Commentary: Washington's Sisyphean Trap in the Middle East

BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) -- In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned to the eternal task of pushing a boulder uphill, only to watch it roll back down again and again.

This myth serves as a fitting metaphor for Washington's frustrated ambition in the Middle East: repeated interventionist adventures that have consistently failed to shape the region according to its design.

Clearly, the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is falling far short of Washington's initial expectations -- a swift operation with limited use of military power to topple the current Iranian government, and in turn, tighten its grip on one of the world's richest oil reserves. Perhaps, Washington's January campaign against Venezuela had misguidedly emboldened the decision-makers in the White House.

The Trump administration is clearly caught in a dilemma: pulling back now would amount to an unmistakable failure, while leaving itself grappling with the shock of soaring oil prices triggered by an impasse in the Strait of Hormuz; yet pressing ahead with a ground offensive risks dragging the United States back into another Middle Eastern quagmire. With the mid-term elections just months away, the administration wants neither of the two scenarios.

And this is more than a policy failure; it is a symptom of a deeper identity crisis involving America's global hegemonic ambition. Since the end of the Cold War, Washington seems to have arrogated a mandate to rule the world as it wishes, as well as a powerful force that can match its global domination.

Yet the history of the Middle East over the past decades is rich in examples where the more the United States resorts to unilateral use of pure force, the more it exposes the limits of its power.

And along with that paradox, America's myth of morality has gone bankrupt. Remember? There was a time when Washington still tried to cover its hegemonic undertakings with the narrative of delivering so-called freedom and democracy. Today, it is only interested in flexing muscles.

While the world community is getting increasingly fed up with Washington's reckless addiction to global domination, America's policy-makers are still being trapped inside a fantasy they have created for themselves. It seems that they have lost the ability to do serious reflection, not to mention coming to terms with the fact that the era of unipolarity has long gone.

Still, Washington must reckon with the fact that despite being the sole superpower of the world, it might have the power to destroy something or kill some people, but it will never succeed in putting the world under its thumb in this age of multipolarity, just as Sisyphus can never push the boulder right to the hill top. And in each attempt to reign supreme, the United States is actually facing a backlash of its own making and edging a bit closer to its final decline.