風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
美國為何與伊朗開戰
邁克爾·哈德森 2025年6月23日
https://michael-hudson.com/2025/06/why-america-is-at-war-with-iran/
新保守主義者認為必須擊敗伊朗並將其分裂成多個民族國家
反對與伊朗開戰的人認為，這場戰爭不符合美國的利益，因為伊朗並未對美國構成任何明顯的威脅。這種訴諸理性的說法忽略了新保守主義的邏輯，而正是這種邏輯指導了美國外交政策半個多世紀，如今卻有可能將中東拖入自朝鮮戰爭以來最慘烈的戰爭。這種邏輯如此激進，如此令人反感，如此嚴重地違反了國際法、聯合國和美國憲法的基本原則，以至於製定這一戰略的人不願明確指出其中的利害關係，這也可以理解。
事關重大，美國試圖控製中東及其石油，以此鞏固其經濟實力，並阻止其他國家擺脫以美國為中心、由國際貨幣基金組織、世界銀行和其他國際機構主導的新自由主義秩序，從而建立自身的自主性，鞏固其單極霸權。
20世紀70年代，關於建立“新國際經濟秩序”（NIEO）的討論甚囂塵上。美國戰略家們將其視為威脅。諷刺的是，我的著作《超級帝國主義》曾被美國政府用作教科書，因此我受邀就各國將如何擺脫美國控製發表看法。當時我在哈德遜研究所與赫爾曼·卡恩共事，1974年或1975年，他帶我參加了一次軍事戰略討論，討論當時正在製定的推翻伊朗政權並將其分裂成多個民族地區的計劃。赫爾曼認為最薄弱的環節是位於伊朗與巴基斯坦邊境的俾路支省。庫爾德人、塔吉克人和突厥裔阿塞拜疆人等其他族群，其族群間的矛盾將被巧妙利用，這使得美國外交擁有了一個潛在的重要傀儡政權，以便在必要時重塑伊朗和巴基斯坦的政治走向。
三十年後，2003年，韋斯利·克拉克將軍指出，伊朗是美國需要控製的七個國家中的關鍵一環，這七個國家分別是伊拉克、敘利亞、黎巴嫩、利比亞、索馬裏和蘇丹，最終目標是伊朗。
時至今日
如今，關於國際經濟地緣政治格局變化的討論，大多集中在金磚國家和其他國家試圖通過貿易和投資去美元化來擺脫美國控製的努力上，這完全可以理解（也理所當然）。但目前重塑國際經濟格局的最活躍動力，是自今年1月以來唐納德·特朗普旋風式的總統任期內，他試圖通過讓其他國家同意不將貿易和投資重點放在中國以及其他尋求擺脫美國控製、實現自主的國家（與俄羅斯的貿易已受到嚴厲製裁）身上，從而將其他國家鎖定在以美國為中心的經濟體係中。如下文所述，伊朗戰爭的目的同樣在於阻斷與中國和俄羅斯的貿易，並遏製任何偏離以美國為中心的新自由主義秩序的舉措。
特朗普希望以他自己都難以實現的方式重振美國工業，他原本期望各國會響應他製造關稅混亂的威脅，與美國達成協議，不與中國進行貿易，並接受美國對中國、俄羅斯、伊朗以及其他被視為威脅美國單極全球秩序的國家實施的貿易和金融製裁。維護這一秩序是美國當前與伊朗、俄羅斯、中國以及古巴、委內瑞拉和其他一些尋求重組經濟政策以恢複經濟獨立的國家之間衝突的目標。
在美國戰略家看來，中國的崛起對美國的單極霸權構成了生存威脅。這既源於中國工業和貿易的主導地位超越了美國經濟，威脅到美國市場和美元化的全球金融體係；也源於中國的工業社會主義模式為其他國家提供了一個可能效仿或與之合作以恢複近幾十年來逐漸喪失的國家主權的範例。
美國曆屆政府和眾多冷戰時期的美國支持者將這一問題定義為民主（指那些支持美國政策、淪為附庸政權或寡頭政治的國家）與專製（指那些尋求國家自力更生、擺脫對外貿易和金融依賴的國家）之間的對立。這種國際經濟框架不僅將中國，而且將任何其他尋求國家自主權的國家都視為對美國單極霸權的生存威脅。這種態度解釋了美國/北約對俄羅斯的攻擊，這場攻擊導致了烏克蘭消耗戰；也解釋了最近美國/以色列對伊朗的戰爭，這場戰爭有可能將整個世界卷入美國支持的戰爭之中。
攻擊伊朗的動機與伊朗的任何企圖都無關。
美國通過研發原子彈來捍衛其國家主權。根本問題在於，美國搶先一步，試圖阻止伊朗和其他國家擺脫美元霸權和美國的單極控製。
以下是新保守主義者對美國推翻伊朗政府、實現政權更迭的國家利益的闡述——這並非一定是世俗民主政權的更迭，而可能是像占領敘利亞的“伊斯蘭國”-“基地”組織瓦哈比恐怖分子那樣的勢力擴張。
一旦伊朗分裂，其組成部分淪為一係列傀儡寡頭集團，美國的外交手段便可控製整個近東地區的石油。一個世紀以來，石油控製一直是美國國際經濟實力的基石，這得益於美國石油公司在國際上的運營（而不僅僅是作為美國國內的石油和天然氣生產商）。控製近東石油也使得美國得以推行美元外交，沙特阿拉伯和其他歐佩克國家通過大量持有美國國債和私人投資，將其石油收入投入美國經濟。
美國利用這些投資將歐佩克國家挾為人質（這些投資也涉及美國經濟和其他西方經濟體），並可隨意沒收這些資產，就像美國在2022年沒收了俄羅斯在西方的3000億美元存款一樣。這在很大程度上解釋了為什麽這些國家不敢在當今的衝突中支持巴勒斯坦或伊朗。
但伊朗不僅是美國全麵控製近東及其石油和美元資產的關鍵所在。伊朗還是中國“一帶一路”倡議的關鍵環節，該倡議旨在打造一條通往西方的鐵路運輸新絲綢之路。如果美國能夠推翻伊朗政府，這將切斷中國已經建成並希望進一步向西延伸的漫長運輸走廊。
伊朗也是阻止俄羅斯經裏海進入南部、繞過蘇伊士運河進行貿易和發展的關鍵所在。而且，如果伊朗受美國控製，其傀儡政權可以從俄羅斯南部威脅俄羅斯，同樣繞過蘇伊士運河。
在新保守主義者看來，所有這一切都使伊朗成為美國自詡的國家利益的核心支點——如果你將這種國家利益定義為建立一個由附庸國組成的、維護美元霸權的強製性帝國，並堅持美元化的國際金融體係的話。
我認為，特朗普警告德黑蘭市民撤離城市，隻不過是試圖在國內製造恐慌，以此作為美國動員各族裔反對派分裂伊朗的先兆。這與美國希望將俄羅斯和中國分裂成各個地區民族的企圖如出一轍。這正是美國對一個仍由其掌控的新國際秩序的戰略設想。
諷刺的是，美國試圖維持其日漸衰落的經濟帝國的努力，最終隻會適得其反。其目的是通過威脅製造經濟混亂來控製其他國家。然而，正是美國這種製造混亂的威脅，迫使其他國家另尋出路。而目標並非戰略。美國利用內塔尼亞胡作為烏克蘭總統澤連斯基的對立麵，要求美國進行幹預，並聲稱他會戰鬥到最後一個以色列人，就像美國/北約戰鬥到最後一個烏克蘭人一樣。這種策略顯然是以犧牲戰略為代價的。這無疑是在警告全世界，必須找到出路。正如美國旨在使其他國家依賴美國市場和美元化的國際金融體係的貿易和金融製裁一樣，試圖在中歐到中東地區強行建立軍事帝國，最終隻會自取滅亡。它使得以美國為中心的自由主義秩序與全球多數群體之間本已存在的裂痕，無論從道德層麵還是從簡單的自保和經濟利益層麵來看，都已不可逆轉。
特朗普的共和黨預算計劃及其大幅增加的軍費開支
伊朗導彈能夠如此輕易地突破以色列引以為傲的“鐵穹”防禦係統，這表明特朗普施壓美國軍工複合體，要求其提供高達萬億美元的巨額補貼，以在美國本土建造類似的“金穹”防禦係統，是多麽愚蠢。迄今為止，伊朗僅使用了其最老舊、效能最低的導彈。其目的是削弱以色列的反導防禦能力，使其在一周甚至幾天內就無法阻止伊朗的重大襲擊。幾個月前，伊朗已經展示了其突破以色列防空係統的能力，正如在特朗普上一任總統任期內，伊朗也曾展示過其輕而易舉地打擊美國軍事基地的能力一樣。美國軍費預算實際上遠高於國會擬批準特朗普萬億美元補貼法案中所披露的數額。國會通過兩種方式為軍工複合體提供資金：顯而易見的方式是通過武器采購。
國會直接支付的軍費開支占了很大一部分。而軍工複合體（MIC）的支出則較少被提及，它通過美國對外軍事援助的形式流向其盟友——烏克蘭、以色列、歐洲、韓國、日本和其他亞洲國家，用於購買美國武器。這解釋了為什麽軍費開支通常是美國預算赤字的主要來源，並導致政府債務上升（當然，自2008年以來，其中大部分債務是通過美聯儲自籌資金償還的）。
不出所料，國際社會未能阻止美國和以色列對伊朗發動戰爭。由於美國的否決權，以及英國和法國的否決權，聯合國安理會無法采取措施製止美國及其盟友的侵略行為。如今，聯合國作為一個能夠執行國際法的世界組織，已被視為軟弱無力、無關緊要。 （正如斯大林曾對梵蒂岡的反對意見所言：“教皇有多少軍隊？”）正如世界銀行和國際貨幣基金組織是美國外交政策和控製的工具一樣，許多其他國際組織也同樣如此，它們被美國及其盟友所主導，其中包括（與當今西亞危機密切相關的）國際原子能機構。伊朗指責該機構向以色列提供目標信息，以實施對伊朗核科學家和設施的襲擊。要擺脫美國的單極秩序，就需要一套獨立於美國、北約和其他附庸盟友的、全方位的替代性國際組織。
Why America is at War with Iran
Opponents of the war with Iran say that the war is not in American interests, seeing that Iran does not pose any visible threat to the United States. This appeal to reason misses the Neocon logic that has guided U.S. foreign policy for more than a half century, and which is now threatening to engulf the Middle East in the most violent war since Korea. That logic is so aggressive, so repugnant to most people, so much in violation of the basic principles of international law, the United Nations and the U.S. Constitution, that there is an understandable shyness in the authors of this strategy to spell out what is at stake.
What is at stake is the U.S. attempt to control the Middle East and its oil as a buttress of U.S. economic power, and to prevent other countries from moving to create their own autonomy from the U.S.-centered neoliberal order administered by the IMF, World Bank and other international institutions to reinforce U.S. unipolar power.
The 1970s saw much discussion about creating a New International Economic Order (NIEO). U.S. strategists saw this as a threat, and since my book Super Imperialism ironically was used as something like a textbook by the government, I was invited to comment on how I thought countries would break away from U.S. control. I was working at the Hudson Institute with Herman Kahn, and in 1974 or 1975 he brought me to sit in on a military strategy discussion of plans being made already at that time to possibly overthrow Iran and break it up into ethnic parts. Herman found the weakest spot to be Baluchistan, on Iran’s border with Pakistan. The Kurds, Tajiks and Turkic Azeris were others whose ethnicities were to be played off against each other, giving U.S. diplomacy a key potential client dictatorship to reshape both Iranian and Pakistani political orientation if need be.
Three decades later, in 2003, General Wesley Clark pointed to Iran as being the capstone of seven countries that the United States needed to control in order to dominate the Middle East, starting with Iraq and Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan, culminating in Iran.
Fast forward to today
Most of today’s discussion of the geopolitical dynamics of how the international economy is changing is understandably (and rightly) focusing on the attempt by the BRICS and other countries to escape from U.S. control by de-dollarizing their trade and investment. But the most active dynamic presently reshaping the international economy has been the attempts of Donald Trump’s whirlwind presidency since January to lock other countries into a U.S.-centered economy by agreeing not to focus their trade and investment on China and other states seeking their own autonomy from U.S. control (with trade with Russia already heavily sanctioned). As will be described below, the war in Iran likewise has as an aim blocking trade with China and Russia and countering moves away from the U.S.-centered neoliberal order.
Trump, hoping in his own self-defeating way to rebuild U.S. industry, expected that countries would respond to his threat to create tariff chaos by reaching an agreement with America not to trade with China and indeed to accept U.S. trade and financial sanctions against it, Russia, Iran and other countries deemed to be a threat to the unipolar U.S. global order. Maintaining that order the U.S. objective in its current fight with Iran, as well as its fights with Russia and China – and Cuba, Venezuela and other countries seeking to restructure their economic policies to recover their independence.
From the view of U.S. strategists, the rise of China poses an existential danger to U.S. unipolar control, both as a result of China’s industrial and trade dominance outstripping the U.S. economy and threatening its markets and the dollarized global financial system, and by China’s industrial socialism in providing a model that other countries might seek to join to emulate and/or join with to recover the national sovereignty that has been eroded in recent decades.
U.S. Administrations and a host of U.S. Cold Warriors have framed the issue as being between democracy (defined as countries supporting U.S. policy as client regimes and oligarchies) and autocracy (countries seeking national self-reliance and protection from foreign trade and financial dependency). This framing of the international economy views not only China but any other country seeking national autonomy as an existential threat to U.S. unipolar domination. That attitude explains the U.S./NATO attack on Russia that has resulted in the Ukraine war of attrition, and most recently the U.S./Israeli war against Iran that is threatening to engulf the whole world in U.S.-backed war.
The motivation for the attack on Iran has nothing to do with any attempt by Iran to protect its national sovereignty by developing an atom bomb. The basic problem is that the United States has taken the initiative in trying to pre-empt Iran and other countries from breaking away from dollar hegemony and U.S. unipolar control.
Here’s how the neocons spell out the U.S. national interest in overthrowing the Iranian government and bringing about a regime change – not necessarily a secular democratic regime change, but perhaps an extension of the ISIS-Al Qaida Wahabi terrorists who have taken over Syria.
With Iran broken up and its component parts turned into a set of client oligarchies, U.S. diplomacy can control all Near Eastern oil. And control of oil has been a cornerstone of U.S. international economic power for a century, thanks to U.S. oil companies operating internationally (not only as domestic U.S. producers of oil and gas). Control of Near Eastern oil also enables the dollar diplomacy that has seen Saudia Arabia and other OPEC countries invest their oil revenues into the U.S. economy by accumulating vast holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and private-sector investments.
The United States holds OPEC countries as hostages through these investments in the U.S. economy (and in other Western economies), which can be expropriated much as the United States grabbed $300 billion of Russia’s monetary savings in the West in 2022. This largely explains why these countries are afraid to act in support the Palestinians or Iranians in today’s conflict.
But Iran is not only the capstone to full control of the Near East and its oil and dollar holdings. Iran is a key link for China’s Belt and Road program for a New Silk Road of railway transport to the West. If the United States can overthrow the Iranian government, this interrupts the long transportation corridor that China already has constructed and hopes to extend further West.
Iran also is a key to blocking Russian trade and development via the Caspian Sea and access to the south, bypassing the Suez Canal. And under U.S. control, an Iranian client regime could threaten Russia from its southern flank, bypassing the Suez Canal.
To the Neocons, all this makes Iran a central pivot on which the self-proclaimed U.S. national interest is based – if you define that national interest as creating a coercive empire of client states observing dollar hegemony by adhering to the dollarized international financial system.
I think that Trump’s warning to Tehran citizens to evacuate their city is just an attempt to stir up domestic panic as a prelude to a U.S. attempt to mobilize ethnic opposition as a means to break up Iran into component parts. That is similar to the U.S. hopes to break up Russia and China into regional ethnicities. That is the U.S. strategic hope for a new international order that remains under its command.
The irony, of course, is that U.S. attempts to hold onto its fading economic empire continue to be self-defeating. The objective is to control other nations by threatening economic chaos. But it is this U.S. threat of chaos that is driving other nations to seek alternatives elsewhere. And an objective is not a strategy. The plan to use Netanyahu as America’s counterpart to Ukraine’s Zelensky, demanding U.S. intervention with his willingness to fight to the last Israeli, much as the U.S./NATO are fighting to the last Ukrainian, is a tactic that is quite obviously at the expense of strategy. It is a warning to the entire world to find an escape hatch. Like the U.S. trade and financial sanctions intended to keep other countries dependent on U.S. markets and a dollarized international financial system, the attempt to impose a military empire from central Europe to the Middle East is politically self-destructive. It is making the split the split that already is occurring between the U.S.-centered neoliberal order and the Global Majority irreversible on moral grounds as well as on the grounds of simple self-preservation and economic self-interest.
Trump’s Republican budget plan and its vast increase in military spending
The ease with which Iranian missiles have been able to penetrate Israel’s much-vaunted Iron Dome defense shows the folly of Trump’s pressure for an enormous trillion-dollar subsidy to the U.S. military-industrial complex for a similar Golden Dome boondoggle here in the United States. So far, the Iranians have used only their oldest and least effective missiles. The aim is to deplete Israel’s anti-missile defenses so that in a week or only a few days it will be unable to block a serious Iranian attack. Iran already demonstrated its ability to evade Israel’s air defenses a few months ago, just as during Trump’s previous presidency it showed how easily it could hit U.S. military bases.
The U.S. military budget actually is much larger than is reported in the proposed bill before Congress to approve Trump’s trillion-dollar subsidy. Congress funds its military-industrial complex in two ways: The obvious way is by arms purchases paid for by Congress directly. Less acknowledged is MIC spending routed via U.S. foreign military aid to its allies – Ukraine, Israel, Europe, South Korea, Japan and other Asian countries to buy U.S. arms. This explains why the military burden is what normally accounts for the entire U.S. budget deficit and hence the rise in government debt (much of it self-financed via the Federal Reserve since 2008, to be sure).
Unsurprisingly, the international community has been unable to prevent the U.S./Israeli war against Iran. The United Nations Security Council is blocked by the United States’ veto, and that of Britain and France, from taking measures against acts of aggression by the United States and its allies. The United Nations is now seen to have become toothless and irrelevant as a world organization able to enforce international law. (As Stalin remarked regarding Vatican opposition, “How many troops does the Pope have”?) And just as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are instruments of U.S. foreign policy and control, so too are many other international organizations which are dominated by the United States and its allies, including (relevantly for today’s crisis in West Asia), the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran has accused of having provided Israel targeting information for its attack on Iran’s nuclear scientists and sites. Breaking free of the U.S. unipolar order requires a full spectrum set of alternative international organizations independent of the United States, NATO and other client allies.
