America is a true global superpower with a true global reach, it is the only superpower in history to achieve this magnitude of reach. In comparison, to the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire, were only considered as regional powers not superpowers, even the Caliphate was a regional power. Today the American hegemony controls and runs the world, it’s not just embroiled but dominant in world affairs. The Muslim world is no exception from the hegemonic influence of the United States. The question isn’t really why, but rather how the United States of America came to rule the world.

Manifest Destiny

At the end of World War Two (WW2) Britain, France and other European powers lost the majority of their influence over their colonies around the world. Since WW1, America was spectating Europe’s destruction and by the end of WW2, it was assured that the European powers will not be able to rejuvenate from this predicament, thus, the United States decided that it was time for it to enter onto the world stage due to Europe’s inevitable decline.

When the two World Wars were in full swing, the US watched from its continent originally, and preferred to be a bystander and focused on its domestic economy. Due to the Industrial Revolution, America saw the emergence of economic dynamism where the country started to shape its industrial foundation like the Europeans. However, it was still a developing nation. During WW2 however, America did interfere, but it was mostly due to defend itself against Imperial Japan, until 1944-45 the US stepped in where its military became capable enough to support Europe in order to suppress the pact of the steel powers (Germany, Italy and Japan). Yet, by the end of WW2 America’s industrial rivals the Europeans and the Japanese were diminished. This gave America a golden opportunity to enter and lay down its grand strategic master plan that will keep the US in power for years to come.

George Kennan one of America’s greatest strategic planners and the architect of the Cold War containment strategy, stated in Policy Planning Study 23: “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population… in this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity… to do so, we should cease to talk about unreal objectives such as human rights, living standards and democratization. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better we are.” [1]

Hence, this was a perfect time for the US to lay down its rules of the game in order to secure its imperatives, and build relationships that will give America to overcome the latter.

Firstly, Europe was destroyed by wars across the continent due to WW2. America knew that the European economy combined was greater than the US, it had more capital and more educated people than the US had. Therefore, America knew if Europe was left alone to rebuild itself from its ruins into successful capitalist countries, it will pose a serious threat to American investors and corporations in the near future. Therefore, during 1948-1951 the Marshall plan was to aid to the tune of $12 billion in loans through which it purchased a third of US exports. This became very beneficial for America as it kept Europe under its influence.

Secondly, the new world order (America) assigned specific locations for self-economic gains, Germany and Japan were called the workforce, this name was given due to their industrial expertise. These countries would be used for production on a rapid rate for the US in the future. The third world was known for its resources and cheap labour, which would help the American industrial belt to increase its production at a low cost. Hence, America coined different names to different parts of the world regarding each one’s economic provision of benefits for America.

Thirdly, the abolition of the gold standard in 1971 was due to the Europeans wanting to exchange their dollars for gold. This wasn’t in America’s best interest because such an exchange would have reduced the price of the dollar, plus the US didn’t have enough gold to back the dollar in circulation. Therefore, President Nixon abolished the gold standard completely which forever keeps the Europeans and the rest of the world pegged onto the dollar. Today 40% of all transactions globally are done in dollars. This was one of the best moves made by America for its quest to become a true global superpower and to secure its interests along the way.

Communism wasn’t that much of a serious threat as compared to democracy; which would end up giving stability to countries. One of these countries was Italy [2]. During 1948 the Communist Party was about to come into power through a legitimate manner via democracy hence, America collaborated with a former fascist regime to re-install fascism into Italy to cause instability. Democracy, ultra-nationalism and anti-fascist regimes are never good for the US, because a nation would have sovereignty over its resources and be independent, which would hinder American capital and create dissent towards American investors.

Woodrow Wilson was the man who propagated self-determination for states, but he knew that if states become sovereign powers it will give them the political will to achieve independence and economic stability, not to mention sovereignty over their national resources. Hence, invasion of Dominican Republic and Haiti took place where soldiers killed thousands and destroyed the environment leaving the political system unstable by installing brutal regimes and leaving the US corporations in control. Woodrow Wilson only promoted self-determination in order to break the influence of European powers over their colonies. However, he knew that in the long run this won’t be appropriate for America’s imperial interests, so he decided to contradict himself.

The list goes on, how America instigated coups around the world, especially third world countries like, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954 and 1963 when Kennedy backed a military coup to prevent democracy, Brazil 1964 and Chile 1973 [3]. Whenever a revolution happens America quickly intervenes to destroy it in order to prevent countries from becoming democratically stable. The reason for this is democracy is a threat towards capitalism, they are not synonymous. Aristotle in his book called “The politics” also states a very similar thing that either you reduce inequality or reduce democracy [4]. He preferred a system which was between oligarchy and democracy, because both produced problems regardless. The West still yet has been unsuccessful in producing a fine political system. Even in America, the liberal democratic values are only for the elite and the elite only, what you have is liberal dictatorship and nothing more. Democracy never did exist in its purest form because the purer the democracy the more brutal it becomes for the elites hence, governments have created an artificial paradigm of liberation and happiness with a precise magnitude to fool the masses.

The inter-American system book, which was issued and studied by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London states “while the US pays lip service to democracy, the real commitments is private capitalist enterprise” when rights of investors are threatened democracy has to go and if these rights are safeguarded killers and torturers will do just fine” [5].

The Muslim World Is No Different

America uses foreign countries’ militaries to cause economic, environmental and political instability. After that, it decides to leave the countries’ problems to the civilians where they will vote for a leader, or sometimes the US will place a leader themselves depending on the fragility of the country. Eventually these rulers end up running to America for IMF loans in order to stabilise the country. Hence, after the military steps down, the IMF takes over to rule the country and keeps it dependent on to America. Hence, the military isn’t needed anymore because IMF is running the show unless the people rise again, then the military will be used again by America to cause instability, again [6]. Sound familiar?

This keeps the elites of foreign US corporations in control and also the local elites as they get a share of the pie for their cooperation, while the rest of the innocent civilians suffer which is the usual 90% of the population. This is how the Middle East, Latin America and Africa are controlled by the US.

The same goes for the Middle East where dictators and monarchs are installed by the US, to give US corporations control over their resources and in the end, they get a piece of the pie in exchange for their obedience and cooperation. The US is perfectly happy with a dictator like Abdul Fattah al-Sisi who forces liberal values onto its people, the imposition of so called free speech, freedom of religion and many other secular-liberal prescriptions, when in actuality the real solution is in front of him (Islam). At the same time Sisi’s soldiers have raped, tortured, and killed anyone who wants to bring Islam into ruling or have any ideological adherence to it. While the US has no aspirations to intervene in order to help the people who are suffering. But during the Egyptian revolution though, the US acted immediately and helped Sisi come into power in order to suppress the up rise [7].

The same goes for Pakistan, where the recent Kashmir crisis is occurring: Imran Khan has shown much fighting talk but little action regarding Modi’s removal of Article 370[8]. The reality is that America is the one who has agent rulers, in return these rulers collaborate with America’s imperial interests e.g. the colonial IMF. Where Khan keeps taking loans from the IMF that come with extreme attachment of strings. The majority of the IMF policies hurt Pakistan in the long run such as deregulation so FDI inflows can take place, devaluation of currency, increase exports to the US and increase in privatisation. All of these policies favour US corporations to safeguard and increase their wealth. While the country suffers because the government has to apply heavy taxes onto the people to produce revenue streams, due to extreme privatisation by corporations. This strategy keeps the borrowing country forever in debt.

So this should show the US has created a series of dependencies under the capitalist paradigm, where no country can overcome it due to the US being the only superpower with a powerful economy and military. All oil-trade is pegged to the dollar, the majority of transactions are undertaken in dollars, and the Neoliberal institutions have encased the US elite’s capital around the globe. For example, Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission in the 1970s were able to postpone the oil shocks on Japan and Europe who are the industrial experts for the US as mentioned earlier, by imposing IMF policies on developing nations.

This has sustained the industrial world, Japan and Europe plus the American dollar system for decades by crushing any democratic, nationalistic or revolutionary aspirations in the world (the third world especially). The US has used IMF to suppress the majority of the world’s industrialisation, except the ones that it needs. Furthermore, in 2003 America used democracy to enter Iraq and control its oil fields directly with the help of its ally Britain. This was part of the “full spectrum domination” where the US wanted to control the economic, political and military developments alongside have a monopoly on military technology and the energy fields [9].

The US commands the world reserve currency and purposefully has damaged regions around the world so that they cannot be a potential threat to its hegemon. Anyone who wants to break out of this dependency cycle will eventually come running back to the US. As has been seen recently: Imran Khan wants to pull out of CPEC and go back to the US for the continuation of economic and military support of F-16 parts, plus the removal of the financial action task force (FATF). This is due to Pakistan realising that China can’t offer the country, compared to what the US can in terms of economic, military and general support. This is because the US has executed the world order in such a way, that it will always keep everyone in their fixed position within the global system of capitalism.

The Balance of Power in the Middle East

After creating dependencies economically in the region through economic brutality, America uses “Israel” to maintain the balance in the Middle Eastern. It does so to keep its capital in the region safe. In return for “Israel’s” cooperation, the US helps “Israel” with its own interests, like West Bank and Gaza. Since 1967 US opinion from both sides, the Liberals and the Republicans has been aligned with “Israel’s” extremist foundations. Like the take over of Arab East Jerusalem, even though the world opinion has condemned it, the US still supplies the “Israelis” with money and authorisation to do whatever they like. There is also an element of Christian extremism aka crusaders where the US allows “Israel” to carry out barbaric atrocities on Palestinian Muslims [10].

The same goes for Iran and Saudi Arabia that are also used by the US to maintain the balance of power in the region, and this is due to the region being very fragile. Iran’s both neighbours left and right have nuclear weapons, Pakistan on one side and “Israel” on the other, due to this Iran also wants nuclear weapons however, America constricts Iran by applying sanctions. If Iran does become successful in building nuclear weapons than this will result in “Israel” feeling threatened. Hence, a physical conflict can breakout which will cause the region’s oil to be on fire in the Persian Gulf resulting in oil prices to rise and affect the global economy [11]. However, this balancing doesn’t only apply to the Middle East but also to other parts of the world as well. E.g. NATO is used by America to distribute power amongst European nations, however this is just a snapshot of how the US maintains its influence in the Muslim world.