'The Empire and the Five Kings'

Review by Bill Doughty

Peshmerga soldiers receive their mission brief during a combined arms live-fire exercise near Erbil, Iraq, Oct. 11, 2016, as part of completion of the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve to increase the security capacity of the Peshmerga forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Lisa Soy)

Who owns the future?

French philosopher, author and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy believes the United States may no longer be a world leader as it breaks agreements, treaties and alliances. His conclusion stems in part from his perception of a lack of adequate support to the Kurds especially in the Battle of Kirkuk. Lévy calls the insufficient support a "betrayal."

Lévy's passionate support of the Kurds, Peshmerga and Kurdistan comes from his belief in "the justice of the fight," "the greatness of the people," the debt they are owed" (for fighting ISIS), and Lévy's commitment to the "fight for an enlightened Islam."

Students of Eshek School in Kirkuk, Iraq. (Photo by SSgt Margaret Nelson)

Imagine a modern Islamic enlightenment and reformation – away from fundamentalist extremism that is at the root of Islamist terrorism. The Kurds, including their renowned women fighters, he says, just want the freedom of self-government.

Lévy imagines such a world in "The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdication and the Fate of the World" (Henry Holt, 2019).

The future, he contends, no longer belongs to the U.S. or its five rivals, Lévy's "five kings": China, Russia, Arabia, Iran or Turkey. It belongs to Europe, which he claims as the "homeland of the idea" of universal liberty. The American Revolution took much from the French Revolution, Magna Carta and the best of Greek and Roman ideals, after all.

The ghost of G. F. W. Hegel haunts this book from beginning to end. Like Umberto Eco, Lévy uses history and philosophy and some maritime references to illustrate his ideas. He reincarnates Hegel's view of the new United States more than two hundred years ago, painting with nautical alliteration:

"I remember the pages that Hegel devoted to the newborn United States in his "Lessons on the Philosophy of History..."Its appearance was part of the great linear movement from east to west that Hegel called universal history.Because America lies at the far western end of that arc, it is there, Hegel insisted, that we can expect to witness the denouement of the inexorable plot in the course of which nations, through battles and conquests, contradictions faced and overcome, schisms, reconciliations, heroic acts, and negativities forsworn, are born, grow, and die.With just one reservation – albeit a sizable one.America is too big a country, almost empty, in fact – a country in which the land seemed like a sea and the people like sailors contending with waves of snd and rock.It is a country whose spatial immensity imposed its law on a people of shepherds who roamed with their flocks to the sound of a cantilena that bore less resemblance to a country ballad than a whaler's ditty."

With the United States (at least for now) ebbing away from internationalization, climate talks, trade agreements, NATO and other alliances, Levy says, Europe becomes the "homeland of the idea" of universal liberty and opportunity.

He makes his case for the West in his final chapter, "Where Does the Sea Go at Ebb Tide." Lévy writes, "I side with the West because there is an abyss between totalitarianism and democracy, an obvious fact of which we must never lose sight."

"A civilization, and thus an empire, exists only if it has the strength to produce poets, saints, visionaries, scholars, and characters larger than life." That is not possible, he claims, in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey.

While thick with sometimes unnecessary and pompous references to mythology, literature, and his own intellect, this is still an insightful look at the rise of authoritarianism and resurgence of Fascism.

Lévy makes strong and controversial observations about totalitarian regimes, social media and history-based predictions of the future:

Bernard-Henri Lévy

• "Populists on both sides, even if they take great pains to put on a respectable face, lie in ambush. They are bitter, hateful, ready to pounce at the least sign of weakness, biding their time."
• "Trump and Zuckerburg, though they probably agree on nothing, are the two blades of a pair of scissors that is cutting the fabric of truth to ribbons."
• "...Books lie when they assert that history has a meaning and is moving inevitably in this or that direction, as all rivers flow to the sea."

He reminds us that Syria (like North Korea, in another decade) was a nation created artificially in the aftermath of war.

And he shows how Iran got its name to appease Nazi Germany.

"Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, was a friend of Germany and in time would support the Anschluss, the takeover of the Sudetenland, and the anti-British crusade." The alliance with the Nazis was based on the idea that the origins of the Aryan race and culture was supposedly in the middle of Persia near the Euphrates and the Himalayas.

Iranian officials meet with Adolf Hitler who recognized Iran as an Aryan nation.

In 1935 "Persia" became "Iran" or, in Farsi, "land of the Aryans." Lévy writes, "And that is how the circle closes and how the country, even today, calls itself "the Islamic Republic of Iran. The country's name was never denatzified."

The heart of Lévy's argument against the "Five Kings" is revealed in chapter 10, "The Specters' Ball." Too long to excerpt here, nevertheless Lévy presents a compelling case why freedom-allergic countries are too weak, creative and inept to attract alliances, establish superiority or control the future.

It's good to read about the Middle East and Europe as the U.S. military is ordered to deploy across the Atlantic under an "emergency" executive order and, in contrast, as we approach the 75th anniversary of D-Day and liberation of Europe from Fascism in 1944. This is also an important book in the shadow of a questionable Brexit and as elections commence in Europe and nations choose their future: authoritarian monarchy/dynasty or free republic/democracy.