Two feminine voices, one British and one American, have been announcing the death of empires. The first is that of Polly Toynbee, a columnist for British newspaper The Guardian. The second is Rosa Brooks, former advisor at the US Department of State and columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, known for her right-wing extremism and closeness to the Israeli lobby in the United States. After the House of Commons refused to grant Cameron the authority to participate with Washington in the strike on Syria, Toynbee wrote that "Britain's illusion of empire is over", adding that the vote in the House of Commons did not represent a shift from right to left, but rather "a long-delayed acceptance that Britain is less powerful and poorer than it was". In Foreign Policy, Brooks wrote that there were many "uncomfortable truths Obama surely knows but won't say" because they are truths "we don't want to hear". The first is that "the American century is truly over", amid "the rise of the rest" (meaning other countries) and amid "technological change [that] has made us less autonomous than we used to be" and thus "no longer the sole authors of our national destiny". The second is that "no one really cares what we think, and we can't fix much of anything". Indeed, having "wasted trillions of dollars on wars", "the United States no longer has the ability" to "fix things" in Pakistan and in Egypt, which know that "others will step forward to fill [their] coffers". And the third is that "the only thing America is good at these days is breaking things", from Afghanistan to Libya through Iraq, with its blind use of "brute force". Toynbee and Brooks, along with many others, have gone beyond the crisis of British-American relations and beyond threats of a strike on Syria, to look into the state of affairs of the two empires. Britain still cannot believe, after nearly ninety years since the end of the colonial era, that it has become too weak to wage wars to restore its past glory. This illusion it has was reinforced by the military campaign waged by Margaret Thatcher against Argentina's Falkland Islands in the 1980s, and the Conservative Party still lives off the glory of this campaign. This British illusion was also reinforced by Tony Blair's participation in the war on Iraq at the turn of the century, forgetting that its alliance with Washington is the reason for Britain's military and political power, and that America itself is no longer as it once had been – in addition to forgetting that all the justifications for this war turned out to be lies, and that no one believes fabricated reports anymore. Brooks, for her part, relies in her analysis on Obama's hesitancy to wage war on Syria, and steers clear of the talking points of the "thugs" and parasites of the press, motivated by a collapsing ideology or by personal interests. The latter have described the US President as hesitant and cowardly, not a "white master" who can bear taking fateful decisions – forgetting that he knows much that he does want to say, as Brooks mentioned. He knows that destroying Syria without a plan for the day after would have a backlash on the United States and its allies, and would destroy the Middle East. He knows that those who had been Washington's allies under Bush are no longer what they used to be, and cannot offer much. Indeed, this became clear in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in the vote at the British House of Commons and in the caution displayed by European countries, Canada and the remaining Western allies. Perhaps Obama knows that empires must change their approach to international problems. He knows even more that the military power he holds could destroy the entire world. But then what? This explains his turning to Congress, as perhaps those who represent the people know what he knows and would stand by his side. However, this is a different issue. Indeed, in the United States, elected Representatives act in accordance with the needs of pressure groups, not on the basis of what they know. There remain the two empires of France and Turkey. The leader of the former, "General" François Hollande, is motivated by the past glory of his Socialist Party. Indeed, it is under the rule of this party that France waged its dirtiest wars in Africa and in Asia. He is also motivated by the history of the Leftist movement (are there still Leftists in Europe?), which has sympathized with Israel ever since it was founded. And now is the time to stand with one's allies. Hollande is ignoring the reality of his country, which abandoned its colonial position a long time ago, leaving behind the time when it could conquer populations and control countries beyond the seas. He does not even turn back to look at his adventure in Mali, and the resulting quagmire of wars in which the entire region continues to sink. As for Erdoğan, whose ambition is to restore the past glory of the Ottoman Empire, and who appealed to Moses to rid us of "the new pharaohs in Egypt", he is at the mercy of the past, both ideologically and in terms of the way he governs and runs his foreign policy. He will accept no less than the destruction of Syria in order to "save its people" from tyranny, not knowing that the peoples who got rid of the Sultan in the 1920s still stand against him to this day. Illusions of empire destroy the world, and brute force does not build.
