An Empire-ical Question

As the denunciations of America begin to reach a shrill crescendo, I begin to wonder more and more exactly what the anti-America invectives are directed against. Suppose tomorrow we do manage to dismantle this American Empire, will that be the end of the (his-)story? What if ten years down the line there emerge some people from our own midst who would wish to assemble a new Empire from its broken-down relics? Is it possible for us human beings to live together without feeling an inveterate itch to establish more and more grandiose forms of Empires?
The reason why I ask these rhetorical questions is because as an Indian I am only too aware that when Mahatma Gandhi opposed imperialism he was primarily challenging not the British Empire but the British Empire. (There is a vital difference between the two, depending on where we place the emphasis.) Do these questions imply that I am a covert apologist for the American Empire? No, for an Empire that needs such apologists is already on its way out. However, I do wish to point out that it is not clear precisely what we trying so desperately to exterminate in the present day : is it the American Empire or is it the American Empire?