Debate Revives Over Whether the United States Functions as an Empire Today

The piece revisits the recurring debate about whether the United States functions as an empire, a question first revived after the September 11, 2001 attacks. It highlights that many left-leaning observers interpreted the attacks as a blow against U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, a perspective surprisingly shared by some neoconservatives in the Bush administration. An unnamed senior adviser told journalist Ron Suskind in 2004 that America was now an empire, whereas President Bush publicly denied the label in 2005, calling the nation a liberating force.

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s new history of the modern Middle East illustrates America’s ambivalence, recalling Henry Kissinger’s 1973-74 oil-embargo bluff and Paul Bremer’s 2003 email admitting the U.S. was “not ready for empire.” The article links these historical moments to current events, noting the seventh-month war with Iran and Donald Trump’s fantasies of annexing Canada and Greenland, his staged gladiator show at the White House, and a Der one outlet cover depicting him as a Roman emperor, all suggesting an imperial self-image.