Nihilism, understood because the absence of a transcendental function, 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 can 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 a protracted course of: the structuralization of that means and function — 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 results 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 that means. The battle between Israel and Iran appears to don’t have any that means: it’s logical, but it surely doesn’t make sense. Logical, as a result of we are able to 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 prompt in a 2024 interview for Elucid: “I’ve two working hypotheses on Israel,” he stated. “The primary is that of nihilism, as a consequence of a scarcity of that means in Israeli society — the that means of its historical past. The second, a consequence of the primary, is the speculation that the state of affairs 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 will probably be victorious, as a result of there are various higher analysts than myself — they usually maintain contradicting views. Is Iran following Russia’s Ukraine technique to show this right into a battle of attrition? Or has Israel actually weakened its capability to react? Personally, I discover the primary possibility extra believable — however Iran has additionally been damage, so we can’t rule out the second fully.
Will direct US intervention — its oblique function 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 spot) lies in a metaphysical declare. However regime change stays a chance — and one that will be catastrophic for the area. Maybe much more so for the US, which must cope with 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 help such a conclusion. A collapse in Iran would additionally disrupt plans for the North–South commerce hall and the Chinese language New Silk Street — each of which threaten US management of maritime commerce. It may 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 strategy to interpret their want for regime change in Iran. The US beneath 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 tug the US into one more Center East battle 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 objective 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 expenses in Israeli courts. Many recommend that the continued 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 battle — 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 results this intervention might 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 function.
Leaders replicate the frequent denominator of the individuals they characterize. Each Trump and Netanyahu appear to lack a transparent sense of function, despite the fact that they clearly state their aims. Trump as a result of he appears to know that the US function in world affairs should change, however doesn’t understand how. Netanyahu as a result of he has plunged right into a profound nihilism. He 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 at present is not about being Jewish — it’s about preventing the Arabs.” That is the one strategy to clarify the uncontrollable violence unleashed in Gaza — and now in Iran. Israel Katz, the Israeli protection minister, stated that “Tehran would grow to be Beirut,” referring to the applying of the notorious Dahiya Doctrine.
Camus as soon as stated that nihilism is “not solely despair and negation, however above all the need to despair and to destroy.” The urge to destroy — to enact violence — is the results of a scarcity of function, the place violence turns into the substitute for that means itself. However as Hannah Arendt warned, violence, although it could fill the void momentarily, can’t create — it could actually 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, beneath the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih and the idea of the occultation of the final Imam, has made help for the state a tenet of religion. Zionist Israel was, in accordance 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 provides rise to the state, nihilism inevitably follows. And nihilism breeds violence.