One of the things ignored about the outbreak of war between Iran, Israel and the United States is that it brought the great religions into conflict. The prior wars in the region have been mostly Israel against one of the Muslim countries or the United States against one of the Muslim countries. This is the first time that all three religions were in open conflict with one another. The conflict reveals some things about the state of each of the Abrahamic religions and the cultures they represent.

The cause of the war, of course, was the sneak attack by Israel, and supported by the United States, aimed at decapitating the Iranian government. Putting everything about the region aside, it was an insane act. Israel is a tiny country, while Iran is a big country, so any war between the two will be lopsided. The only way this made any sense is if Israel assumed they would get help from the United States, but even then, it was a reckless act that wreaks of desperation.

That is the part ignored in the coverage. Israel is a country with very serious structural problems right now. The demographics are the main driver. While Israel fertility is above replacement, it is largely due to the ultra-orthodox (Haredi). Their fertility rate is a whopping 6.48 children per woman. Meanwhile, the Westernized, cosmopolitan population has a below replacement TFR. This demographic revolution is stressing Israeli politics at every level.

There is also the issue of Israeli identity, which was born out of the conflict with the British and then flowered in the endless conflicts with the Arabs. To be an Israeli means to be the David in a perpetual fight against a Goliath. The trouble is the supply of Goliaths is down to one, Iran. In many respects, the Israeli war against Iran is as much about the Israeli need for an enemy as anything else. Israel needs the fear of Persia to keep its population from turning on each other.

We see something similar with the United States. Generations of reckless disregard by the parasitic ruling elite have left America drained of its asabiyyah. The political class senses this, even if they lack the intellect to understand it, so they are always looking for an enemy to unite against. Notice the lack of dissenting voices in Washington as Trump stumbled through the crisis. They were just happy to once again have a common enemy to justify their existence.

As an aside, this may explain some of the Israel worship. The actors hired to fill out the roles in our political theater no longer wave the flag or speak in traditionally patriotic terms, because none of them believe in the ideals of America. Many of them hate those ideals as being white. That leaves a great void. For many, filling that with a bizarre worship of Israel and Jewish people is the answer. Hollow men will fill their souls with anything to avoid hearing the sound of their hollowness.

Putting that aside, this crisis and the proxy war with Russia all have the feel of a bad remake of a classic film because the United States is no longer a nation of people who optimistically look to the future. It is a land of old people and foreigners who fear what may lie ahead. As with Israel, the old gods now haunt the people. Christianity in America is in a shambles and the American ideology that grew out of American Protestantism has curdled into a collection of resentments.

The United States is now a land of priests, with no natural authority to proselytize to the rest of the world. The instinct to lecture remains, but the purpose and authority are gone, so we get men with no moral authority telling the rest of the world how they should and should not act. Notice how much they love saying, “Iran should never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” It makes them feel like it is a Sunday long ago and they are in the pulpit of a packed church.

Then we have Iran, which for half a century has been the symbol of radical Islam for most of the West. The Iran of today was born at the very beginning of the Islamic spiritual awakening that has defined the region ever since. Even though Iran is a Shia society, Shia Islam is a minority sect within Islam, it has been viewed as the center of political Islam, largely due to its size. Iran also has a unique identity within the Arab world, considering itself Persian rather than Arab.

Iran has always been the most sophisticated society within the Arab world, due to its history and its religion. Shia Islam is like high church Protestantism while Sunni Islam is like low church Protestantism. Within Shia Islam, you do not get to call yourself an Imam just because you read the Koran. It takes years of study and mentorship before you join the clerical class. Like low church Protestantism, any Sunni can set up shop as a holy man and start developing a following.

Like Israel and the United States, the old gods are starting to fade within Iran, as the population settled into modernity. The revolutionary fervor is long gone, as most of that generation are now dead. The religious fervor has now settled into a cultural and political framework that defines an increasingly modern population. Like all modern people, Iran has seen a collapse in fertility. At the start of the revolution, it had a TFR of 6.38 and now the TFR stands at 1.68.

Like Israel and the United States, Iran is now suffering from an identity crisis as it faces the challenges brought on by modernity. The religious structures remain in place, which are supposed to give meaning and purpose to life, but the population is struggling to remember the authority upon which those structures are built. In the cities, people care more about convenience than Islam. The same cancer eating away at the West is eating away at Iranian society.

This is why the great war between the three major religions looked like a ridiculous pantomime of past conflicts. The audience was expected to sing along with the familiar tunes but was too old or too disinterested to get into it. The actors themselves are too exhausted to put on more than a token effort. The three great civilizations as represented by the three great religions are exhausted. Both sense the future excludes them, but that is too terrifying to consider.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!