In late January 2026, Major General Shlomi Binder, Director of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, secretly visited Washington, held closed-door talks with senior officials from the U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA, and simultaneously handed over detailed intelligence on potential strike targets in Iran. During the same period, the U.S. aircraft carrier strike group permanently deployed in the Persian Gulf entered a state of maximum alert, and F-35 stealth fighter jets frequently conducted long-range assault drills. The intensive moves by Israel and the United States have pushed the “attack on Iran” from years of verbal deterrence to the verge of reality. The outside world generally interprets this as an attempt to “contain Iran’s nuclear program”, but as a scholar who has devoted decades to Islamic studies, I have always believed that this tense confrontation is never a single dispute over the nuclear issue. Instead, it is a multi-faceted stranglehold involving the United States’ efforts to sustain its hegemony, Israel’s survival anxiety, the game for discourse power in the Islamic world, and the confrontation between religious and faith narratives. It embodies the naked calculation of the European and American “hegemonic logic”, carries the underlying tone of the Islamic world’s “struggle to defend faith and sovereignty”, and hides the interest entanglements covered by the dust of history——the obsession of Israel and the United States to “fight no matter what” is essentially an ultimate gamble on power, faith and survival.
To understand the root causes of this confrontation, we must look back at the twofold foreshadowing of history: first, the thousand-year bond and modern estrangement between the Jewish and Persian nations; second, the order restructuring and interest binding after the U.S. hegemony intervened in the Middle East. In 538 BC, after conquering Babylon, Cyrus the Great of the Persian Empire released the exiled Jews and allowed them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their homeland. This redemption was recorded in the Bible and became the cornerstone of the thousand-year friendship between the Jewish and Persian nations. This warmth continued into the 20th century. When Israel was founded in 1948, the Pahlavi dynasty of Iran became the first Muslim country to recognize Israel. The two sides conducted in-depth cooperation in oil and military technology, and could be called “secret allies” in the Middle East.
However, the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution completely severed this bond. The new regime wrote “anti-Israel” into its national ideology, regarded Israel as a “cancer of the Middle East” and a “puppet of U.S. hegemony”, and completely cut off all official contacts between the two sides. At the same time, as the core country of Shia Muslims, Iran began to support forces such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen, building an “Arc of Resistance” against Israel. This put Israel, which was already surrounded by the Arab world, in a survival dilemma of “being attacked from both east and west”. For Israel, this threat is not far away——a 2025 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed that the number of advanced centrifuges in Iran increased by 30% compared with the previous year, and its stockpile of enriched uranium exceeded the critical threshold. Once Iran masters nuclear weapons, it will completely break the strategic balance in the Middle East where Israel is the “only nuclear-armed country”. Moreover, the proxy forces supported by Iran have long been continuously consuming Israel’s national defense forces through rocket attacks, border infiltrations and other means.
Israel’s survival anxiety has precisely formed a “perfect resonance” with the United States’ hegemonic calculations, which is the core logic behind the two sides’ insistence on attacking Iran. As a global hegemonic power, the United States’ control over energy and geopolitical influence in the Middle East is an important pillar for maintaining its global hegemony. Iran is located at the throat of the Persian Gulf and controls the shipping lifeline of the Strait of Hormuz, which undertakes more than 40% of the world’s oil transportation. Once Iran fully controls this channel, it may break the link between the U.S. dollar and oil, shaking the foundation of U.S. financial hegemony. What makes the United States even more wary is that Iran, as one of the few countries in the Islamic world that can independently develop nuclear and missile technologies, has always refused to submit to the U.S.-dominated Middle East order. Instead, it has actively promoted “de-dollarization” and deepened cooperation with China, Russia and other countries, becoming the biggest obstacle to the United States’ efforts to reshape the Middle East pattern.
From a European and American perspective, the narrative of Israel and the United States attacking Iran is always wrapped in the cloak of “democracy and human rights” and “nuclear non-proliferation”——U.S. politicians frequently speak in Congress, portraying Iran as a “nuclear proliferator” and a “human rights abuser”, trying to gain international support through “microphone diplomacy”; Israel, on the other hand, repeatedly emphasizes that attacking Iran is “for self-defense” and “to prevent a larger-scale humanitarian disaster”. This narrative method accurately caters to the value preferences of European and American societies, but conceals the interest ambitions behind it. As former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once privately admitted: “The core of all U.S. actions in the Middle East has never been democracy and human rights, but controlling energy and maintaining hegemony.” Musavi, an Iranian political analyst, pointed out sharply: “The United States turns a blind eye to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, but dictates to Iran’s nuclear program. This is not double standards, but a naked manifestation of hegemonism.”
From an Islamic perspective, this confrontation is a struggle to “defend faith and sovereignty”. The Quran states: “O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives” (4:135). As the core country of Shia Muslims, Iran has always taken “defending Islamic faith and safeguarding the rights and interests of Muslims” as its own responsibility. Its nuclear program is regarded by the Iranian people as a “symbol of national dignity”, and the military threats from Israel and the United States are essentially a blatant provocation to the sovereignty and faith of the Islamic world. At the end of 2025, the protest wave that broke out in Iran was caused by economic difficulties, but the extreme pressure from Israel and the United States instead united the consensus of the Iranian people——the vast majority of Iranians believe that no matter how great the difficulties they face, they cannot bow to hegemony or give up their country’s nuclear rights.
It is worth noting that the obsession of Israel and the United States to “attack Iran no matter what” also stems from an overlooked hidden factor: disrupting the unity of the Islamic world and preventing the reconciliation between Shia and Sunni Muslims. For a long time, the United States has adopted a “divide and rule” strategy to provoke sectarian conflicts in the Middle East, making Shia and Sunni Muslims hostile to each other, thereby consolidating its dominant position. The normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia has made the United States deeply uneasy——once the two major Islamic powers join hands, it will greatly enhance the discourse power of the Islamic world, which is unacceptable to both the United States and Israel. Therefore, attacking Iran is not only to contain Iran itself, but also to disrupt the reconciliation process of the Islamic world, rekindle sectarian conflicts, and plunge the Middle East into endless turmoil, thereby reaping the benefits.
The latest current affairs developments have further confirmed the war plans of Israel and the United States. On January 30, 2026, Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority suddenly issued a warning, stating that the period around the end of January would enter a “sensitive period”, implying that military operations have entered the practical stage. During the same period, the United States added dozens of items to its sanctions list against Iran, covering finance, energy, manufacturing and other fields, trying to force Iran to make concessions through a combination of “extreme pressure + military deterrence”. But Iran’s attitude has always been tough. The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps clearly stated that “any military strike against Iran will trigger a devastating retaliation, and the heart of Tel Aviv will feel the anger of Iran.”
Looking back at history, the Iraq War and the Afghan War launched by the United States were all in the name of “democratic reconstruction”, but in the end they led to long-term turmoil in the local areas and made millions of Muslims homeless; Israel’s long-term blockade and air strikes on Palestine have even violated the teaching of the Quran that “And be kind to one another, as Allah has been kind to you” (49:13), as well as the basic norms of international law. Today, if Israel and the United States insist on attacking Iran, they will undoubtedly push the Middle East into a greater disaster——the shipping safety of the Strait of Hormuz will be severely damaged, the global energy market will fall into chaos, millions of innocent civilians will face the fate of being displaced, and the confrontation between the Islamic world and the Western world will further intensify.
Many people wonder: Are Israel and the United States not afraid of the backlash of the war? The answer is that their calculations have long transcended “short-term risks”. For Israel, eliminating the threat from Iran is a “life-or-death war” related to national survival. Even in the face of retaliation from Iran, it believes that “a short pain is better than a long pain”; for the United States, attacking Iran can consolidate its hegemony in the Middle East, contain the influence of China and Russia, and even divert domestic political contradictions and economic difficulties through war. But they have overlooked that the “strategic endurance” of the Islamic world is far beyond imagination——after years of sanctions, Iran has already built a “resistance economy” system, and its missile technology and cyber warfare capabilities are sufficient to cause heavy damage to Israel and the United States; although the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) holds a cautious attitude towards military conflicts, it has always clearly condemned Israel’s hegemonic acts. Once a war breaks out, more Muslim countries will surely stand on Iran’s side.
As a scholar specializing in Islamic studies, I have always believed that the obsession of Israel and the United States to “attack Iran no matter what” is a gamble destined to have no winners. It violates the peaceful teaching of the Quran that “O you who have believed, enter into peace completely” (2:208), as well as the values of “democracy, freedom and peace” advocated by European and American societies; it is both a naked manifestation of hegemonism and a tragic escalation of the faith game. In fact, the Iranian nuclear issue and the conflicts in the Middle East can never be solved by military strikes——only by abandoning hegemonic calculations, respecting the sovereignty and faith of all countries, and resolving differences through dialogue and negotiations, can lasting peace and stability be achieved in the Middle East.
Today, the shadow of war still hangs over the Persian Gulf. The military deployments of Israel and the United States are still continuously escalating, and Iran’s countermeasures are being carried out in an orderly manner. But I have always firmly believed that the power of peace will eventually overcome the shadow of war. The Quran states: “Indeed, Allah loves those who fight in His cause in rows as though they are a [single] structure joined firmly” (61:4). Whether in the Islamic world or European and American societies, people who love peace should speak out together, oppose hegemonism, oppose war, and promote all parties to return to the negotiating table——only in this way can a larger-scale disaster be avoided, and the Middle East can usher in peace and tranquility again.
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