Iran, the crisis of US power and the end of the imperial narrative

War is also won in the realm of perception. And it is precisely on this terrain that Iran has achieved its most decisive victory. By confronting both the United States and Israel without capitulating, Iran has transformed resistance, endurance, and its capacity to exert pressure into regional political capital.

This is not a conventional military victory, but something perhaps more profound: the consolidation of an image of an actor capable of imposing limits on imperial power.

Even internal debate within the United States is beginning to acknowledge this reality, revealing a growing discomfort with the erosion of the myth of American military superiority—a superiority that no longer guarantees strategic victory. 

Destroying targets, neutralising infrastructure, or launching high-precision offensives does not resolve the central problem: the inability to translate force into lasting political control.

This is not historically new. From Vietnam to Afghanistan, US firepower has proven insufficient to secure stability or submission. What is different now is that Iran is not merely resisting—it is reorganising the battlefield, shifting the conflict into an asymmetric, prolonged, and politically exhausting struggle for its adversaries.

By avoiding direct confrontation, Iran operates through a broader architecture of resistance that includes regional allies, low-cost technologies such as drones and missiles, and indirect control over key strategic points.

This strategy imposes continuous costs on its opponents and redefines the balance of conflict. It is no longer about who possesses greater military power, but about who can sustain confrontation without political collapse.

It is at this point that the true fragility of empire emerges. Prolonged war extracts a high price within the United States itself, through rising inflation, energy pressures, political fatigue, and growing domestic opposition. The ability to sustain long-term conflicts—a historic pillar of American hegemony—is beginning to erode.

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Yet the most profound transformation is taking place beyond the battlefield. For much of public opinion in the Middle East—and more broadly across the Global South—victory is not measured solely in territory or material destruction. It is measured by the ability to remain standing in the face of the Western war machine.

Within this political imagination, to resist is already to win.

This is the perception that the West continues to underestimate. For decades, it sought to impose the idea that submission would guarantee stability, that normalisation with “Israel” was inevitable, and that any sovereign project outside the Western orbit was doomed to fail. 

What we are witnessing now is the opposite. The more Iran has been pressured, the more its image as a resilient power has strengthened—not only regionally, but globally.

The so-called “discourse of resistance” has moved beyond a marginal slogan and has become a regional political language. It crosses borders, transcends sectarian divisions, and resonates with a historical memory shaped by colonialism, invasions, and broken promises. Its growing appeal, even among Sunni communities, reveals a strategic fracture in the Western project of fragmenting the Middle East.

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This does not mean Iran is free of internal contradictions. It means that popular interpretations of events do not follow the same criteria as Western powers. While governments calculate alliances and contracts, peoples observe who confronts “Israel”, who challenges the occupation of Palestine, and who pays the price for supporting resistance in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.

At the same time, the conflict exposes a shift in the global balance. Powers such as China and Russia are closely observing the erosion of US influence, while Washington’s inability to impose a clear victory undermines its international credibility.

The result is a crisis of narrative. The idea of invincibility—the symbolic foundation of American imperial power—is beginning to collapse. And when the invincibility of the oppressor is questioned, space opens for a profound transformation in the political psychology of peoples.

It is on this terrain that Iran’s true victory lies.

For millions, Iran has won because it did not kneel. And when this perception spreads among historically subjugated peoples, it becomes more powerful than any arsenal.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.