By Salim Nazzal
The current war with Iran closely resembles the war against Iraq in that the United States appears to have no real interest in it, except that it has been drawn into it under the influence of the Jewish lobby.
Public opinion polls within American society indicate that support for this war does not exceed about 27 percent, a very low figure compared with the support the war against Iraq received in 2003 Iraq War, when public approval reached nearly 70 percent.
It is true that American governments do not always follow public opinion when deciding to wage wars. However, they also cannot ignore it completely, since the legitimacy of foreign policy ultimately depends on the acceptance of society.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to push the United States toward a direct military confrontation with Iran. He dealt with several American presidents in this regard, but these attempts failed to draw Washington into a full-scale war except for the full approval expressed by Donald Trump for such a course.
It is noteworthy that although the United States has strongly supported Israel politically and militarily since its establishment, it has not normally entered into a direct joint war with Israel. Even during the Gulf War in 1991, when Saddam Hussein launched missiles at Israel, Washington moved quickly to restrain Israel and prevent it from responding, so that the international coalition which included Arab states would not collapse.
However, political shifts inside the United States, particularly the rise of Christian Zionism, have played an important role in pushing the debate toward more hardline positions against Iran. This movement has been influenced by interpretations presented by the American theologian Cyrus Ingerson Scofield in his well-known Scofield Reference Bible. These interpretations are based on what is known as Dispensationalism, a theological doctrine claiming that the Jewish people have a future role in Palestine as part of end-times prophecy.
However, this theological interpretation is not widely accepted within traditional Christianity. Most historic Protestant churches reject it, as do the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Despite this, decision-makers in the United States understand that Iran does not represent an threat to their country. Many of the arguments used today to justify war strongly resemble the propaganda that preceded the invasion of Iraq, when Iraq was portrayed as a global threat.
Claims to protect the Strait of Hormuz also appear part of the propoganda. The strait has historically remained open to international navigation, including oil tankers, even during periods of intense tension.
For these reasons, the present war appears, at its core a war that is decided by Israel . The more important question, however, may not concern the interests of the United States alone, but rather the difference between the American and Israeli visions for the region.
The United States, despite its repeated interventions, does not theoretically appear interested in fragmenting the Middle East into smaller entities. Israel, however, has historically viewed the region from a different perspective. It understands that the emergence of a unified regional power in the Levant could pose a strategic challenge. Consequently, it tends to prefer a regional environment characterized by fragile balances and internal conflicts.
A similar view was expressed by the Israeli writer Oded Yinon in his 1982 article, A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties, where he argued that the fragmentation of major states in the region such as Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon into smaller competing entities could serve Israel’s strategic interests.
If we look at the military dimension of the conflict, a clear difference in targets can also be observed. American strikes tend to focus mainly on military objectives, whereas Israeli operations often target the civilian infrastructure of society schools, hospitals, television facilities, and public infrastructure aiming to weaken the social fabric and accelerate its fragmentation.
At the same time, sectarian and ethnic divisions within states are often exploited, further increasing the fragility of political structures across the region.
Therefore, viewing the current war simply as a confrontation with Iran alone represents an oversimplification of reality. The conflict may instead be part of a broader trajectory that could push the Arab Levant into a long cycle of conflict and instability.
Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian Norwegian researcher, lecturer playwright and poet, wrote more than 17 books such as Perspectives on thought, culture and political sociology, in thought, culture and ideology, the road to Baghdad
6 March 2026
Source: countercurrents.org