This article is an expanded version of the article "The Iran War – Risks and Opportunities." The different title reflects the new focus.
The risks posed by the Israeli-American attack on Iran are enormous, but so are the opportunities. Much more is at stake than sustained counterterrorism and a stable security structure in the Middle East. The Iran war, like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, is part of a global conflict whose true contours are obscured by the manipulated landscape of mainstream media. Yet, at its end, an authoritarian, UN-centric one-world state is already emerging.
Every war that Western nations allow themselves to be drawn into brings them closer to the end of the freedom and authentic democracy they supposedly defend, while the fair market economy is displaced by the rule of privileged oligopolies.
The polarizing effect of a protracted war
Since the absurdly protracted Vietnam War (1955-1975), citizens have been deeply divided into left-wing and conservative camps. Since then, the left has advocated a lenient pacifism at the expense of national interests, while conservatives are increasingly being manipulated into becoming neoconservatives who espouse a crude, heavy-handed militarism.
The tensions between these two false worldviews have threatened internal peace in Western states for far too long. The Iran war provides an opportunity to abandon these equally self-destructive paths. This requires identifying the psychological mechanisms that have been at work since Vietnam. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/stop-wests-self-destruction - Part 1
The atmosphere of media obfuscation regarding existential threats has enabled an increase in appeasement towards Islamists on the political left. At the same time, the mainstream media have managed to introduce the idea of a New World Order under UN authority into the left-wing camp. But it is growingly becoming clear that the pushed world state project is a Trojan horse, introducing a future unchecked domination by a financial establishment. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/blackrock-takes-over-wef-you-will-own-nothing-and-be-happy-now-hands-financial-elite
The minimally invasive alternative
While the conservative camp in Europe has split, in the USA, under Donald Trump, it has broken away from the neoconservative policy of suicidal, protracted wars. Through two short, hard, and effective strikes against definite enemies of liberal democracy, he has restored the lost respect for the superpower. The first, in June 2025, with the impressive destruction of underground Iranian nuclear facilities, prevented a further escalation of the 12-day war launched by Netanyahu. The second, with the almost bloodless end of the Maduro dictatorship, gave effect to the Venezuelan nation's right to self-determination under Article 1 of the UN Charter.
With this one-day action, Trump demonstrated a minimally invasive approach, long overdue since the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945, that elegantly liberates freedom-loving nations from despots. This is a crucial step away from protracted wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the nation in question was always punished for the transgressions of its autocratic rulers.
Ideological differences among allies
However, in the current war in Iran, Trump's stabilizing course is severely threatened. The Middle East is home to the world's largest concentration of unreliable "friends" of the West with differing goals and values, including a nuclear power and an emerging superpower. https://timesca.com/how-central-asia-is-shifting-from-russia-towards-turkey/
The fact that the nuclear power Pakistan (certainly not by chance) attacked Afghanistan shortly before the start of the Iran-Iraq War reveals more than just troubling information flows. Firstly, the threat to Israel is amplified by an incalculable dimension, and secondly, Western states can already ask themselves how they intend to finally address the foreseeable influx of Islamic refugees with principles rather than self-destructive appeasement. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/fraud-manipulated-clash-civilizations-short-version
The unknown Dahiya Doctrine
Another risk factor in the Iran-Iraq War is the military strategy of the Netanyahu government, which, following the massacre of October 7, 2023, has—literally systematically—made Israel the loser in the ensuing propaganda war.
It shows where neoconservatism drifts when it is not identified as an antithesis.
According to this strategy, civilian infrastructure and housing are deliberately destroyed. Its proponents claim this will cause suffering civilians to turn away from the terrorists. However, this assumption contradicts psychological principles. This misguided strategy has made the attacked Israel the loser in the information and propaganda war. Antisemitism has risen worldwide, while terrorists have been morally bolstered and Islamism has garnered enormous sympathy.
The Dahiya Doctrine was only able to achieve this self-destructive effect because it was largely ignored by the media. AI confirms that none of the major American and European news agencies even mentioned the doctrine once during the almost two and a half years of the Gaza War. Most Israelis are only superficially familiar with it, and the vast majority of other Western citizens are completely unaware of it.
Broad public awareness would have provided crucial guidance in the extremely controversial debate surrounding the moral evaluation of the Gaza war. Most likely, Netanyahu would have had to abandon the self-destructive doctrine. In any case, Islamists would no longer be able to distort the Dahiya doctrine on their internet platforms as dangerously as they are currently doing. They regularly claim that the doctrine involves the deliberate killing of civilians, thus creating the slanderous basis for accusations of genocide. In reality, the attacks are directed only against buildings and terrorists and are announced in advance.
The psychological roots of the radical Dahiya doctrine, however, lie with the UN. It is the UN that has distorted Israel's clear military victory after the Arab invasion of 1948 into an unresolved situation of chronic tensions and perpetual Arab revanchism and terrorism. The resulting deep frustration stemming from an unavoidable threat within Israel's conservative camp far surpasses that felt in the US since the Vietnam War. And it is the UN that arrogantly let Israeli politicians run headlong into a brick wall when they demand, for decades, that the anti-Jewish incitement in UNRWA schools finally be stopped. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/uns-guilt-terrorism
The decision
Applying the Dahiya doctrine in the Iran war would undermine Trump's concept of minimizing civilian harm and distort the liberation of the oppressed population into a destruction of the country.
Therefore, Trump must now keep a tight rein on all governments in the region, as well as on the leadership of his own military and intelligence services. If this fails, the Iran war promises to take the brutal, protracted, and ultimately self-destructive course that all major American wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan have followed. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/iran-treacherous-trap
Trump's political survival also depends on his success, as congressional elections are already scheduled for November 2026. A delayed Iran war would almost certainly result in a Republican defeat and subsequent impeachment proceedings against the president.
This, however, would drastically reduce the chances of averting the Orwellian global UN state and the violence on the path to it through democratic system reform. For all its flaws, the Trump administration, like no other, stands for the determination to fundamentally change course.