The Israel-Iran war has now entered its sixth day. Israel, a settler-colonial entity, declared its independence in 1948, a project sanctioned by the British Empire. Interestingly, before Palestine, there were proposals to establish a Jewish homeland in East Africa, in what is now Uganda.
The creation of the Israeli state was rooted in the ideology of Zionism , a racialized political doctrine that has been rejected by many Jews themselves. Zionism fuses religion with ethnonationalism to consolidate power and rationalize ongoing crimes against humanity. Ironically, it was not the Muslim world but the West that historically persecuted the Jews. Europe’s dark legacy of pogroms, ghettos, and extermination stands in stark contrast to the benevolence of Muslim empires , including the Ottomans , who offered Jews sanctuary, prosperity, and dignity.
Since the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, this settler colony has steadily expanded, with unwavering support from Western powers. It functions as both a strategic outpost and a civilizational bulwark in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), aimed at containing Islamic revival. As Samuel Huntington predicted, Islamic civilization has the potential to reassert itself under adverse conditions.
The West’s so-called “rules-based order” collapses under the weight of its own contradictions, particularly in the face of unconditional support for Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Now, following its brutal campaign in Gaza, the Zionist state has provoked a wider conflict by launching airstrikes on Iran five days ago, escalating the region toward potential catastrophe. Citing Iran’s nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu pushes forward his vision of a “Greater Israel.” Meanwhile, talks of regime change has surface once again. U.S. President Donald Trump has called for Iran’s unconditional surrender.
But why does the West misunderstand Iran so deeply?
Before the 1979 revolution, Iran was a loyal ally of the West, embracing Western modernity with zeal. The Pahlavi regime, particularly under the Shah, mirrored Western culture so obsessively that it alienated its own people, becoming a colonial elite ruling over a colonized population. The masses resisted. In a hopeful turn, they democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh, who nationalized Iran’s oil resources. But that hope was short-lived. In a Cold War power play, MI6 and the CIA orchestrated a coup, ousting Mossadegh and reinstating the Shah. This betrayal of democracy sowed the seeds of revolution. By 1979, the people overthrew the monarchy and birthed a new, ideological Iran.
Modern Iran is not just a theocracy; it is the inheritor of a rich civilizational identity , deeper and older than its Zionist adversary or its Western patrons.
Following Israel’s attack on Iran, excitement is brewing in messianic and strategic circles. But this war is not merely kinetic, it is civilizational. The world is drifting toward a postmodern Cold War, with psychological warfare as its main theatre. Here, confusion is the strategy, perception the weapon, and the objective is to make irrational choices appear rational , all while sustaining chaos to justify control. The goal is not just dominance, but engineered disorder , a controlled demolition of clarity and meaning.
In the postmodern condition, states no longer function as rational actors in a realist framework. Ideas are imposed, not absorbed. Knowledge has become a tool of manipulation. Language itself , through intertextuality, binaries, and contradictions , becomes weaponized. In this epistemic battlefield, those still trapped in the myths of Western modernity are the most vulnerable. They are defeated in mind long before they fall in body.
Enter China.
China not only challenges Western economic hegemony, but also Western modernity. The rationality of modernity, paradoxically, births irrational systems. This produces new rationalities that question the foundations of the old. Through intertextuality, subjectivity coverups as objectivity. The illusion of peace births confusion, which in turn forms the support of a new global order , one rooted in conceit, deception, and ideological distortion.
Who falls into this trap? The ignorant, the blind, the intoxicated by borrowed truths. The way forward lies in indigenous modernity , a framework rooted in civilizational consciousness. It is both sword and shield. National interest viewed through foreign paradigms leads into darkness; only self-knowledge illuminates the path. True life begins with the death of false selfhood. Conversely, to live in denial of one’s civilizational being is a form of slow death.
The story will not end with the defeat of Iran or another regime change. Israel and its allies are not seeking victory, they are cultivating anarchy, intentionally. But this manufactured chaos may backfire. In trying to delay history, they may have accelerated it. What they plant today are not seeds of triumph, but the beginnings of a long war , one that may ultimately hasten their decline.
