“America doesn’t just compete, we DOMINATE, and the whole World is watching.” US president Donald Trump’s message to the departing Artemis II crew applies equally to the US-Israel war against Iran. The two momentous events presage US imperial decline, even as its leader trumpets interplanetary domination and a genocidal end to Iranian civilisation.

Domination is a key feature of imperial power, signifying the systematic command and control of populations and territories.

Historically, empires promise dominated populations the safety to settle and move as part of a trade-off in which the acceptance of imperial power is exchanged for public goods, such as security.

The US qualifies as an empire through its history of settler colonialism, wedded in the 19th century to hemispheric power and then colonial expansion in Cuba, Hawaii and the Philippines under president William McKinley, who has been glorified by Trump.

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Twentieth century US domination depended on colossal economic power and worldwide military extension rather than colonial conquest, but its imperial character expanded during the Cold War. Enduring hostility to Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution........

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