In the West, war tends to be discussed and conducted within a framework of national interests, secular incentives, and mechanistically rational responses, but the current war cannot be understood in those terms alone. Predictions of outcomes ground in this kind of analysis will be incomplete at best, and outright wrong at worst. In the US the war is primarily supported by Christian zionists, of which there are twice as many as all the Jews in the entire world. In Israel, the zionist ideology driving the Greater Israel project has consumed approximately 70% of the population. (It should be pointed out that Judaism and zionist ideology are not at all the same thing. In places they may overlap, but in others they’re virtually opposites. It is not remotely anti-Semitic to oppose zionism, and many Rabbis do.) Zionism has become a militant, radical, messianic movement trying to accelerate the ‘end times’. Jewish zionists are trying to bring on the arrival of their messiah, and Christian zionists are trying to bring on the return of their messiah and the ‘rapture’. On the other side of the war, Shia Islam is the foundation of the state, and informs their actions and world view.
None of these people on either side are making purely rational decisions about material interests, but when analysts speak of the war, they do so in a way that implies rational decision-making. The eschatological element is critical to any understanding of events. If rationality were the governing principle, the war would never have begun, and even if it had, it would have been over much more quickly. It simply serves no one’s interests, and an enormous damage has been done to regional infrastructure on both sides. This will take years and hundreds billions of dollars to repair or rebuild, if it can be done at all. Iran can be heavily damaged, but cannot be beaten. The vital infrastructure of the state is all underground. Of course the civilian infrastructure is still exposed, although there is some air defence. The people have a deeply-rooted culture of reverence for martyrdom. They surround targeted buildings in numbers and don’t run if their gatherings are bombed. Good luck defeating 93 million people who have no problem sacrificing even their lives for their country. They are more unified than ever before, despite being a multi-cultural country. Americans and Israelis are much more individualistic. They would not act in this way.
Jewish zionists currently appear to be in the drivers’ seat, using American military power against a major obstacle to Greater Israel. In the process, the reputation of that miltary is likely to be destroyed by being mired in abject failure in the Gulf. Israel has already identified Turkey and Pakistan as its next targets, assuming an easy victory in Iran that isn’t going to happen, indicating a delusional degree of hubris. The country seems to have slipped into national megalomania, calling themselves the ‘chosen people’ and therefore above all others and above the law. They have openly said that they’re inherently superior and others were born to serve them or be expelled from wherever the zionists cast their eyes acquisitively. They believe that others have ‘no soul’, and are not fully human. Their expressed desire is to bomb all of Iran back to the stone age “where they belong”, and they’ve said they’re just waiting for the green light to bomb all of Iran’s civilian infrastructure. This would result in the reciprocal destruction of the infratructure of the Gulf countries and Israel.
The war seems extremely unlikely to end any time soon, given that it’s now existential for Iran, Israel, and all of the Gulf states, all the latter of which are heavily dependent on the desalination plants that may be next to be destroyed. As hosts of American bases, and allowing the use of their airspace for attacks on Iran, they’ve made themselves legitimate targets. The entire region may go up in smoke – potentially nuclear smoke – before this is over, which would leave all global supply chains in tatters and the global economy in ruins. Deglobalisation would occur very quickly, with every nationality for itself. The potential for utter global chaos is uncomfortably high. There seems to be little prospect of an agreement, since the non-negotiables from each camp don’t overlap at all. The demands are mutually exclusive. The american side is widely regarded around the world as aggreement incapable, given the extent of policy flip-flopping, the sending of incompetent negotiators, the use of negotiations as cover for a surprise attack, and the regular assassinations of the other side’s negotiating team.
Each side thinks it has leverage over the other, and both do to some extent, but Iran can outlast the US by a considerable margin. They’ve been preparing for this for decades. In contrast, the US cannot sustain this effort. They’re running very low on air defence interceptors and missiles, and have no industrial surge capacity to replace them. Their ships are far from home for very long periods, and morale is very low. As a raging narcissist, Trump, will not stop without something he can spin as a victory. Losing face is his worst nightmare, so he will double down on his demands, ensuring that no agreement can be reached. This only guarantees an obvious and catastrophic failure later. He’ll be blamed for all of it, although he was by no means the only architect of the ongoing disaster, or even its driving force.
This situation is occurring because an empire in decline is refusing to do so with dignity, and instead insists on taking much of the world down with it. Having reached peak resources in many way is also a major driving force. The global financial system is at the end if a major debt cycle, and the global energy supply, which was already peaking, has now seen much of its infrastructure blown up. Humans fight like cats in a sack when the wealth pie is shrinking, and that’s exactly where we find ourselves.
