Iran, Japan, and the Fourth Political Theory

Sovereignty beyond Western progress

Kazuhiro Hayashida provides a Japanese perspective on a new theory of civilizational power and the legitimacy of Iran.

From the perspective of the Fourth Political Theory, as I interpret it, Iran’s 1979 revolution can be defined as the ejection of a rocket’s fuel booster.

It was the severing of the modernization model embodied by the Shah’s regime, a model subordinated to the Western progressive view of history, and the moment when the civilizational core of Persia transitioned to a new stage. The cost of this separation was sanctions and isolation. Yet by discarding the booster, Iran acquired a structure that allowed it to concentrate on the deepening of its civilizational core rather than expending resources justifying a compromised Westernization.

The West defined this separation as “reaction” or “regression.” Within the simple and linear Western concept of historical progress, the detachment of a booster appears as degeneration. However, this is merely a matter of the observer’s perspective. Within the Fourth Political Theory, the act of separating from the West constitutes proof of liberation.

Unfortunately, Japan failed to detach itself from the West. After 1945, Japan was fitted with a recoil spring imposed externally through occupation, and that spring became fused with Japan’s civilizational core. Each attempt to detach is condemned as “leftward drift,” “rightward drift,” or “historical revisionism.” This mechanism functions as a typical contraction-spring resistance produced by the spiritual degradation associated with the Western progressive view of history. In other words, the very force that seeks progress is used to pull the system back powerfully just as it approaches its goal, resetting it so that everything must begin again from the start.

What Iran demonstrated is the only method of severing this spring resistance: the resistance must be removed together with its source. This is why Iran’s choice holds such importance for Japan. Iran has implemented the very act of blocking the Western progressive worldview that Japan failed to choose, and the legitimacy of this act is articulated by the Fourth Political Theory.

This spring resistance signifies the construction of an unstable social order through constantly changing definitions created by moving the goalposts and imposing inconsistent rules. This shifting of goals occurs whenever a civilization outside the West attempts to surpass the West. Through meaningless rules, certification standards are transformed into instruments serving Western interests. The U.S.–Japan Semiconductor Agreement, triggered when Japan’s semiconductor industry threatened the United States in the 1980s; the technological decoupling initiated when China’s GDP approached that of the United States; and the additional sanctions imposed when Iran sought to reach nuclear technological capacity—all are manifestations of the same spring-resistance mechanism. The goal does not truly exist because it continually moves in order to prevent anyone from reaching it.

If the present moment truly marks a turning point in history, then it is crucial to grasp the concrete reality of that turning point rather than relying on vague impressions. Donald Trump once declared that international law does not exist. In effect, this means that we may determine everything according to our own theory. This statement destroys the structure from within. The moment international law is declared nonexistent, the legitimacy of international norms as instruments of spring resistance disappears. This constitutes the real substance of the present turning point. If the West establishes rules that are inconvenient for others, those rules can be ignored; direct strikes can be carried out against the state imposing them, leading to conquest and subordination.

A single hegemonic power that possessed both the will and the ability to enforce rules has now denied the existence of those very rules. From this moment onward, rules function only through power.

Under such conditions, each civilizational core must urgently construct systems capable of enforcing its own rules through its own strength. It is precisely at this turning point that Japan can define the legitimacy of Iran.

The moment Trump denied the existence of international law, the principle ceased to apply exclusively to the United States. The rejection of universal norms operates in every direction. If the United States acts according to this logic, other civilizational cores acquire the authority to act according to the same logic. This is the asymmetry of the turning point. The West attempts to apply this logic only to itself, yet the international norms supporting such limitation have already been destroyed by the United States itself. The foundation of that limitation has vanished.

Japan must decide its position quickly. This turning point presents two choices: either cling to the remains of vanished international norms and continue wearing the apparatus of spring resistance as a chain of servitude, or stand as an independent actor that constructs and enforces rules derived from its own civilizational core.

Supporting Iran’s legitimacy, introducing the concept of industrial aggression into international debate, and constructing Japan’s energy security according to its own logic have only now become realistic options within this turning point.

In a world where the constraint system called international law has disappeared, the use of force is released in all directions. This is an extremely dangerous situation, yet it is also the moment when concealed reality becomes exposed.

International law always functioned as a normative system through which those who possess power manage those who do not. Now that this fiction has been removed, the logic of power has come to the forefront. When Japan attempts to construct a rational relationship with Iran, the theoretical possibility emerges of striking against any country that seeks to obstruct such cooperation.

For Western economic domination to become a realistic option, a coalition capable of exercising power must exist. At present, the coalition closest to this condition consists of Russia, China, Iran, and potentially the solidarity of the Global South. Should Japan join such a coalition, it must design a structure in which the interests derived from Japan’s civilizational core align with the interests of the entire alliance.

Defining the West as a source of cheap labor represents a structural reversal of what the West historically imposed upon non-Western societies.

The question Japan must therefore consider is this: within this reversal of logic—in which the executors of colonial rule, resource extraction, and industrial aggression now become those upon whom such actions are executed—what position will Japan occupy?

If Japan’s present trajectory remains unchanged, it will decline into a source of cheap labor, reduced to the factory of Asia. Japan is clearly moving in this direction. Declining birth rates and an aging population are reducing the quality of the labor force; industrial competitiveness is weakening; and the depreciation of the yen is lowering real purchasing power. All these processes are already underway.

Japan’s decline represents the final consequence of spring resistance. Eighty years have passed with Japan cut off from the civilizational core of the Eurasian continent and with the circuit through which political will might emerge blocked by the United States. During this period, the resources accumulated before the war have gradually been consumed. The continuous payment of costs required for historical justification has exhausted Japan’s propulsion.

At this turning point, only one condition allows Japan to avoid decline: the neutralization of the West and reconnection to the circuit through which political will emerges from the civilizational core of the Eurasian continent. Without such reconnection, Japan will remain in a subordinate position regardless of the coalition it joins.

While Asia seeks separation from the West, Japan remains satisfied through parasitic dependence on the West and immersion in a faintly sweet ideology of superiority. This spiritual divergence is driving Japan into a desperate position in the coming reorganization of the world.

(Translated from the Japanese)