How Religion, Strategic Pretexts Are Pushing West Asia Towards Catastrophe

In the corridors of power where decisions about war and peace are made, a dangerous fusion is taking place: ancient religious narratives are being weaponised to justify modern strategic ambitions, international law is being subordinated to claims of divine mandate, and technical pretexts—from uranium enrichment to terrorism threats—serve as respectable cover for objectives that would be unacceptable if stated plainly.

We have seen this pattern before. The rhetoric may change, the claimed threats may vary, but the pattern remains consistent: invoke existential danger, claim moral and even divine sanction, dismiss international institutions as obstacles, and pursue objectives that reshape entire regions regardless of the consequences.

As tensions escalate around Iran in early 2026, as Israel’s June 2025 military campaign damaged more than 100 Iranian sites, and as new alliances form while old certainties crumble, we must ask: are we witnessing genuine security concerns being addressed through necessary measures? Or are we watching the deliberate construction of pretexts for actions whose true objectives extend far beyond the stated goals?

Biblical Symbolism and the Logic of Divine Right

What is remarkable about our current moment is how openly religious rhetoric has entered mainstream political discourse, particularly in Israeli and certain American evangelical circles, where biblical prophecy and modern geopolitics have become dangerously intertwined.

In February 2023, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stood before a map showing “Greater Israel” that included one-third of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, parts of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and all Palestinian territories, declaring that “there is no such thing as Palestinians because there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” The backdrop was not a modern political map but a biblical representation of the promised lands.

This is not merely religious language for domestic consumption. It reflects a worldview in which international law, UN resolutions, and global consensus are subordinate to a divine mandate. When officials cite the Book of Esther to justify military action against Iran, they invoke a logic that places religious conviction above the international system that has regulated state behaviour since 1945.

Prophecy as Policy

This religious framing finds powerful reinforcement among American evangelical Christians. President Trump’s December 2024 declaration that the US was “locked and loaded and ready to go” regarding Iranian protests came days after meetings with evangelical advisers who view confrontation with Iran through an eschatological lens—not as foreign policy, but as the fulfilment of biblical prophecy.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly suggested that Trump might be “an Esther” sent by God to save Israel from Iran. When asked in 2019 whether Trump had been sent by God to protect Israel, Pompeo replied: “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible”.

This is not fringe thinking: this was the US Secretary of State openly suggesting that American foreign policy might be guided by biblical prophecy.

Divine Mandate Meets Modern Warfare

Israel’s June 2025 “Operation Rising Lion” illustrated this fusion of religious narrative and military strategy. The campaign, involving 200 aircraft and Mossad sabotage teams, targeted more than 100 Iranian sites, including nuclear facilities. Prime Minister Netanyahu framed the operation in explicitly biblical terms, invoking the “eternal struggle” against Persia and Israel’s “divine responsibility” to protect the Jewish people.

The operation killed senior nuclear scientists and military leaders, caused billions of dollars in damage to Iranian infrastructure, and set back its nuclear programme by years. Yet the targets extended far beyond nuclear facilities, including conventional military infrastructure, economic assets, and government command centres—suggesting objectives of broad strategic degradation rather than a limited effort to roll back the nuclear programme.

Uranium as Pretext: The Iraq Playbook Revisited

Twenty-three years after Colin Powell's compelling but false presentation about Iraqi WMDs to the UN Security Council, we hear remarkably similar rhetoric about Iran. This time, the uranium enrichment is real—Iran has enriched to 60 per cent purity, approaching the 90 per cent needed for weapons-grade material. Breakout time has shrunk from about a year under the JCPOA to potentially weeks.

Yet we must ask: Is the nuclear program the actual objective, or the respectable pretext for broader goals?

Consider what Israel's June 2025 campaign actually targeted beyond nuclear facilities:

Revolutionary Guard command centres with no nuclear function but are central to Iran's regional proxy network

Missile production facilities producing conventional weapons, legitimate military targets, but unrelated to the nuclear program, justifying the operation

Oil infrastructure and refineries funding regional activities, economic warfare extending beyond nuclear rollback

Personal residences and offices of senior officials, suggesting regime decapitation goals

This pattern reveals uranium serving as a "front" for broader objectives: eliminating Iran's capacity to challenge Israeli regional hegemony, destroying the "resistance axis" linking Tehran to Beirut to Gaza, preventing any future Iranian challenge to Western interests, and potentially triggering regime change.

The Fundamental Question

After Iran is destroyed or subjugated—if that's achievable—will the logic of intervention stop? Will those who possess overwhelming military superiority, who believe they act with divine mandate, who have demonstrated willingness to reshape entire countries regardless of international law, will they suddenly decide the transformation is complete?

Or will they turn their attention to the next target? Will states that normalized with Israel and supported action against Iran find themselves secure, or discover they've helped eliminate the strongest source of regional resistance, leaving themselves exposed when their turn comes?

The Strategic Vacuum: What Fills the Space Where Iran Was

The most dangerous aspect of a potential war with Iran is not the immediate destruction but the strategic vacuum it would create—a vacuum that would draw in competing powers and potentially reorder the Middle East in ways serving no one's interests except those who thrive in chaos.

Russia's Calculation

Russia maintains significant interests in Iran: $10+ billion in annual arms sales, nuclear energy cooperation, intelligence sharing, and Iran as a crucial partner in Syria. An Iranian collapse would represent a major strategic setback for Moscow.

Would Russia accept this? Or would it intervene directly, potentially escalating U.S.-Russia tensions beyond Ukraine to direct Middle East confrontation? Russian bases in Syria, air defense systems in Iran, advisors throughout the region—all create escalation tripwires.

China's Interests

China is Iran's largest oil customer ($30+ billion in annual purchases despite U.S. sanctions), a major infrastructure investor ($400 billion investment agreement), and a strategic partner viewing Iran as essential to Belt and Road westward expansion.

Would China accept Iran's Western-directed destruction? Or would it provide advanced weapons, cyber capabilities, financial lifelines through alternative payment systems, and potentially security guarantees intervening far costlier? China's willingness to establish military bases abroad suggests it might establish a presence in Iran if regime survival requires it.

Israel's Pyrrhic Victory

Israel would achieve regional hegemony, but at tremendous cost. Without Iran as the primary adversary, Israel becomes the permanent target for every grievance, every resistance movement, every frustrated nationalist. Hezbollah might be weakened, but Lebanese resentment wouldn't disappear. Hamas might be defunded, but Palestinian desire for statehood wouldn't vanish.

Moreover, Israel would face responsibility for managing the chaos its actions created. When refugees flood borders, when jihadist groups exploit vacuums, when ethnic conflicts spill over—Israel cannot simply declare victory and withdraw. It becomes responsible for outcomes it cannot control.

The Path Forward: Integration Over Fragmentation

There is an alternative to the trajectory toward war, vacuum, and chaos: regional integration based on mutual interest and collective security.

This requires:

Rejecting false binaries: Regional states must refuse the choice between submitting to Iranian dominance or supporting its destruction. Neither serves regional interests. Instead, pursue a genuine balance of power through frameworks constraining all actors—including Iran, including Israel, and including external powers.

Building regional institutions: Europe avoided continental war after 1945 not through military dominance but through institutional integration, making war practically impossible. The Middle East needs similar frameworks: economic integration creating mutual dependency, security arrangements managing conflicts before escalation, and political cooperation enabling coordinated response to external intervention.

Pursuing strategic autonomy: Regional states must recover the ability to make decisions based on regional interests rather than external pressure. This requires economic diversification, reducing dependence on any single power, military capabilities sufficient to deter intervention, and diplomatic coordination, presenting united fronts to external powers.

Learning from history: The Mongol invasions, the Crusades, the colonial period, post-2003 chaos—all teach the same lesson: regional fragmentation enables external domination; internal conflicts become tools for outside manipulation; salvation comes only through unity facing common threats.

Conclusion: The Choice Before Us

The Middle East stands at a crossroads. One path leads towards confrontation with Iran—justified by uranium enrichment, framed in religious terms of good versus evil, and backed by overwhelming military power and a claimed divine mandate.

This path could lead to Iran’s destruction or severe degradation. What follows is far less predictable, but likely catastrophic: state fragmentation, millions of refugees, proxy wars across multiple countries, economic shocks from oil disruption, terrorist groups exploiting the chaos, and interventions by Turkey, Russia and China filling the vacuum.

States that support or enable this path—believing they will benefit from Iran’s removal or be spared through cooperation—should study history. Many once believed the Mongols would stop with Khwarazm, that the Crusaders would be satisfied with Jerusalem, or that Iraq’s destruction would serve their interests.

The alternative path is more difficult. It requires swallowing pride and setting aside grievances for the sake of regional survival. It means recognising that Iran—despite its theocracy, revolutionary ideology and regional interference—is a neighbour that cannot be eliminated, a civilisation that predates Islam, and potentially a participant in regional frameworks that constrain all actors.

This path requires Arab states to resist the temptation of aligning with external powers to destroy a regional rival. It requires Israel to recognise that hegemony achieved through destruction often creates greater problems than it solves. It requires Iran to understand that revolutionary ideology and proxy networks turn neighbours into enemies. And it requires all parties to acknowledge that the uranium issue, while real, is also being used as a pretext for broader strategic aims.

The use of religious narratives to justify domination, the use of technical arguments to mask strategic ambitions, and alliances that sacrifice long-term regional interests for short-term security promises—these are warning signs of instability, not stability.

The danger is not faith itself. The danger arises when religious certainty replaces strategic judgement—when leaders believe they are fulfilling destiny rather than managing risk. Once war is framed as a sacred obligation, compromise becomes almost impossible.

The path forward requires a different kind of courage: not the courage to launch strikes or align with powerful external actors, but the courage to reject false choices, build regional frameworks despite deep differences, pursue strategic autonomy despite pressure, and prioritise long-term survival over short-term advantage.

The choice is clear. The question is whether regional leaders will make it before it is too late.

The Middle East stands before another such moment.

The question is not whether war can reshape the region.

The question is whether the region can survive the reshaping. 

Dr Waiel Awwad is a veteran journalist specialising in West Asian affairs