Thread by @tparsi

Blinken famously said in Jan that "the world doesn’t organize itself." It was a staunch endorsement of American domination, lest chaos or a negative counter-order would emerge.

But is is Blinken right? Not quite. A short thread: >>

scmp.com/news/china/dip…

Contrary to Blinken's prediction, we're increasingly seeing that when the US steps back militarily, others step forward diplomatically.

The US is not the only country that can organize the world, nor is it necessarily bad for the US when regional actors take on this role.>>

Beijing, Moscow, Tehran & Islamabad are trying to figure out how to curtail AlQaeda and ISIS in Afghanistan and help bring stability to the country. They are in the neighborhood, they pay the price for instability, they should shoulder this. That is actually GOOD for the US.>>

Of course, they may not succeed and the US should try to help.

But on counterterrorism, the interests of Iran, Russia & China largely align with that of the US, so others organizing the world is not automatically bad.

Unless, of course, our objecive is domination per se.>>

That appears to be at the heart of this. It is not that we fear that others will fail when trying to organize the world, rather, WE FEAR THAT THEY WILL SUCCEED and that we will lose control, even though the price for the (illusion of) control far outweighs its minimal benefits.>>

In short, we are seeking domination for the sake of domination.

Claiming that we are the only ones that can organize the world helps suffocate any suggestion that America has OTHER options - that it can choose other paths and find other roles for itself in the world. //