Simon Rorschach draws on the dystopian novels of William S. Burroughs to explore how the expanding Middle Eastern war threatens to destroy the American-led order and unleash a ruthless struggle for oil, wealth, and power.
The Middle East is turning into a geopolitical nightmare worthy of William S. Burroughs. In Naked Lunch, Burroughs depicted a world where power operates through addiction, manipulation, and the endless reproduction of dependency. The Persian Gulf now resembles this grotesque universe. American military guarantees, Saudi oil wealth, Iranian resistance, Israeli ambitions, and the interests of emerging powers have become entangled in a struggle whose ultimate prize extends far beyond territory. What is at stake is the entire system through which the region’s enormous wealth has been accumulated, protected, and transferred abroad. The American century created this arrangement. Its decline threatens to turn the Gulf into the great financial battlefield of the multipolar age.
