Iran, Israel, and the United States: When War Becomes a Moral Mandate

By Luciano Zaccara

Principal Researcher

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English Abstract

This essay argues that religion is not the mechanical cause of the Iran–Israel–U.S. war, but a political accelerant that makes violence sustainable. In Iran, Karbala’s martyrdom script and Mahdism normalize suffering and sacralize waiting, including Khomeini’s “poison chalice” logic for compromise. In Israel, existential defense merges with redemption narratives and, around Purim’s Persian setting, can invite analogies that harden threat perceptions. In the United States, providentialism and pro‑Israel evangelicalism overlap with MAGA mobilization and can seep into institutions.

Resúmen en español

Este texto sostiene que la religión no es la causa de la guerra Irán–Israel–EE UU, pero sí un acelerador político que la vuelve sostenible. En Irán, el guion de Kerbalá y el martirio, junto con el mahdismo, normalizan el costo y sacralizan la espera, como sugiere la metáfora de Jomeini del “cáliz venenoso” para justificar un compromiso. En Israel, la defensa existencial se cruza con relatos de redención y, en torno a Purim, puede activar analogías que endurecen percepciones. En EE UU, providencialismo y evangelicalismo pro‑israelí se solapan con MAGA, y permean las instituciones.

ملخص المقال باللغة العربية

تجادل هذه المقالة بأنَّ الرؤى الأيديولوجيّة التي تربطها الأنظمة بالدين ليست سببًا مُباشرًا للصراع الإيراني-الإسرائيلي/الأمريكي القائم، بل هي عوامل سياسية مُسرِّعة تسهم في استمرار العنف واستدامته. فيتم توظيف رموز الاستشهاد الكربلائي والمهدوية في إيران لربطها بمعاناةَ الناس وتُقدس الانتظار والصبر، مع الإشارة إلى منطق الخميني الذي يعتبر التسوية بمثابة تجرع "كأس السم".

وفي إسرائيل يمتزج مفهوم الدفاع الوجودي بسرديات الخلاص الديني، حيث يُستدعى الإطار التاريخي لعيد اليوريم لتحويل الخلاف الجيوسياسي مع إيران إلى مواجهة كونيّة ضد "هامان" معاصر (الوزير الفارسي الذي خطط لإبادة اليهود قديماً وفق الرواية الدينية اليهودية)، مما يُلبس الاستراتيجية الأمنية ثوباً أسطورياً يُغيّب الإدراك الواقعي لطبيعة التهديدات ويجعل التنازل الدبلوماسي مقامرة بالوجود.

أما في الولايات المتّحدة فيتقاطع الإيمان بالعناية الإلهيّة لدى الإنجيليين المؤيّدين لإسرائيل مع التعبئة السياسية لحركة "ماغا"، مما يؤدي إلى تسرّب هذه الرؤى الأيديولوجية إلى المؤسّسات الرسمية والتحكم في مفاصل صنع القرار. وبناءً على هذه الأيديولوجيات المتجذرة، يُنظر إلى أي اتفاق لوقف إطلاق النار كشكل من أشكال الاستسلام، مما يفرض ضرورة تبني مقاربة مختلفة لجهود التهدئة.

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Introduction

If you listen closely to the narratives accompanying the open war between Iran, Israel and the United States, an uncomfortable pattern emerges, we are not dealing only with military calculations. We are also dealing with moral frameworks that make it possible to keep striking when strategic rationality (costs, attrition and regional risk) would suggest stopping. It is not that religion is the mechanical cause of decisions; it acts as a political accelerant. It explains why a war becomes necessary, why a ceasefire sounds like betrayal, like surrender, and why the time of diplomacy is perceived as irrelevant compared with “sacred time”.

Iran: Martyrdom and Mahdism

In Iran, the repertoire is twofold, martyrdom and, at certain moments, Mahdist messianism. The memory the death of Husayn in Karbala (680) has historically been used as a repertoire to mobilize and endure losses, and the Islamic Republic institutionalized it during the Iran–Iraq war with the idea of “sacred defense”. In Shi’a devotional and political culture, Karbala is not only remembered; it is ritually re-lived (especially around Ashura) through mourning, sermons and public processions that turn loss into a shared moral script of steadfastness against tyranny, one reason why sacrifice can be narrated as purposeful rather than merely tragic. This is why “martyrdom” operates as more than commemoration. It can function as a language of legitimacy that makes costs socially intelligible and politically bearable.

That frame does not force Tehran to act irrationally; it offers a mechanism of legitimation. If the nation suffers, it is because it is on the right side of history. Khomeini condensed that logic, sacralizing pain while authorizing compromise, when he accepted UN Security Council Resolution 598 to end the Iran–Iraq war, calling the decision like “draining a chalice full of poison.”

Language about the hidden Mahdi who will return appears intermittently. Some turn it into a horizon of redemption and others instrumentalize it to mobilize or contest internal power. In Twelver Shiism, “Mahdism” refers to belief in the occultation of the Twelfth Imam and his eventual return as the Mahdi who restores justice—an expectation that can remain theological, or become politically activating when framed as near or historically unblocked. In war, the effect is clear: martyrdom normalizes the cost; messianism sacralizes waiting.

Israel: Redemption and Purim Resonances

Israel has its own vocabulary: existential defense, but also, in influential sectors, national redemption tied to the land. That register can thicken around Purim, the festival that recalls Jewish survival in the Persian Empire in the Book of Esther—a story whose geography is explicitly “Persian”, which is why it is often read through the lens of threat, reversal, and deliverance. In 2026, Purim began on the evening of March 2 and continued through March 3 (extending into March 4 in Jerusalem), and the coincidence with the war has encouraged some public commentary to frame today’s confrontation with Iran through Esther/Haman analogies. Religious Zionism, in its activist version, incorporated a messianic dimension that recasts territorial concessions or political compromises as renouncing a higher mandate. That turn is no longer marginal: its growing institutional weight—especially in command ranks—redefines what “victory” and “restraint” mean. When security fuses with a historical mission, a negotiated exit becomes not only costly but morally suspect.

A second, darker biblical layer sits next to Purim, Shabbat Zachor, the “Sabbath of Remembrance,” when synagogues read the command to remember Amalek. In recent days Netanyahu explicitly invoked that passage, framing Iran through the Amalek archetype. The political effect is not theological purity but escalation management: once an adversary is coded as an absolute evil, restraint starts to look like amnesia, and diplomacy like moral weakness

United States: Providentialism, Evangelicalism, and MAGA

The United States operates from a secular state, but not from a politics “without religion”. Here the driver is a providentialism that coexists with power, and a pro-Israel evangelicalism that gives the alliance cultural and electoral density. In the current cycle, that ecosystem overlaps with MAGA mobilization. Prominent evangelical figures gathered around Trump in the Oval Office to pray over him amid the war, an image that fuses spiritual authority, partisan loyalty, and the legitimising language of force.

That backdrop has spilled into institutional discipline. The Guardian reported more than 200 complaints from service members about commanders using pro-Zionist Christian rhetoric (“divine plan”, quotations from Revelation, allusions to Armageddon) during deployment. The point is not whether they represent the whole force, but the political function of the language; if the conflict is presented as a providential episode, the room for disagreement narrows and de-escalation looks like moral failure.

In that same key, Ambassador Mike Huckabee shows how theological registers translate into political claims. He invoked Genesis to argue for a “biblical right” (from the Nile to the Euphrates) and said it would be “fine” if Israel “took it all”, even if he later qualified the remark. In its most apocalyptic versions, Israel fits into “end times” readings, which further reduces the space for compromise: if the conflict is part of a prophetic script, moderation seems cowardly. At the same time, that camp shows generational fissures, suggesting that the “theology of the alliance” no longer guarantees automatic consensus.

Policy recommendation

If Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire and is “waiting” for U.S. troops, as per his NBC interview comments, even as President Masoud Pezeshkian apologizes to GCC neighbors and signals a willingness to halt strikes on them unless attacks originate from their territory, while President Donald Trump responds in triumphalist terms and publicly conditions any ceasefire on “unconditional surrender,” then the first move cannot be a reciprocal ceasefire offer. It has to be below the ceasefire threshold: a time-boxed, unilateral U.S. humanitarian pause, explicitly designed to prevent incidents and reduce operational friction; one Iran can accept without owning it politically, and one Washington can justify as operational prudence rather than bargaining. It would work as a deconfliction measure by using a short, clearly defined pause to keep communication channels open and separate military movements, reducing the risk of accidental clashes without either side having to label it a ceasefire.

Conclusion

Martyrdom, territorial redemption, and providential exceptionalism do not cause this war in a mechanical way, but they raise the political threshold for de-escalation by turning strategy into moral duty. They recode escalation as fidelity, suffering as proof of virtue, and restraint as reputational weakness. In that environment, diplomacy is not rejected because it is impractical, but because it can be narrated as moral defeat, as stepping out of “sacred time” and back into ordinary bargaining.

That is why any attempt to stop the conflict cannot rely only on balancing interests or trading concessions. It must also manage the permission structures that sacred narratives create, redesign off-ramps so they are legible as responsibility rather than capitulation, keep religiously charged symbolism from becoming an operational trigger, and discipline escalation language inside institutions. Otherwise, war will keep drawing legitimacy from the very idioms that make compromise harder to name, let alone to sell.

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