The resignation letter of Joe Kent, director of counterterrorism in the United States, reveals the destructive and destabilizing influence of Israel on American foreign policy. In his first interview, he mentions this role in triggering the war that destroyed Iraq. He said he resigned to avoid repeating the horror with Iran.
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Amir Khadir
Former Quebec Solidaire MP
The current war goes beyond the usual geostrategic explanation. To understand what led Trump to be drawn into this war solely for the benefit of Israel, we need to open a new angle of analysis.
An often overlooked dimension in the analysis is becoming increasingly clear: the three main actors in the current crisis – the Iranian theocracy of the Pasdaran, the regime of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, and the Trump administration in the United States – are each driven in their own way by an eschatological vision of the world. In other words, they act under the influence of actors who believe in the end of times. This convergence of three millenarianisms, which herald the return of the messiah for a thousand-year reign, produces a war dynamic that traditional diplomacy is structurally incapable of defusing.
The Iran of the Pasdaran: the return of the Mahdi
Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has been built on the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih – the government of the Islamic jurist – which awaits the return of the Imam Mahdi, the 12th imam who disappeared in the 9th century according to Shiite tradition. The belief in the reappearance of this messiah is shared by millions of Shiites worldwide in a spiritual and apolitical manner.
But in Iran, where I am now, the hardline factions of the Revolutionary Guards – the Pasdaran – have made it an ideological tool: for them, the greater regional instability, the closer the return of the Mahdi.
The power in Iran, against which I actively militated for a long time, is now held by the Pasdaran, who control all sectors of the economy, the state, and the security apparatus, supported by a militia corps of nearly one million members.
The theocracy, now dynastic, is only a facade of legitimation – very fragile at that – for what is actually a fascist cartel-state. The Iranian people – who rose up massively in 2019, 2022, and 2026 – are the first victims. Their territory is now the center of a war they did not choose, in the name of prophecies they no longer share.
The reconstruction of the Temple and Greater Israel
PHOTO HAZEM BADER, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Kippas in the image of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump in Jerusalem, March 12, 2026
The coalition government in place in Israel since 2022 represents the most extremist trend ever to take power in the history of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu leads a strategic alliance with ministers like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, whose extremist positions focus centrally on the realization of Greater Israel – a distant biblical vision – by annexing the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and parts of the territories of several countries in the region from Egypt to Iraq.
For more fundamentalist Israelis, the ultimate goal is the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands – which necessitates its destruction.
In this cosmology, the war against Iran is not really a security operation: it is a necessary step towards fulfilling a divine promise. Some Israeli leaders have explicitly called the Gaza war “Armageddon.” The underlying strategy is revealing: Israel knows it cannot face Iran alone. The goal is to create conditions for an escalation that makes US entry into the war inevitable – a calculation that has worked according to Joe Kent.
United States: Trump held hostage by his eschatological allies
Trump’s victory in November 2024 placed in the American executive center a hybrid coalition: on one side, evangelical Zionist Christians – tens of millions of voters who, based on a literal reading of the Apocalypse, believe that the return of Christ is conditioned on the rebuilding of the Temple and a final battle in Jerusalem; on the other side, donors and advisers of the “Israel First” movement, like the Adelson family, who work to fully align American foreign policy with the goals of the Israeli right.
The tragic irony is that this alliance is based on a fundamental theological misunderstanding: in the evangelical cosmology, Jews must ultimately convert or perish – a fact that Israeli Zionists cynically keep silent about.
But each camp uses the other for their own eschatological ends: fundamentalists in Israel rely on the long-awaited Messiah to settle the account of all unbelievers.
Trump – elected on promises of non-interventionism – finds himself embroiled in a conflict he no longer controls. Internal fractures within the MAGA movement illustrate this tension: Tucker Carlson, Joe Kent, Candace Owens, and Steve Bannon publicly denounce the influence of a pro-Israel lobby in the White House but struggle to reverse the trajectory.
The fatal convergence of dangerous delusions
What makes the situation unprecedentedly grave is the triple synchronization of these millenarianisms. For the first time in modern history, three major actors in the same conflict share a theological vision of war: destruction is not a failure – it is a step towards redemption. Chaos heralds the arrival of the Mahdi, the true Shiite messiah. War prepares for the reconstruction of the Temple, a condition for the advent of the Mashia. And Armageddon hastens the return of Christ. In this framework, peace itself becomes a spiritual threat to these fanatics. This is precisely what makes diplomatic rationality powerless: one does not negotiate with actors who believe they serve a higher divine truth above all human calculation.
Ultimately, the cost of these intertwined millenarian delusions is paid by ordinary people: Iranian, Palestinian, Israeli, and Lebanese civilians. Their leaders – entrenched in their palaces, bunkers, and mansions – will not share their fate. The only possible response remains what it has always been: the political awakening of the people and their collective refusal to die for the prophecies of their elites. Faced with such hallucinations, lucidity is the first form of resistance.
1. Read The Atlantic article The Two Extremists Driving Israel’s Policy
2. Read The Guardian article This war is prophetically significant: why US evangelical Christians support Israel
3. Read Politico article Sheldon Adelson: The Megadonor Who Underwrote the GOP’s Pro-Israel Shift
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