[News] In Iran, Israel’s morbid military cult now has the US fully in its grip

Thu Mar 5 10:38:54 EST 2026

In this catastrophic war of choice, it is Tehran fighting a rearguard 
action to restore geopolitical sanity. If Iran loses, god only knows 
where Israel and the US will drag the world next
͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏   ͏   
  ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     
͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏ 
     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏   
  ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     
͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏ 
     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏   
  ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     
͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏ 
     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏   
  ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     
͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏ 
     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏   
  ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     
͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏ 
     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏   
  ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     
͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏ 
     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏   
  ͏     ͏     ͏     

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here 
<https://substack.com/redirect/2/eyJlIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9qb25hdGhhbmNvb2suc3Vic3RhY2suY29tL3N1YnNjcmliZT91dG1fc291cmNlPWVtYWlsJnV0bV9jYW1wYWlnbj1lbWFpbC1zdWJzY3JpYmUmcj00ODQ5aWMmbmV4dD1odHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRmpvbmF0aGFuY29vay5zdWJzdGFjay5jb20lMkZwJTJGaW4taXJhbi1pc3JhZWxzLW1vcmJpZC1taWxpdGFyeS1jdWx0IiwicCI6MTg5OTkxOTY4LCJzIjo0NzY0NTAsImYiOnRydWUsInUiOjI1NTUwMDU4MCwiaWF0IjoxNzcyNzE4Mjg5LCJleHAiOjIwODgyOTQyODksImlzcyI6InB1Yi0wIiwic3ViIjoibGluay1yZWRpcmVjdCJ9.Ai0lw4iCZLOZoWXDLz4uYDsWm7XzGqTaKrnuAYlJhzY?> 
for more

  In Iran, Israel’s morbid military cult now has the US fully in its
  grip
  <https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=476450&post_id=189991968&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=4849ic&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU1MDA1ODAsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE4OTk5MTk2OCwiaWF0IjoxNzcyNzE4Mjg5LCJleHAiOjE3NzUzMTAyODksImlzcyI6InB1Yi00NzY0NTAiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.47IiCne2D8QhRpN8h7u9lO4soS7nnR5iRlITz8haRT0>

      In this catastrophic war of choice, it is Tehran fighting a
      rearguard action to restore geopolitical sanity. If Iran loses,
      god only knows where Israel and the US will drag the world next

Jonathan Cook <https://substack.com/@jonathancook>

Mar 5, 2026

<https://substack.com/@jonathancook>

<https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=476450&post_id=189991968&utm_source=substack&isFreemail=true&submitLike=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU1MDA1ODAsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE4OTk5MTk2OCwicmVhY3Rpb24iOiLinaQiLCJpYXQiOjE3NzI3MTgyODksImV4cCI6MTc3NTMxMDI4OSwiaXNzIjoicHViLTQ3NjQ1MCIsInN1YiI6InJlYWN0aW9uIn0.HuDB8_Kxukhhe-Qx17XqyGqNFHuP_cJh7-pahIraCPc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-reaction&r=4849ic> 

<https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=476450&post_id=189991968&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&isFreemail=true&comments=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU1MDA1ODAsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE4OTk5MTk2OCwiaWF0IjoxNzcyNzE4Mjg5LCJleHAiOjE3NzUzMTAyODksImlzcyI6InB1Yi00NzY0NTAiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.47IiCne2D8QhRpN8h7u9lO4soS7nnR5iRlITz8haRT0&r=4849ic&utm_campaign=email-half-magic-comments&action=post-comment&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> 

<https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=476450&post_id=189991968&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&action=share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=4849ic&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU1MDA1ODAsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE4OTk5MTk2OCwiaWF0IjoxNzcyNzE4Mjg5LCJleHAiOjE3NzUzMTAyODksImlzcyI6InB1Yi00NzY0NTAiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.47IiCne2D8QhRpN8h7u9lO4soS7nnR5iRlITz8haRT0> 

<https://substack.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.qLKQ5X-DegwWUPWiEIB27CDDLLyUTfCd0CWsvZRnNiQ?&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> 

READ IN APP 
<https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathancook/p/in-iran-israels-morbid-military-cult?utm_source=email&redirect=app-store&utm_campaign=email-read-in-app> 

	<https://substack.com/redirect/aa786f23-5de1-493d-a52f-28928ea4734a?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA> 	

The admission this week by US secretary of state Marco Rubio, echoed by 
Mike Johnson 
<https://substack.com/redirect/92a71a01-dbdc-4c0a-90b6-2aadd2c6d30f?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, that Israel forced Washington’s 
hand in attacking Iran has rightly caused consternation.

Breathing life into something that would normally be treated as an 
antisemitic trope, Rubio argued that the Trump administration had been 
left with no choice but to attack Iran because, had it not, Israel would 
have launched an attack anyway, exposing US soldiers to retaliation.

Rubio stated: “The president made the very wise decision: We knew that 
there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would 
precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we 
didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we 
would suffer higher casualties.”

<https://substack.com/redirect/bcb6164b-e65a-4217-82e1-e18ac773d4c0?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>

Rubio was using the term “preemptively” in a highly irregular and 
misleading way.

In international law, aggression is an illegal application of force – 
the “supreme international crime”, according to the 1950 principles set 
out by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. But there is a potential 
mitigating factor if the attacking state can show it was acting 
pre-emptively: that is, it was acting to prevent a plausible, immediate 
and severe threat of attack.

Rubio, however, was not suggesting that the US acted “preemptively” 
against a threat from Iran. He meant Washington had acted preemptively 
to stop its ally, Israel, from setting off a chain of military events 
that would lead to US soldiers being harmed.

Had the Trump administration really been acting preemptively in these 
circumstances, the US should have attacked Israel, not Iran.

      Paper tiger

But Rubio’s comment begged a further question: Why didn’t Washington 
simply tell Israel it was forbidden from starting a war against Iran 
without US approval?

After all, Israel would be incapable of mounting any kind of attack on 
Iran without the critical support provided by the US.

Israel has had to rely on help from US military bases dotted around the 
region, as well as the Arab states that host those bases.

The attack would have been quite inconceivable without the backup of a 
massive armada of US war ships sent to the region by Trump.

Israel can withstand Iranian retaliation only because it gets a degree 
of protection from missile interception systems provided and funded by 
the US.

And on top of all that, Israel is regional hegemon only because it gets 
massive subsidies from the US – worth many billions of dollars a year – 
to preserve it as one of the strongest militaries in the world.

In other words, Israel would have found it impossible to wage war on 
Iran alone. It is a paper tiger without the US.

Rubio’s comment suggested one of two possibilities: either that the US, 
with the strongest military in world history, is under the thumb of the 
tiny state of Israel; or that Trump has made his own military, the 
strongest-ever, servile to Israel.

Whichever it is, it is hard to square with Trump’s repeated assertion 
that he is putting America First.

This point is so glaringly obvious it is presumably the reason why Rubio 
was forced to walk back 
<https://substack.com/redirect/ae710929-5518-47c1-97d9-1650ddc695db?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>his 
comments the next day. Meanwhile, Trump hurriedly suggested it was he 
who had forced Israel’s hand to attack Iran, not the other way round.

<https://substack.com/redirect/0b623159-fd98-4080-af02-2783d029f1c3?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA> 

      Geopolitical insanity

The more likely truth is not that Israel forced Trump’s hand. It is that 
he was seduced by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s false 
claim that an attack on Iran would be a cakewalk – if they struck at a 
moment when they could be sure of killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali 
Khamenei.

Such a decapitation strike, Trump was led to believe, would be a repeat 
of his Venezuela “success”, when he kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro 
from Caracas to bring him to trial in New York.

In Venezuela, the flagrant flouting of international law 
<https://substack.com/redirect/baa344a0-31e3-4f43-8837-4ca474055626?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>by 
the US was intended to be the equivalent of pointing a loaded shotgun at 
the head of Maduro’s replacement, Delcy Rodriguez. Do as we say, or the 
new president gets it from both barrels.

Netanyahu knew exactly how to sell Trump, still giddy on the noxious 
fumes of this lawbreaking venture, the idea that he could repeat the 
exercise in Iran. The ayatollah’s successor would similarly be putty in 
his hands.

Which is why, in this catastrophic war of choice by the US and Israel, 
it is Tehran fighting a rearguard action to restore a little 
geopolitical sanity. If Iran loses, or the US succeeds without paying a 
fearsome price, god only knows where Israel and Washington will drag the 
world next.

The world’s fate, in a real sense, is Tehran’s hands.

      ‘Israelisation’ of the US

What the joint attack on Iran demonstrates most clearly is how much 
Netanyahu has succeeded over the past quarter of a century in 
“Israelising” Washington and the Pentagon.

The US has always waged illegal wars of aggression. It has always been 
more gangster than global policeman. But just because Washington was run 
by ruthless criminals, it did not mean it was incapable of getting still 
more deranged, still more psychopathic.

That is what Netanyahu has been working on. And Trump is now giving full 
rein to the Israelisation of the US. The clues are everywhere.

On Wednesday secretary of war Pete Hegseth – the traditional title of 
“secretary of defence” presumably sounded too law-abiding – dropped any 
pretence of being the good guy.

He insisted US forces were acting “without mercy 
<https://substack.com/redirect/28450a20-d4ae-4e7f-95c5-5a280f0dec76?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>” 
and that the Iranian regime “are toast”. The US would deliver 
<https://substack.com/redirect/3ddd3d0d-6ee8-48ee-9a44-a49134540444?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>“death 
and destruction all day long”.

The previous day he had set out the game plan: “No stupid rules of 
engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, 
no politically correct wars.”

<https://substack.com/redirect/91802d8e-a0e7-4e8e-b19a-3e411528c6f5?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA> 

This isn’t the traditional rhetoric of US administrations seeking to 
flaunt the West’s superior values, or claiming to be on a civilising 
mission to the rest of the world.

This is the rhetoric of colonial arrogance, of the same military 
medievalism long espoused by Israeli leaders.

Hegseth sounded all too much like General Moshe Dayan, Israel’s defence 
minister in the 1960s. He famously set out Israel’s overarching military 
doctrine 
<https://substack.com/redirect/baf5d836-adcd-49f3-8c90-0215cb6f22bd?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>: 
“Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”

      ‘Mad dog’ tactics

Before its attack, the US had spent years trying to starve the people of 
Iran into an uprising, just as Israel blockaded and starved the people 
of Gaza for some 16 years on the assumption that they would be 
encouraged to overthrow Hamas.

The strategy failed in both cases. Why? Because it ignored the simplest 
of facts: that the people being abused are human beings, who will always 
choose freedom and dignity over degradation and subordination.

Now led by the nose into a humiliating war of attrition with Iran, the 
US is lashing out like a “mad dog” – just as Israel did in Gaza after it 
was humiliated by Hamas’ one-day breakout from the concentration camp 
Israel had created for Palestinians there.

Hegseth’s “no rules of engagement” means the US is now open about the 
fact that all of Iran has been turned into a free-fire zone, just as 
Gaza was.

Which explains why one of the first targets of the US and Israeli 
strikes was a primary school where more than 170 people were killed 
<https://substack.com/redirect/a5ee1664-7ca1-4af7-a49b-889f7528abe9?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>, 
most of them children under the age of 12.

According to reports even in the rightwing Telegraph newspaper, US and 
Israeli attacks have already created an “apocalypse 
<https://substack.com/redirect/ac839612-7ad9-4af8-93ec-2346a2d41960?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>” 
in Tehran. Essential civilian infrastructure is being targeted, such as 
hospitals, schools and police stations. Residential areas are being 
carpet-bombed, and food and medical supplies are rapidly running out.

Rubio has vowed that much worse 
<https://substack.com/redirect/69785450-902b-487c-b41b-fbc71bd772c0?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>is 
to come.

The US has evidently been captured by the depraved logic of the Dahiya 
doctrine, which Israel developed in its repeated attacks on Lebanon and 
further refined over two and a half years in Gaza.

      Smouldering ruin

The Dahiya doctrine goes much further than simply the idea of asymmetric 
warfare inherent to attacks by a stronger party on a weaker party.

Under the doctrine 
<https://substack.com/redirect/aa1efc63-677a-40be-b90b-e02a86f3ef30?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>, 
civilian casualties are no longer unfortunate “collateral damage” from 
strikes against military assets. Rather, the civilian population are 
treated as no less legitimate targets of attack than military 
infrastructure.

For Israel, the Dahiya doctrine grew out of an acceptance that there 
were no meaningful war aims that Israel could achieve in its battles 
against the Palestinians it ruled over or against Hizbullah’s resistance 
in Lebanon.

Israel was unsatisfied simply with pacifying the Palestinians. It knew 
they could not be pacified indefinitely, given that it had no intention 
of ever arriving at a political settlement with them. The fabled 
two-state solution was purely for western consumption; it never had any 
meaningful constituency of support in Israel.

Rather, Israel’s goal was to use overwhelming and indiscriminate 
violence to terrify the Palestinians into ethnically cleansing 
themselves from the region, as had partially occurred in 1948.

Similarly, in Lebanon, where the Dahiya doctrine was first developed, 
the goal was not to reach a political accommodation with Hizbullah 
through a show of force. Hizbullah had made clear it would never resign 
itself to watching the Palestinians erased from their homeland.

The goal was to wreak so much pain on Lebanon that other religious sects 
would turn on Hizbullah and plunge the country into protracted civil 
war, leaving Israel free to get on with the expulsion – and now genocide 
– of the Palestinian people.

Under the Dahiya doctrine, Israel implicitly acknowledged that it was 
not fighting simply against militants but against the wider society from 
which those militants were drawn. It had to accept that there could be 
no victory, no surrender, assessed in traditional military terms. So 
what it had to do instead was leave a smouldering ruin.

Time and again, Israel has used massive firepower on civilian 
infrastructure and residential areas to break the will of a society – to 
drive it back into “the Stone Age” 
<https://substack.com/redirect/5ca4b617-362d-4755-9e6f-d8d93c684e43?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>, 
to use the terminology of Israeli generals – so that the population 
would expend their energies on survival rather than resistance.

This is what Hegseth and Rubio are now declaring as Washington’s war 
aims in Iran. A wilful, savage demonstration of mass destruction to no 
purpose other than the demonstration itself.

Jonathan Cook 5d
If you want to understand the terrifying logic behind Trump's attack on 
Iran, Marco Rubio laid it out at Munich this month. I explain it here: 
https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/rubio-declared-a-return-to-brutal
155 		53 	

<https://substack.com/profile/1117543-jonathan-cook/note/c-220882147>

      Morbid pathology

This is not a winning strategy, military or political. It is not even a 
failed strategy. It is the morbid pathology of a cult.

Which explains a flood of complaints over the initial days of Tump’s war 
on Iran from US soldiers about their commanders. There have been at 
least 110 so far, according to reporting by Jonathan Larsen 
<https://substack.com/redirect/4b7aea61-52cd-4193-b1c9-edad863979b5?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>here 
on Substack.

In one to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a non 
combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers that Trump was 
“anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon 
and mark his return to Earth”.

The Department of War under Hegseth, an evangelical Christian who 
believes the West is on a “crusade” against Islam, appears to be riding 
roughshod over First Amendment rules against proselytizing within the 
armed forces.

The theocratisation of US armed forces is not new. George W Bush spokes 
in terms of a “crusade” against terror nearly a quarter of a century 
ago. But the process appears to have reached a point now that the top 
ranks of the US chain of command are deeply imbued with an evangelical 
fervour for war in which Israel plays a central part.

Mikey Weinstein, the president of MRFF and an Air Force veteran who 
served in Ronald Reagan’s White House, told Larsen his group had been 
“inundated” with soldiers reporting the “euphoria of their commanders 
and command chains as to how this new ‘biblically-sanctioned’ war is 
clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the 
fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’.”

In “End Times” beliefs, based on the Book of Revelations, a terrible 
battle between good and evil takes place at Armageddon – a site in 
present-day northern Israel – which leads to the Messiah’s return to 
Earth and a Great Rapture in which believing Christians rise up to be 
with God.

Weinstein added: “Many of their commanders are especially delighted with 
how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this 
must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with 
fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology.”

      The word of God

Central to these beliefs is the gathering of Jews, as God’s Chosen 
People, into the Land of Israel – a much larger area than that covered 
by the modern state of Israel.

For Christian fundamentalists such as Hegseth and a growing number of US 
commanders, Israel is the catalyst for the End Times.

For very obvious reasons, Israel has been nuturing its ties with the 
huge numbers of Christian fundamentalists in the US. They are 
politically active – their vote secured the presidency for Trump – and 
they treat Israel as a critically important domestic issue rather than a 
foreign policy matter.

They are eager for Israel to seize wide swathes of the Middle East, and 
largely indifferent about what that entails for the Palestinians or the 
other peoples of the region.

This all neatly dovetails with the ideology espoused by Netanyahu and 
the Israeli military command, which years ago was taken over 
<https://substack.com/redirect/0e67dbe3-95d2-4f5d-9dfb-c12d77cefad4?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>by 
the same religious-extremist zealots who lead the violent settler 
movement that systematically attacks Palestinians in the West Bank and 
steals their land.

As the Israeli military launched its genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu urged 
soldiers on by telling them they were fighting the nation of Amalek 
<https://substack.com/redirect/21b32b84-341a-42d0-809e-60736fc437aa?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>– 
the enemy of the ancient Israelites.

In the Bible, God commanded King Saul to carry out the total 
annihilation of the Amalekites, putting to death every single man, 
woman, child and infant, as well as all livestock.

As can be seen in the erasure of Gaza, Israeli soldiers accepted their 
mission quite literally. After all, they were not just carrying out 
Netanyahu’s orders, but an order from God.

      ‘Clash of civilisations’

Netanyahu has not relied solely on the sacralisation of indiscriminate 
warfare by his own and the US army. He has also cultivated a wider, 
racist, anti-Muslim mood in the US and Europe to smooth Israel’s path as 
it levels large parts of the Middle East.

He has vigorourly promoted the idea of a “clash of civilisations”, the 
idea that a “Judeo-Christian West” is engaged in a permanent, joint war 
against the supposed barbarism of the Islamic world.

The synergy between a US military in thrall to Christian fundamentalism 
and an Israeli military in thrall to a biblically inspired Jewish 
supremacism is all to clearly on show now in Iran.

This combined military juggernaut has no interest in safeguarding human 
rights.

It recognises no distinction between civilian and military targets.

It prioritises its own soldiers’ safety – as enforcers of God’s 
providence – over the civilians those soldiers are attacking.

And it believes, in crushing the life out of the people of Iran, it is 
advancing divine will.

This is the true face of the war machine that upholds “western 
civilisation”. These are the real values the West is fighting for in 
Iran. The rest is a smokescreen.

Like 
<https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=476450&post_id=189991968&utm_source=substack&isFreemail=true&submitLike=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU1MDA1ODAsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE4OTk5MTk2OCwicmVhY3Rpb24iOiLinaQiLCJpYXQiOjE3NzI3MTgyODksImV4cCI6MTc3NTMxMDI4OSwiaXNzIjoicHViLTQ3NjQ1MCIsInN1YiI6InJlYWN0aW9uIn0.HuDB8_Kxukhhe-Qx17XqyGqNFHuP_cJh7-pahIraCPc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-reaction&r=4849ic> 

Comment 
<https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=476450&post_id=189991968&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&isFreemail=true&comments=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU1MDA1ODAsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE4OTk5MTk2OCwiaWF0IjoxNzcyNzE4Mjg5LCJleHAiOjE3NzUzMTAyODksImlzcyI6InB1Yi00NzY0NTAiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.47IiCne2D8QhRpN8h7u9lO4soS7nnR5iRlITz8haRT0&r=4849ic&utm_campaign=email-half-magic-comments&action=post-comment&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> 

Restack 
<https://substack.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.qLKQ5X-DegwWUPWiEIB27CDDLLyUTfCd0CWsvZRnNiQ?&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> 

© 2026 Jonathan Cook
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20260305/c50d17a7/attachment-0001.htm>