US leaders should heed the warning Abraham Lincoln gave all leaders in the nineteenth century: “You can fool all people some of the time and some people all the time. But you can never fool all people all the time.”
After the Second World War, the US projected itself as the saviour of humanity. Hollywood movies projected American soldiers as defenders of liberty around the world. The US economy, least damaged by wars fought on others’ lands, grew large and US mass media spread images of the comfortable lifestyles of middle-class white Americans. In the public’s imagination since then, the US has been the shining beacon of liberty and economic progress. Though reality has not conformed with this mass-produced image, most US citizens continue to see the US as a knight in shining armour defending freedom all over the world. They are not shown pictures of the devastation and deaths of civilians caused by US interventions in other countries’ affairs. The US’ unshaken support for Israel in its ongoing brutal war against Palestinian and Iranian citizens is now troubling the conscience of even US’ allies.
US soft power is in tatters. You can never fool all the people all the time. US interventions in other countries’ affairs are not about lofty principles; their aim is to preserve US hegemony. The agenda is to ‘Make (only) America Great Again’; defend Western civilisation; and save the purity of superior white people from contamination by backward blacks and browns. The US-Israeli war against Arabs and Iranians to control production and trade in hydro-carbon resources is the last hurrah of Western colonialism. Amidst escalating tensions over the Strait of Hormuz, Donald Trump issued a stark ultimatum to Iran. He said: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. He was warning Iran to comply with U.S. demands to reopen the Strait and stop its nuclear program.
For seventy-five years Iran bravely resisted US’ violations of Iranian citizens’ rights to govern themselves. The US and Britain deposed an elected Prime Minister, by their covert ‘Operation Ajax’ in 1951, to retain their control over Iran’s petroleum resources and installed a compliant Shah. (So much for democracy!) Last month the US murdered Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in a glaring violation of international law. The Iranian people continue to resist, provoking a frustrated Trump to threaten the final ending of Iranian civilisation, which is thousands of years older than the three hundred years young, manufactured, US civilisation.
The US deludes itself that it is the most civilised country only because it is the richest and most powerful. It believes it has a God-given right to civilise other countries and prevent less civilised countries (in US eyes) from using new technologies because they may harm others. The US has stymied India’s nuclear development program on the same grounds: India is not civilized enough yet to use nuclear technology responsibly; though the US is the only nation that has used an atomic bomb to terrorise a nation by killing millions of innocent civilians! Pressured by Israel, the US unilaterally broke up an international agreement with Iran which had allowed Iran to produce nuclear fuel, and it sent bombers deep into Iran to smash its nuclear facilities in a clear violation of international law.
When Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a reporter what he thought of Western civilization, his reply was: “Western civilisation? That would be a good idea”. The British exploited India’s natural resources to feed their industry in Britain. They forced British culture on India. British educationist Macaulay contemptuously said: “A single shelf of a good European library is worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”. India was not a civilised country, he implied, and India needed the British to civilise it.
Gandhi led a non-violent movement for India to claim its rights to its own land and civilisation. He inspired many leaders of movements for the rights of oppressed people: Martin Luther King in the US, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia, and others. They acknowledged that Gandhi was their inspiration—a ‘vishwa guru’. The image of India as a beacon for a better world continued after India’s independence from the British. India was seen as a leader of a global movement shaking off colonial oppression.
Abraham Lincoln had warned US leaders: they cannot fool the world forever. No country can claim to be democratic and civilised if it does not permit its own citizens to protest injustice. Or, if it prevents other countries from standing up for injustice against others, as the US does repeatedly in the UN.
The façade of US ‘soft power’ is now shattered, and its ugly, hard power is fully revealed in the Middle East. The US is defending the last European colony it created, which is Israel (it was one of the first resolutions of the United Nations), on lands that legitimately belong to the Arabs who have lived on it for centuries. It is an upside-down world where governments who terrorise citizens in other countries—as the US and Israel blatantly are—describe their own soldiers, who kill many innocent civilians and children, as heroes; and call civilians, who take up arms to fight for the rights of the oppressed people, terrorists!
The claims of Indian leaders’ to be vishwa gurus sound hollow today when India has aligned itself with Israel and the US. They are being pragmatic, they say, because India needs Israel’s and US’ technologies for defence against its neighbours. They need these also for surveillance of India’s own citizens in the global fight against terrorism led by the USA. Pragmatism preserves the established order of power. Inner strength is required to remain true to one’s ideals. The weak can only be pragmatic.
India’s leaders must return to the path to its tryst with destiny which India set out on in 1947. They must have the courage to support powerless people against powerful countries, and they must build India’s internal strengths. Within India they must not yield to demands of powerful and wealthy people which will not make India a better country for its poorest and least powerful citizens also.
(Published in The Tribune, 25th April 2026 https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/americas-moral-mask-is-slipping/)