Analysis of the structural crisis of the global capitalist system and the geopolitical meaning of Iran's resistance / not a quick victory, not a dignified retreat; America in Iran's strategic trap

Before the First World War, Britain covered its current account deficit by "expropriating surpluses" from colonies—the classic example of India. But America lost such a possibility after the war, following the wave of decolonization.

According to Jahan Mashrekh service, the Indian economist and left-wing political analyst, Prabat Patnaik, recently in an article on the "Monthly Review" website, addressed the roots of the crisis of the liberal-capitalist system and the analysis of the political economy of Trump's war-mongering in America, which has very interesting points, points that show the current situation in the international arena, especially the illegitimate and illegal war of the American regime and its allies against Iran, and the historical resistance of the Iranian nation from another perspective. explains.

In analyzing the current structural crisis of capitalism, Prabhat Patnaik highlights two intertwined economic dimensions. The first dimension is stagnation and increasing unemployment in the neoliberal phase. Neoliberalism has led to a sharp increase in income and wealth inequality within each country; Capital enjoys the freedom of global movement, while workers remain confined to their national borders.

As a result, workers in advanced countries inevitably compete with low-wage workers in the Global South, and their real wage growth almost stops. At the same time, the continuous increase in labor productivity increases the share of economic surplus from production, and because the final desire to consume the upper classes is less, the total demand for production remains low and "production of surplus before sales" emerges.

Paradoxically, the very order that creates this recession also neutralizes its most effective antidote—increased government spending: globalized finance capital opposes both taxing the rich and deficits, forcing governments to exercise fiscal discipline.

The second dimension is the structural bottleneck of "leadership without colonial empire" in post-World War II capitalism. Before the First World War, Britain covered its current account deficit by "expropriating surpluses" from colonies—the classic example of India. But America lost such a possibility after the war, following the wave of decolonization; While it still has to pay the heavy price of its leadership role—maintaining more than 750 military bases, keeping its market open to the goods of emerging countries.

The result is that the United States has become the world's largest debtor since the mid-1970s. Patnaik calls the post-Bretton Woods system the "Oil-Dollar Standard" whose stability is based on the expectation of the stability of the dollar price of oil. The unprecedented accumulation of foreign debt and floating dollars in the world have made the system vulnerable to a sudden shift from dollars to commodities—especially oil; A transition that can lead to inflation and then severe recession.

US imperialism's response to this double predicament is the project of "recolonization of the Global South"—that is, the direct military and economic domination of the vital markets and resources of the South. The invasion of Venezuela, the threat to Cuba, and the war against Iran are the links of this chain. Patnaik emphasizes that this recolonization does not mean passing through neoliberalism, but establishes a new kind of asymmetry: the Global South becomes imprisoned in raw and authentic neoliberalism, while the United States distances itself from neoliberalism in the field of trade but insists on the absolute freedom of the flow of capital—especially financial capital.

This is where the reverberation of the statements of the Martyr of the Revolution, only a few weeks before his history-making martyrdom, can be heard, when he said: "America wants to swallow Iran!"

The strategic meaning of the Iran war: breaking the first pillar of recolonization

In this theoretical framework, the February 28, 2026 US-Israeli military invasion of Iran is not an isolated regional conflict, but a key link in the imperialist recolonization strategy. Due to its geopolitical position, energy resources and military capability, Iran is a knot that, without removing it, the path of recolonization will remain uneven. However, this war, now in its seventh month, has not only failed to achieve the expected "quick victory", but has become the turning point of the collapse of this strategy.

First, Iran's resistance at the military level shattered the myth of "lightning war". The strategic expectation of Washington and Tel Aviv was that in a few weeks Iran's military power would be destroyed and regime change would occur. But the Iranian armed forces responded from the first day with their missiles and drones to the occupied territories and American military bases in the region, and by closing the Strait of Hormuz, they greatly increased the global price of oil. American media reports, including The Atlantic, acknowledge that seven months on, the Trump administration is facing the stark reality that America cannot claim victory as long as the Strait of Hormuz is insecure, and that Iran is clearly preparing for a long war of attrition.

On the economic level, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz struck directly at the heart of the oil-dollar standard. This action not only raised the price of oil, but also planted a fundamental uncertainty in the world economy: the reliability of the dollar as a currency for oil transactions has itself been challenged in the act of war. If the US cannot guarantee the safety of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, then the default price of Persian Gulf oil in dollars will also be shaken. This is the danger of the "transition from dollars to commodities" that Patnaik had warned about—and the war has turned Iran itself into a catalyst for this transition.

Second, the political effects of Iran's resistance in the global south are a chain. The political cost of the war inside the US was quickly apparent: a 30% increase in gasoline prices, a drop in Trump's approval rating to about 30%, and his having to tie his promise to end the war to the midterm elections. Internationally, more than 135 countries joined the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Iran—but not the aggressors; On the one hand, this "cowardice" shows the gap and passivity of the global south, but on the other hand, it is a testimony to the isolation of Iran's resistance and its importance.

From a strategic point of view, Iran's resistance has offered a "practical model of asymmetric resistance" to the global south. The meeting of the "International Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Fascist Conference" in Mexico City (May 2026) in its final statement described Iran as "one of the main pillars of global resistance against American imperialism" and especially praised its role in "asymmetric resistance" against drone, missile and air wars. The speaker of Iran's parliament directly linked the country's resistance to the "acceleration of major changes of the century" and declared that "the future belongs to the global south."

Dialectic of resistance: from strategic impasse to reorganization of order

The impact of the Iran war on the structural crisis of capitalism can be understood more deeply through the "dialectic of resistance" that Patnaik emphasizes. He says that the stubborn resistance of one country strengthens the will of resistance in other countries, and the retreat of one country weakens the confidence of the entire southern camp. Iran's persistence in this war has a meaning beyond national borders: it proves to all the countries of the global south that are facing the threat of recolonization, that even against the world's most powerful military machine, resistance is not only possible, but can continue for months.

This "demographic effect" directly upsets the cost calculations of the recolonization strategy. The Trump administration wanted to force the southern countries to accept the imposed order by threatening tariffs and unequal trade treaties (example of the Indo-US treaty), but the Iran war revealed the limits of the US military power. The Pentagon has been forced to keep two aircraft carrier task forces in the region for the first time since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars until the end of 2026. If the cost of Iran's resistance is so heavy, the military cost of recolonization on the entire global south will be unbearable.

However, as Patnaik warns, the victory of the Iranian resistance does not mean the final victory of the Global South in the battle against recolonization. Israel's strong domestic opposition to a cease-fire agreement, the possibility of Lebanon's Hezbollah re-arming, and America's continued threats against Cuba and Venezuela all show that imperialism will not give up on its agenda. The "structural fragility" of the ceasefire agreement—the lack of a verification and enforcement mechanism, and the two sides' fundamental differences over the Strait of Hormuz and the nuclear issue—means that the current lull is more like a pause in the "eye of the storm" than its actual end.

More importantly, the Global South's "unity" is itself fragile. In particular, Patnaik notes that neoliberalism has disintegrated the class base of the "nation" formed in anti-colonial struggles: the monopoly bourgeoisie merged with global capital and abandoned a development program relatively independent of imperialism; The upper middle class also wants to send their children to live in metropolitan countries. The anti-imperialist flame ignited by the Iranian resistance must inevitably face the reality of the deep class divide in the global south.

Conclusion: The way out of the structural crisis is not in the change of the hegemon, but in the continuation of the resistance

Patnaik's analytical framework reveals a fundamental insight: the current structural crisis of capitalism cannot be resolved within the existing system. Neoliberalism both creates stagnation and disables the tools to deal with stagnation; Recolonization tries to transfer the crisis to the global south with imperialist violence, but in Iran it has faced an unbearable price of resistance. The meaning of the Iran war is not that it "defeated" America—the United States still has a decisive military advantage—but that it proved the strategy of recolonization to be politically and economically unsustainable.

The war sends a message to the global South that resistance costs money, but so does surrender—and the cost of the latter is often much more profound. By standing still for seven months, Iran has led America to a strategic impasse, where it can neither declare victory nor retreat with dignity. This stalemate is itself a strategic asset for all the countries of the Global South facing a similar threat—because it buys not only time, but space to imagine "another future." Let's remember that the Martyr Leader of the Revolution always emphasized that "the cost of surrender is many times higher than resistance", and in recent weeks, the story of the twenty-year US domination of Venezuela's oil resources has been a clear example of this proposition, where the Venezuelan people's share of the country's oil income will be only ten percent!

However, a huge gap remains between envisioning another future and realizing it. The "other way" that Patnaik outlines—bypassing the hegemony of finance capital through coordinated fiscal stimulus or control of capital flows—is not yet feasible in the current political setup of the Global South. Iran's resistance has opened up the possibility, but turning the possibility into a reality requires not only the courage of the battlefield, but also the breaking of the monopoly bourgeoisie alliance with the neoliberal order within each country. As Patnaik points out, the anti-colonial struggle was once a multi-class united front; Even today, the struggle against recolonization must face the fundamental question of who resists and for whom. Iran's missiles can close the strait, but only the rearrangement of social forces within the southern countries can close the path of recolonization forever.