Empire nostalgia posted by Richard Seymour

I see it's time to get back into Iraq. It's been a while and, let's be honest, we've all felt the absence of imperial omnipotence registered in daily beheadings deeply. Last time, the US promoted some Iranian clients, installed them into a new patrimonial state, trained up their death squads - and then complained like fuck when Iran seemed to make some strategic gains in the situation.

Now I see in the news that the US are teaming up with Iran to take on ISIS, which is probably a smart move on their part because Iran's proxies will fuck ISIS up (this is sober analysis). But, aside from the inevitable gruesome repeat of 2006 - execution scenes from the news today already remind one of old times - doesn't that necessarily also entail an implicit tilt back toward Assad?

This, apparently, is what it is to have an empire.