War is waged with more than just military force; it requires a campaign of ‘symbolic violence’ to strip the other side of its legitimate right to exist. Currently, geopolitical landscape of the Middle East is being reshaped by a volatile fusion of high-stakes power politics and entrenched religious fervour. The tensions between the US, Israel, and Iran suggest a regression into the rhetoric of religious war. As the West often critiques the Islamic Republic of Iran for its theocratic governance and apocalyptic ideology driving its foreign policy, it simultaneously overlooks the burgeoning religious rage within its own borders and those of its closest allies. The current trajectory toward a potential regional conflagration, validated the weaponisation of ‘religitics’ by states most notably under the influence of Donald Trump’s political legacy and the right-wingers in Israeli politics is mirroring the very radicalism it claims to combat.
The political slogans surrounding the war with Iran highlights a dangerous shift. In many Western and Israeli circles, the war is no longer framed merely as a conflict over nuclear enrichment or regional proxies, but as a civilisational and spiritual struggle. This Christian-Jewish rage, as identified in recent analytical circles, draws from a potent mix of Evangelical eschatology in the US and Revisionist Zionism in Israel. For many supporters of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign, the objective was never just a better deal; it was the containment, if not the erasure, of a perceived ‘infidel’ or ‘antichrist power.’ This framing is a departure from the secular diplomacy of the late 20th century, signalling a return to a crusader-style mentality that seeks total victory rather than a balance of power.
History offers a grim warning for those who wrap the state’s strategic interests in the cloak of divinity. History is a graveyard of empires that attempted to win wars on religious absolute truths. From the Crusades of the Middle Ages to the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, the lesson is consistent: when states fight in the name of God, they forfeit the ability to negotiate, compromise, or define a clear ‘end state.’ Religious wars are, by definition, wars of attrition because neither side can surrender their ‘sacred’ duty. It’s a matter of symbolism and identity. The West, having undergone the enlightenment, supposedly learned that the separation of church and state was necessary not just for domestic peace, but for international stability. Yet, the current rhetoric regarding Iran suggests a ‘re-enchantment’ of war that ignores the catastrophic failures of the past.
The modern history provides a stark example of the futility and destruction of religiously motivated conflict through the rise of non-state actors like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. These groups initiated a ‘Holy War’ against the US and the broader West, viewing the world through a Manichean lens of believers versus apostates. Consequently, ‘War on Terror’ did more than just destabilise specific regimes; it ravaged the entire Middle East, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions. The irony is that while the US fought to dismantle these radical Islamic caliphates, it began to adopt a similar, albeit Western-centric, religious exceptionalism. By framing the struggle against Iran as a battle between “the sons of light and the sons of darkness,” a phrase frequently used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – the US adopts the very radicalism it ostensibly fights.
The parallel here is inescapable. When Al-Qaeda attacked the West, it sought to provoke a global religious war. By responding with a rhetoric of ‘crusade’ (a term famously used and then retracted by George W. Bush) and subsequently by the Trump administration’s alignment with hardliners Christian Zionism, the West played into the hands of the radicals. This cycle of religious rage creates a feedback loop. Iran’s ‘Holy Defence’ narrative is bolstered by the perception that the West is not attacking its policy, but it’s very faith and religious-identity.
Furthermore, the domestic political utility of US-Israel-Iran War cannot be understated. For President Trump, the move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the withdrawal from the JCPOA (Iran Deal) were not merely foreign policy shifts; they were ‘red meat’ for a base that views the Middle East through the lens of Biblical prophecy. Similarly, in Israel, the current coalition’s reliance on ultra-nationalist religious parties has transformed the occupation and the rivalry with Iran into a theological mandate. This internal ‘Christian-Jewish rage’ acts as a barrier to pragmatic diplomacy. When the objective of war is to fulfil a divine plan or to purge an ‘evil’ regime, the cost-benefit analysis that usually prevents total war is discarded.
Analytical reality is that holy wars are never won by states; they are only survived at a massive cost. The state is a finite entity with finite resources, while religious fervour is an infinite, often irrational, motivator. When a state like the US or Israel aligns its strategic goals with religious absolutism, it loses the flexibility required for statecraft. It becomes a prisoner to its own rhetoric. If the US continues to pursue a path that views Iran as a theological ‘other’ rather than a regional competitor, it risks a conflict that will make the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan appear minor by comparison.
The analogy between the radicalism of ISIS and the emerging state-sponsored religious rhetoric in the West and Israel is a perilous development. If the US and its allies continue to frame the war against Iran as a religious crusade, they are doomed to repeat the tragedies of history. The “War on Terror” proved that religious zealotry, even when countered by the world’s most powerful military, leads to a vacuum of chaos rather than a triumph of values. To avoid a catastrophic regional war, the West must undergo a period of self-reflection. It must decouple its foreign policy from the ‘rage’ of religious exceptionalism and return to a realism that recognises the humanity and the sovereignty of its adversaries. Only by abandoning the language of ‘religious war’ can the states involved hope to find a path toward a sustainable peace, rather than a mutual destruction in the name of the divine!
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not reflect the arguments of the institution.
Dr. Marriyam Siddique
Dr. Marriyam Siddique is a Senior Research Fellow at Maritime Centre of Excellence, Lahore, Pakistan. She can be reached at drmarriyam16@gmail.com.
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