Two weeks into the war in Iran, Donald Trump’s critics have intensified their attacks not only on his conduct of the war, but on his decision to start it at all. As oil prices, global trade routes and energy markets come under strain, endless strategic and economic debates produce more speculation than answers. Does the war weaken America against China, or strengthen it? Was the decision legal? Is there a long term strategy for this confrontation?

Just as technology empowers ideological extremists, ideological self-doubt weakens many Western societies

Just as technology empowers ideological extremists, ideological self-doubt weakens many Western societies

All are important questions. Yet we must not overlook another perspective, increasingly unfashionable but repeatedly invoked by President Trump and his administration in statements and briefings. Alongside discussions of military advantage and regional security, they have revived a language that many Western policymakers prefer to avoid. A language that can sound cynical or contrived when spoken by politicians wading daily through the greasy muck of politics. It is the language of morality, ideology and civilisational conflict.

Speaking in those terms confronts something essential about the enemy being challenged. This is not simply another American intervention abroad, nor merely another “forever war” of Western imperialism. The Iranian regime is more than an authoritarian state pursuing narrow interests. Its ruling doctrine fuses revolutionary Shi’a theology with a militant anti Western worldview forged in the intellectual currents of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s leaders see themselves not only as governors of a state but as participants in a historical, international, civilisational mission. And we are their enemy.

Israel has therefore become a natural partner for the United States in this confrontation. Few modern states maintain such a clear sense of civilisational identity or such confidence in the legitimacy of their own survival, and that clarity has allowed Washington and Jerusalem to recognise common cause against the Iranian regime.

The Israeli state was founded on the conviction that a persecuted people had the right to defend themselves and their values even in a hostile region. That ethos still shapes Israeli strategic thinking and explains why Trump has found such a natural partner in the Jewish........

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