TEHRAN – Power in politics transforms from a strategic capability to a domestic threat when it crosses the line of balance. In politics, power is a double-edged sword, a means of creating security and influence, but when used in unrestrained excess it gradually erodes its own foundations.
History has repeatedly shown that excessive use of force and power may yield greater control and create battlefield and tactical advantages in the short term, but in the long term erodes trust, legitimacy, durability, stability, and the true capabilities of that power.
This is an unwritten law that has been repeated throughout political history, and today it is more clearly visible than ever. Examples of this can be seen on both sides of the world.
Zionist regimes in Gaza and the Middle East have relied excessively on military force and pressure tools. While this approach may create temporary advantages on the ground, its costs will become increasingly apparent in global public opinion and even the regime’s own long-term security.
What looks like power today actually led to the erosion of this regime’s political capital and created new rifts in its international standing. Far from creating security, power is itself a source of instability.
On the other hand, Donald Trump has provided an example of the erosion of political capital by overusing American power, both in foreign policy and domestic interactions.
Relentless reliance on pressure and displays of strength, regardless of limits or consequences, leaves a legacy of division and mistrust, the effects of which could weigh heavily on American politics for years.
In the first year of his second presidential term, Trump is pursuing America’s longstanding bullying policies more openly and openly.
But his overreliance on coercion, intimidation, and displays of force has not yielded any tangible results or restored America’s global prestige, as the United States faces a web of cumulative crises.
The successive failures in cases such as Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Iran, and Gaza, as well as the negative reaction of Latin American countries to Operation Southern Spear against Venezuela, demonstrate that this policy has been ineffective.
President Trump’s overreliance on threats, sanctions, and pressure has not only been fruitless; It accelerated the decline in American credibility and influence.
Both the Zionist regime and President Trump have fallen into the same strategic error of reckless electricity consumption. Power that is flaunted rather than ruled. Instead of creating stability, it is spent creating crises and destabilizing. And instead of strengthening legitimacy, it depletes it.
The laws of politics are clear. Whenever power strays from the framework of rationality and becomes an instrument of excess, it sows the seeds of future weakness in the soil of the present.
Leaders and nations must never forget this simple but fundamental truth. That is, no power, no matter how great, can withstand the depletion it inflicts on itself.
Today’s gaudy victories will leave a huge cost tomorrow if they rely on unlimited and groundless power.
Every time power turns into oppression and excess, it plants the seeds of the strength that will one day overcome it. Power consumed recklessly will sooner or later consume itself.
Source: Sedaye Iran, Online Newspaper of the Islamic Revolutionary Institute of Iran, November 15, 2025