Nihilism, understood because the absence of a transcendental goal, lies on the coronary heart of the battle that Israel initiated in opposition to Iran. However it is usually what lies on the coronary heart — the empty coronary heart — of the West’s belligerent perspective. I imagine it’ll even be the defining attribute of the brand new nomos rising from the decay of the US-led Western order. And that ought to fear us, as a result of nihilism breeds violence.
This isn’t new. Many thinkers — Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus, and Heidegger, amongst others — have warned for over two centuries that this could be the end result of an extended course of: the structuralization of which means and goal — as soon as embodied in faith within the West — and its subjugation to the state. They spoke whereas within the midst of this course of, foreseeing the implications if the course was not altered. It wasn’t.
Heidegger argued that the fabric, utilitarian worldview — which values issues solely for his or her exterior utility — had disadvantaged humanity of any sense of which means. The conflict between Israel and Iran appears to don’t have any which means: it’s logical, but it surely doesn’t make sense. Logical, as a result of we will hint the geopolitical path that led to it, even establish particular person motivations — and but, it nonetheless doesn’t make sense. Until we interpret it as proof of its nihilistic nature: its sense lies in the truth that it has none.
That’s what historian and sociologist Emmanuel Todd advised in a 2024 interview for Elucid: “I’ve two working hypotheses on Israel,” he mentioned. “The primary is that of nihilism, as a consequence of a scarcity of which means in Israeli society — the which means of its historical past. The second, a consequence of the primary, is the speculation that the scenario will get even worse.” And it has. The violence unleashed in Gaza — and now in Iran — is violence stripped of ethical restraint, pushed solely by materials logic.
I can’t try to predict the end result of this battle or who might be victorious, as a result of there are a lot of higher analysts than myself — they usually maintain contradicting views. Is Iran following Russia’s Ukraine technique to show this right into a conflict of attrition? Or has Israel actually weakened its capability to react? Personally, I discover the primary choice extra believable — however Iran has additionally been damage, so we can not rule out the second fully.
Will direct US intervention — its oblique position being apparent — result in regime change? I imagine the Iranian regime is stronger than many assume — actually stronger than Assad’s — as a result of its power (and its weak point) lies in a metaphysical declare. However regime change stays a risk — and one that might be catastrophic for the area. Maybe much more so for the US, which must take care of the fallout.
Some argue that that is exactly what the US needs. They level to a 2009 Brookings Establishment report titled “Which Path to Persia? Choices for a New American Technique towards Iran” which seems to assist such a conclusion. A collapse in Iran would additionally disrupt plans for the North–South commerce hall and the Chinese language New Silk Highway — each of which threaten US management of maritime commerce. It might additionally reduce off low-cost oil flows to China, although I doubt this could have a significant impression, given China’s diversified vitality sources. Nonetheless, each China and Russia have condemned Israel’s actions within the strongest phrases — lending credibility to those claims.
Israeli strategists seem to imagine that their state will profit from the following chaos by asserting regional dominance — there isn’t a different method to interpret their want for regime change in Iran. The US underneath Trump needs to pivot away from West Asia and towards East Asia. Israel is both attempting to carve out a place of energy amid declining US presence, or it needs to pull the US into yet one more Center East conflict that can power it to remain — to the detriment of its personal curiosity.
Iran has lengthy been on Netanyahu’s radar. It was the top purpose of a 1996 coverage paper titled “A Clear Break” written for him by a bunch of neoconservatives led by Richard Perle, simply as he got here to energy. And energy is one thing Netanyahu is now desperately clinging to. Simply days earlier than the assault on Iran, he narrowly survived a proposal on the Knesset that might have dissolved his coalition. He nonetheless faces a number of legal prices in Israeli courts. Many recommend that the continuing genocide in Gaza — and now the assault on Iran — are makes an attempt to distract from a political collapse that might land him in jail.
Trump could possibly be decisive on this conflict — however true to kind, he behaves erratically. On the one hand, he amplifies Israel’s claims a couple of nuclear risk. On the opposite, he appears to foresee the implications this intervention may need on his presidency. He manifests the divide that runs by means of the US institution — and, extra broadly, by means of US society — torn between its delusions of grandeur and the inescapable actuality of inner incoherence and lack of goal.
Leaders mirror the frequent denominator of the individuals they symbolize. Each Trump and Netanyahu appear to lack a transparent sense of goal, although they clearly state their targets. Trump as a result of he appears to know that the US position in world affairs should change, however doesn’t know the way. Netanyahu as a result of he has plunged right into a profound nihilism. He now not defines himself by what he’s, however by what he’s not — his enemies outline him.
That’s what Emmanuel Todd additionally suggests in the identical interview quoted above: “Maybe within the unconscious depths of the Israeli psyche, being Israeli right this moment is now not about being Jewish — it’s about preventing the Arabs.” That is the one method to clarify the uncontrollable violence unleashed in Gaza — and now in Iran. Israel Katz, the Israeli protection minister, mentioned that “Tehran would change into Beirut,” referring to the appliance of the notorious Dahiya Doctrine.
Camus as soon as mentioned that nihilism is “not solely despair and negation, however above all the will to despair and to destroy.” The urge to destroy — to enact violence — is the results of a scarcity of goal, the place violence turns into the substitute for which means itself. However as Hannah Arendt warned, violence, although it might fill the void momentarily, can not create — it could possibly solely destroy. And that’s the reason Israeli society is collapsing.
Iran stands as a mirror to this collapse — solely differing in diploma. I imagine — although I stand to be corrected — that these are the one two states that explicitly legitimize their existence primarily based on a metaphysical declare. Shi’a Iran, underneath the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih and the idea of the occultation of the final Imam, has made assist for the state a tenet of religion. Zionist Israel was, in keeping with Ilan Pappé, based on the precept that “God doesn’t exist, however He promised us this land.”
The Shi’a subordinated God to the state; the Zionists instrumentalized God, then discarded Him. In each instances — in all such instances — when faith is subordinated to the structural logic that offers rise to the state, nihilism inevitably follows. And nihilism breeds violence.
