The current debacle in world affairs and US hegemonic ambitions crashes upon the putative leadership in the west.

The common observation bandied about by the "experts" is that there is no apparent strategy or method discernable in US policy abroad, particularly as demonstrated in the middle east currently. The US appears embarrassed by an obsolete worldview. It's policies seemed to be based on delusions rather than reality.

The original American crisis in orientalist vision was the so called "loss of China" represented by Chiang Kai-chek's retreat to Taiwan after losing the mainland in the Chinese civil war. Followed by political persecution of the China hands in the US State Department and fervent domestic anti-communist persecution, the US orientalist vision resulted in further attempts by the US to consolidate the former Japanese empire as its own. The so called loss of China raised the issue of whether it was ever ours to "lose." Subsequently, this fundamental assumption of western superiority over "inferior races" implicit in orientalist thought had to be redeemed in Korea and Vietnam. These massive US military campaigns were to vindicate Lord Cromer's vision of empire* disguised in anti-communist drag.

The fundamental view of orientalism,* is that the inferior peoples don't know what is good for them. They naturally succumb to despotism and don't value human life. They just don't think right, and therefore are backward and should be easily defeated in military contest, that is war. Short of war, western penetration of civil society accompanied by sedition and intrigue may succeed, if indigenous populations are properly "educated" in the superior western ways. They need western experts to explain the shortcomings of their civilization, or in the alternative, one presumes, to destroy it.

In the so called forgotten war in Korea, "backward" Chinese communist forces humiliated MacArthur, the "American Caesar" of the orient. The US had employed a bombing campaign based on LeMay's dictum, "...war is about killing people. When you kill enough of them, the other guy quits." After stabilizing the front near but not on, the 38th parallel, at great cost, that orientalist blunder was put on indefinite hold.

The US repeated the orientalist mistakes of the west in Vietnam. Vietnam revealed to those who studied the US defeat based on the facts rather than its orientalist mythology, that determined Vietnamese nationalism, combined with combat experience and the early spread of advanced technology of its day, could bring hundreds of US military jets and thousands of US helicopters down in burning wreckage in spite of millions of tons of bombs being dropped on the "primitive" native peoples. This is not to mention the terrible human costs in lives lost and other damages. The historical truth needed to be overwhelmed by mythology of a US domestic "fifth column" (the peace movement and squeamish officials). The total defeat was labeled as a "failure to take the gloves off," and rationalized by "the stab in the back theory."

Certainly, in orientalist terms there is no way, mere "gooks" could defeat the great white superpower of the west, the US (美國 meiguo in Chinese, "mi guk" in Korean) . But they did. It took years to fully rehabilitate our orientalist mantle. It began with mini-victories over the honorary Orientals of the west in Latin America particularly in Grenada and Panama. It is no coincidence that these "campaigns" were adumbrated by the so called Iran-contra skullduggery. Remind one of anything?

The point to be made is that the orientalist mythology of western superiority had to be revived. It is the ideology of imperial western supremacy over the barbaric "other."

These events. now obscured by the propaganda and the passage of time, were superseded by a reversion to frank orientalism in the form of middle east wars breaking out after the "end of history.**" During the cold war, those wars formerly had been carried out to a large degree, in the middle east by the orientalist experiment, Israel. The latter acted as the new proxy for the orientalism of Lord Cromer*** and Balfour. Since, the viability of Cromer's vision needed to be demonstrated by the hegemonic west more directly.

The adventurous days of the great white "supermen" Lawrence and Aaronsohn in the early twentieth century were reborn. Covertly and overtly, in the form of US and Israeli military campaigns in the (oriental) middle east and North Africa. The obvious collapse of the imperial theory evidenced in Afghanistan and now Ukraine has to be avoided at all costs by its US adherents.

The current failure of the Orientalist vision of western superiority is undergoing another Dien Bien Phu/Tet Offensive in the Persian Gulf with the Iranians shocking the west out of its illusions of imperial grandeur. Has the US orientalist world view yet suffered the blow from which it may never recover?

*See: Orientalism, Edward W. Said, Orientalism, Edward W. Said

**The end of history was celebrated in the west, on the occasion of the fall of the Soviet Empire, another dark "oriental" power. Yet, somehow, the oriental threat of Russia, has reemerged, despite plans for its undoing by NATO.

***Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer, English ruler of the Egyptian colony. From Said's text characterizing English orientalist perspective:

... Subject races did not have it in them to know
what was good for them. Most of them were Orientals, of whose
characteristics Cromer was very knowledgeable since he had had
experience with them both in India and Egypt. One of the convenient things about Orientals for Cromer was that managing them, although circumstances might differ slightly here and there,
was almost everywhere nearly the same. This was, of course,
because Orientals were almost everywhere nearly the same.

Ironically, orientalism took root in Japan during the Meiji period:

(Source- KBS 1 History Journal, ep. 199) Ito Hirobumi, the Japanese Resident General of Korea, kept the Korean crown prince as a hostage and raised him in the Japanese military tradition.

Ito (Hirobumi) had visited London and studied there for several months. He learned about English control over Egypt and later used that British colonial rule as a model for his imperialism in Korea. He even used the pretext of modernizing and civilizing Korea as a justification for the protectorate. (England controlled Egypt from 1884 to 1954, the so called Cromer model, named after the Evelyn Baring, Earl of Cromer, consul general of Egypt).

Japanese (orientalist) imperial policies in East Asia, particularly Korea were encouraged by the US. This is well documented despite revisionist cultural efforts to present a different view in the very popular Kdrama, Mr. Sunshine, funded by Netflix. Wikipedia's description of the drama notes- "Major General Patrick Donaho, the commander of United States Forces Korea strongly recommended the drama on his twitter in 2020."

US-Japanese policies vis a vis Taiwan are also representative of the orientalist legacy and perspective.