In the old Hindu stories I grew up with, the Ashvamedha is a classic tale. The tale of the wandering horse. In this ritual, the king lets a horse wander around for a year, accompanied by some warriors. Wherever the horse can go unmolested, that was the kingdom. Wherever the horse was challenged, the warriors duked it out. At the end of the year, if the horse made it, it was guided home to be sacrificed. This sealed the deal with the gods.

Honestly it’s not much different from the travails of an old lion, pissing on bushes until he pisses some young lion off. Then it’s on. Well, look at the world right now. It’s on like Donkey Kong.

American Ashvamedha

In the history I’m growing old in, America’s version of Ashvamedha is going terribly. For decades, America’s mechanical horses wandered around — chewing babies and drinking oil — and that was American Empire’s bounds. Now, however, America’s ‘sea’ horses are drowning in the Red Sea, its workhorses are being attacked in Syria/Iraq, and its warhorses are burning in Ukraine. They lose the Pacific by default. It’s inauspicious by any measure. As the Chinese would say, the Mandate of Heaven has been withdrawn.

For many years America could stomp around the world, killing people, besieging others, taking resources, and generally take the piss. Now, however, they’re losing people, besieging their allies, losing control of resources, and taking serious hits. The gods are angry and, in secular terms, America is in some shit. 

Sea Horses

Take, for example Yemen. Yemen blockaded the Red Sea, as is their duty under the Genocide Convention, to try and stop the genocide of Gaza. America asserts a sovereign right to both do genocide and suffer no consequences, so they deployed warships to the Bar-el-Mandeb strait. Yemen, however, slapped those warships on the ass and turned them around, neighing. Yemen even killed two vaunted warriors (Navy SEALs), though America says they just fell off ladders. Either way, it’s not a good look. Highly inauspicious. 

If someone molests your horses (ie, sea horses) your warriors are supposed to quickly put them in their place. If they don’t, well, then it’s not your place. That’s what America has found out about the Red Sea, in a highly humiliating way. America’s ‘intervention’ in the Red Sea has, in fact, made things worse. Shipping used to be just blocked to ‘Israel’, but now it’s blocked to America and its vassals like the UK. And Europe pays for it. America took a limited blockade of ‘Israel’ and turned into into a blockade of its own allies. It’s a self-own of historic proportions, and a ritual humiliation.

Now America has to pathetically say ‘we’re not at war with Yemen, we’re just love bombing them.’ But the whole world sees what’s actually happening (this is the point of conducting the horse ritual in public). America tried to send its horsepower through the Red Sea and it got sent back with a cruise missile up its ass. This defiance has to be answered or the entire Empire starts asking questions. And so they’re asking.

Land Horses

Right now, the Iraqi Resistance is bombing America into submission, and America is saying ‘uncle’. Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces have been relentlessly lighting up American bases all over the region since October 7th. As Firas Al-Yasser of the Iraqi Al-Nujaba resistance said, “All of America’s interests in the region are the target of the Islamic resistance in Iraq, and the resistance possesses extensive information about undisclosed American interests.” America has been attacked at least 170 times, taken at least 150 casualties, and (at least) three Americans were killed at a secretive base in Syria or Jordan, depending on who you believe. 

America’s ‘watering holes’ in the region are increasingly on fire. Its horsemen are suffering from ‘traumatic brain injuries’. If your horsepower is getting pelted with missiles and your horsemen are being killed, you have failed at the horse ritual. If your conquered lands tell you to leave, they’re not conquered. This is the message of Ashvamedha, and the message is pretty much eternal. That’s why the Americans are now openly talking about withdrawal. Iraq is asserting control of its own territory, and making America an offer it can’t refuse. A horse’s head in the bed, if you get the reference.

As Representative Mehdi Taqi Al-Amerli, head of the (large) Badr Parliamentary Bloc said: “We renew the demand, but this time is different from the previous one: No to the American presence at all. Wait and you will see what we will do. The Security and Defense Committee, all of us, without exception, are determined to expel the occupier. Enough of the bloodshed for innocent people, and damn America. Yes, peace and security for Iraq.”

War Horses

Well before the Al Aqsa Flood kicked off, America was already drowning in the quicksand of Ukraine. America sent hundreds of mechanical horses to assert its authority over ‘Europe’ and now, well, just look at them. This is not merely a bad look militarily, it’s ritually fatal.

For decades America kept running horses closer and closer to Russia, finally massing a de facto NATO army right on its border. Russia didn’t like this so they hit the warhorses, and they hit the warriors. Empire sent their best mechanical mounts to reclaim the land, and they just got lit on fire, quite publicly. After a few years of ‘horse’ and human sacrifice, America has lost in Ukraine and they’re trying to cover it up by losing interest. But the lesson of the horse ritual remains. If you send warhorses into a territory and they come back in pieces, you lose all claims. And — since everyone sees this happen — your Empire will never be the same. 

The Horse Ritual

The horse ritual is meant to project power. In a successful horse ritual, the horse goes around the kingdom uncontested. Only the horse dies in the end. In the next-best horse ritual, someone challenges the horse, but gets put down quickly. The horse dies and some people die, but the Empire prevails. The worst-case horse ritual is where the horse dies, your people die, and the Empire is humiliated. That’s what has happened to America, and this is generally fatal. 

America depended on overwhelming horsepower and firepower to not merely subjugate nations. It depended on those examples to cow the rest of the world into submission. But now the world is full of many examples of resistance, and the resistance is only growing stronger. American horses are burning in Ukraine, bombed in Iraq/Syria, and kicked out of the Red Sea entirely. This was all America’s territory once, and they’ve pissed it all away in pure hubris and acrimony. The horse ritual has gone wrong. You can literally get it from the horse’s mouth. Just ask any random horse, yay or nay, if American Empire will be around in 10 years. The ashva won’t steer you wrong.