in his own country. The supremacism, apartheid and theocracy of Israeli society are not grounds for intervening in, aggressing or invading Israel. Likewise, our position regarding the Iranian theocratic regime is also irrelevant, and for the same reason. Our views of the American regime are very negative, but, as non-Americans, we only condemn the actions of the United States internationally and leave the responsibility for their regime to the American people. In short, any country under attack, including Iran, must be defended, regardless of its regime.
But there’s more. There’s a fundamental reason to resist the temptation to include criticisms of a regime when discussing geopolitical issues. The reason is, once again, quite simple. It would create a valid justification for intervention in the eyes of Western populations. Take the example of Saddam Hussein. Several Western leaders endorsed the idea that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, that it was partly responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center towers, and that it imported uranium from Africa. Even though all of this was completely false, many, including political leaders, consoled themselves by saying that the war waged against Iraq by the United States had at least gotten rid of a tyrant. Iraq’s internal situation is invoked to justify unprovoked aggression. Note the hypocrisy of the West. Saddam Hussein and Iraq would have been open to criticism for the 1980 aggression against Iran. Yet, the West remained silent on this. Why? Because Iraq was the proxy doing the West’s dirty work against Iran. “Saddam” only became a “dictator” after the war against Iran, when he was no longer useful to his sponsors. The Halabja massacre, perpetrated against the Kurds in March 1988, was only denounced in the West in October 1988, after the July 1988 ceasefire between Iran and Iraq. All the more reason to be wary of the labels that are relentlessly repeated and whose purpose is to manipulate the public.
In Syria, for example, starting in 2011, the support provided by the West, Turkey, the Arab monarchies and Israel to jihadist terrorist groups culminated in the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad at the end of 2024. Those ignorant of geopolitics will shrug and say, “Good riddance for this tyrant.” But that’s precisely what the US empire wants us to think. The local leader of Al-Qaeda seized power, and this collusion with a movement that was once recognized as a terrorist organization allows the Americans to control oil flows, push out Russia and facilitate Israel’s territorial expansion. While geopolitical history unfolds before our eyes, American propaganda only shows a demonized individual ousted from power. No established media outlet mentions the United States occupying a third of the country, Turkey manipulating terrorists, or Israel including southern Syria in “Greater Israel.” No media outlet reports on the close ties between the United States and Al-Qaeda, but the image of the tyrant is maintained to confuse public opinion.
The same thing could happen with Iran. The Americans and Israelis might be wrong to attack Iran, but we are told that their intervention could at least rid us of the “mullahs’ regime.” We are being promised an improvement in the lot of women. Yet, no previous imperialist aggression has had this effect. Consider neighboring Afghanistan, where the 2001 US invasion was presented to the Western public as a campaign to allow Afghan girls to go to school. This argument was aimed at naive people and to those who are ignorant of history. Obviously, nothing of the sort happened, as any observer of imperialism with even the slightest awareness knew. In an Iran transformed into an American-Israeli neocolony, Iranian women could suffer the same fate as their Afghan counterparts. Rather than overthrowing the mullahs, Trump is simply trying to domesticate them, along with the existing system, to serve the United States. This is why the pretender to the throne, Reza Pahlavi, is being kept at arm’s length. Finally, let us remember that the United States is responsible for the “sanctions” that have contributed to strangling the Iranian economy and impoverishing the Iranian people, both men and women. The solicitude expressed for the latter is merely a smokescreen to deceive the Western punlic.
Political reality or “clash of civilizations”?
One last obstacle must be overcome to achieve a true understanding of geopolitical reality. As the Canadian Prime Minister seems to have done, one can observe the end of the unipolar world, the end of a “rules”-based international order and the abandonment of neoliberal ideology, understood as an advertising billboard that we feel compelled to display in our shop window.
Does this mean that we truly accept a multipolar world (and not the unipolar world envisioned by the United States in 1991 with the dismantling of the USSR), that we defend international law (instead of a “rules”-based international order conceived by the United States), and that we subscribe to a globalization that respects the rights of peoples (instead of the neoliberal ideology advocating the erasure of borders, the weakening of states and a blind trust in stateless oligarchs)?
There are different ways of conceiving a multipolar world, rejecting a “rules”-based international order and abandoning the neoliberal illusion. We have just mentioned one, but some subscribe instead to the “clash of civilizations,” as described by Samuel Huntington. According to this viewpoint, there now exist several irreconcilable civilizations (that would represent the multipolar world). By virtue of our belonging to Western civilization, at the center of which is America, the United States would have the right to impose itself everywhere in our hemisphere, including in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
According to this viewpoint, our civilization, founded on “Judeo-Christian values,” is being challenged by Chinese, Russian, and Iranian civilizations. Therefore, we must fight against these civilizations because they are supposedly aggressive towards us.
Thus, on June 29, 2022, within the framework of the Madrid Declaration, NATO members described China as a threat to NATO’s vital interests. The declaration stated: “We face systemic competition from those, including the People’s Republic of China, who challenge our interests, security, and values and seek to undermine the rules-based international order.” [4] This narrative about a Chinese threat has all the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory.
Russia, for its part, is considered a threat to all of Europe. In this context, European countries are subject to Donald Trump’s injunction to increase their military spending to 5% of their respective GDPs. They have also complied with Pete Hegseth ‘s February 2025 directive to implement a “division of labor,” with the US dealing with China and the Europeans with Russia. Surprisingly, the main European leaders have been more bellicose than the American imperial power. Undaunted by any inconsistency, they reiterated that Russia had not actually advanced into Ukrainian territory, but that it nevertheless constituted a threat to all member states of the European Union. This narrative transposes conspiracy theories to an international scale.
In Iran, finally, the focus shifted to the perceived danger posed by the nuclear threat to Israel. In 1992, Netanyahu asserted that Iran could possess a nuclear weapon within three to five years. He made the same claim in 1995. In 2009, he told members of the US Congress that Iran would be one or two years away from acquiring nuclear weapons. In 2012, at the UN, he brandished a diagram of a bomb to illustrate that Iran could have enough enriched uranium for a first bomb by the spring or summer of 2013. In 2015, Israel warned the US Congress that Iran might be only weeks away from acquiring nuclear weapons. The same refrain was repeated in 2025-2026 to justify Israeli aggression. This time, he claimed that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon very quickly, within a matter of months. In other words, a power possessing 80 to 300 nuclear bombs would be the potential victim of a nuclear attack from a country that does not possess them. In this context, it is difficult not to see a similar tendency to extend conspiracy theories to an international scale.
These three conspiracy theories involving China, Russia, and Iran outline the contours of a false “clash of civilizations.” These are three smokescreens masking the hegemonic ambitions of the US/Israel tandem. Thus, Prime Minister Mark Carney ‘s Davos speech announcing the end of the unipolar world, the end of a “rules”-based international order and the end of neoliberal ideology is not necessarily linked to a critique of American hegemony, since it is a discourse compatible with the “clash of civilizations” doctrine. To get a handle on geopolitical reality as it unfolds before our eyes, we must understand that the “clash of civilizations” doctrine is a diversion that must be discarded.
Conclusion
When faced with imperialist aggression, the priority is to repel it, as its success would guarantee the strengthening or establishment of the worst evils one fears for a country. Whether one agrees with its regime or not, imperialist control can only worsen its situation. It is therefore necessary to prioritize: first, eliminate the danger of foreign control and the perpetuation of internal reaction; then undertake the desired internal transformations. One must know how to sequence priorities. This is called having a strategy. One does not fight “the regime” while bombs are raining down on Iran and the very existence of the country is at stake. One must address the main problem of the moment—sovereignty and independence—and deal with the other later. This was also the case in national liberation struggles and even during the Second World War, when it was necessary to temporarily mute opposition to British and French imperialisms in order to block the path of the more dangerous German imperialism.
Beyond this, we must acknowledge the panic gripping American imperialism and its determination to weaken states that oppose it. We must understand that this imperialism is globalized and that the American state is prepared to do anything to maintain its position as the sole hegemon. Currently, there is only one imperialist state: the United States of America. It confronts all those who offer nationalist resistance, including the Russian, Chinese, and Iranian states. Whatever one thinks of the Iranian regime, it is nationalist and defends the country against imperialist aggression. To understand imperialism in our time, see Samir Saul’s book: Imperialism, As Rampant Today as in the Past (Baraka Books, 2025). To understand nationalism in our time, see Michel Seymour et al (eds), Rethinking Nationalism, Supplementary Volume 22, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Calgary, University of Calgary Press, 1996.
[1] https://www.pressenza.com/2025/12/resisting-fascism-certainly-but-imperialism-as-well/
[3] https://www.pressenza.com/2023/11/israel-in-gaza-a-genocidal-enterprise/
