Iran's War for the World

 Iran's War for the World

ARKTOS JOURNAL AND ALEXANDER DUGIN

MAR 10, 2026

The below transcript is from Prof. Alexander Dugin’s latest episode of the Radio Sputnik Escalation Show. Dugin argues that the US-Israeli attack on Iran has only strengthened Iran’s resolve, inflamed ancient prophecies, and is accelerating the collapse of the post-WWII world system.

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"Radio Sputnik, Escalation Show Host: The violent clashes in the Middle East are ongoing. Initially, there were reports that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were preparing to visit Israel, but then came the unexpected news that the planned trip had been canceled. The reasons for this move have not been officially disclosed, but the fact itself is quite telling. In this regard, the question of the prospects for ending the conflict is particularly interesting. Donald Trump emphasized in his recent comments that the decision to cease fire will be made only with the consent of Benjamin Netanyahu. This raises the logical question: when will the end come? It seems that Israel and Netanyahu himself are determined to destroy the enemy without compromise, which means that a quick end to the conflict is unlikely.

Alexander Dugin: I think it is necessary to ask another side, whose opinion is absolutely important. This is the heroic Iranian people, who have lost their leadership and suffered enormous losses. They have endured grief and the unfortunate death of many people. Girls, small children, daughters of IRGC commanders, have been killed, and the strikes were deliberately aimed at them. This is nothing less than the murder of infants.

Netanyahu has declared that this war, from his point of view, in the religious and Zionist sense, is being waged against Amalek. Amalek is the enemy of Israel, and Netanyahu stated directly in his speech that they will destroy babies and children, that no one should be left alive in this war. This is Netanyahu’s mood: the war must end with Iran, when Amalek is destroyed. This is Israel’s religious-political project. The first strike against Israel’s enemies, Amalek and Iran, turned out to be very painful.

The religious leadership was destroyed — it is roughly equivalent to destroying the Pope or the Orthodox Patriarch. The blow was dealt to the religious leadership of the Shiite world, to military, scientific, and political circles. The attack by America and Israel was aimed at decapitating Iran and provoking a regime change operation, sparking an uprising. And in order to intimidate the people, they cynically annihilated children with a targeted strike. However, this did not have the effect that these American-Israeli monsters had hoped for.

The Iranian people rallied around their leadership: a new Rahbar, a new head of the political-religious structure of Wilayat al-Faqih, was elected, the son of Khamenei, who lost not only his father but also his closest relatives in the strike. The Iranian people and leadership are now determined to conclude this war only after Israel has been wiped off the face of the earth.

Now the axe has fallen: from Israel’s point of view, this is Amalek, who must be destroyed. From the Iranian point of view, Israel, like the entire West led by the US, is Dajjal, a kind of antichrist who is supposed to become the king ruling over the whole earth.

Trump and Netanyahu may have their own plans for ending this war. No one takes Kushner and Witkoff seriously; they are simply odd individuals. They were negotiating with Iran at the very moment when the Americans and Israelis were striking the military leadership. No one in Israel or anywhere else in the world will talk to these people anymore. They have been completely discredited and compromised.

A lot depends on Iran now. Iran is not going to end this war; it is going to achieve its goals — to destroy Israel as such — and it has every reason to do so after what Israel has done to its military, religious, and political leadership. It is now impossible to make any arguments that Iran will end the war under anyone’s pressure. Iran is becoming a brute force. We are saying that there will be no peace talks until one side loses — until it completely surrenders or is destroyed.

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Host: We don’t know how the situation will unfold, but I want to emphasize that Trump certainly has some influence in this war, but not everything. He himself claims that the outcome is in the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu, but that is only part of the truth. In reality, everything boils down to who will emerge victorious and who will be the first to admit defeat. If, hypothetically speaking, Israel, Iran, or the US were to capitulate now and declare their withdrawal from the conflict, it would radically change the course of events. In that case, should we expect a repeat of the “12-day war” scenario, where there was no clear winner, or is something else in store for us?

Alexander Dugin: Of course not. In fact, we do not expect a repeat of that scenario. First, Iran did not really manage to break through the “iron dome” at that time. There were no massive strikes and Iran’s entire political leadership wasn’t killed.

Such an opportunity existed, and the relatively benevolent Rahbar Khamenei was in power. Now his son is in power, now the IRGC is in power, now all Iranians — even those who had something against the regime — are mobilized for the complete extermination of the Israelis.

It is no longer a question of who is right and who is wrong: the Iranian population believes that Israel must be destroyed. And this is a country of nearly 100 million people. If we add to this the Shiites, the resistance forces, and the Muslims who are gradually waking up, I think this is a rather serious factor.

It is difficult to say how determined America is to defend Netanyahu to the end until Trump has fully committed himself to this adventure. He is losing points at home in this war. The global economy is under serious threat, and not only in the Middle East. Everyone who could leave Dubai has already left, and those who cannot are packing up. What has happened over the past week marks the end of an era.

So far, Trump has been strongly backing Netanyahu and even threatening a ground invasion of Iran, but that would take at least six months of preparation and mobilizing between half a million and 2 million troops to be successful. It’s hard to tell how serious this is, but Trump’s support in the US is dropping fast. And at some point, precisely because of the collapse provoked by these aggressive actions by the US and Israel, which were completely unprovoked by Iran itself, everything will depend on how quickly this collapse of the world system — Trump’s financial and political power — develops. At some point, he may declare “I’ve won.” But this will only be evident on his social media, because it is obvious that, in the current situation, it is simply impossible to come out and declare victory.

Host: Can we say who is winning now?

Alexander Dugin: Iran is winning now. Iran is winning because it is not losing, because it has stood its ground, and because it has broken through the “iron dome” over Israel. Ben-Gvir, a minister in Netanyahu’s government who promised to blow up the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a great Muslim shrine, has had his house destroyed. It is not known whether he is alive or not: the Iranians say he is not, but I saw a video where the man says, “My house has been demolished.”

The Iranians are hitting targets in Israel, and very important ones at that. Not only that, they have effectively disabled most of the American hubs in the Middle East, including high-tech ones; they have attacked all US military bases in the region — sometimes successfully, sometimes not. The exact number of casualties on both sides is unknown: Trump says three people were killed, while the Iranians say tens of thousands of American soldiers. Objective analysts say US casualties range from 1,000 to 2,000, but for the Americans, who are not used to such casualties, these are still colossal numbers.

Iran did not break; it chose a new leader, despite the fact that the Americans and Israelis promised to kill him immediately. Trump declared that the new leader in Iran would be chosen only with his consent and that all Iranian oil now belongs to the US, but this is no more the final destruction of the entire international order: now the one who is strong is right. And now Iran is showing its strength. It has gotten to Israel, dealt a decisive and bold blow to American infrastructure, very accurately selected targets in the Gulf countries, and effectively undermined the pulse of the global economy, including by blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

This time, compared to the war that took place just under a year ago, Iran is behaving completely differently: decisively, confidently, it is attacking, setting serious goals and has no intention of negotiating with the aggressor. And it is right. By and large, Iran is winning now.

I noticed on social media that many influential opponents of American imperialism, hegemony, and unipolarity, with audiences numbering in the millions, at some point began to criticize Russia for its slowness and non-intervention — some even put forward absurd theories about the influence of Israeli networks on us. These were very harsh statements from our friends. But at the same time, there was not a single word of discontent from Iranian accounts, neither from official nor unofficial participants in the process. On the contrary, they express support for Russia. Why? They don’t say, and perhaps we don’t need to know. I am simply making an observation: the opponents of American hegemony are on edge, everyone is waiting for Russia to enter the war. We are acting very cautiously for now, compensating for the situation and unconditionally supporting our ally Iran. The extent of our support is hidden; both sides prefer not to disclose it. Judging by the analytics of Iranian sources themselves, which promote a coordinated political agenda with Russia, the most positive comments are heard there.

The US is demanding that we stop supplying intelligence to Iran. That means that we are supplying it. At the same time, they have been supplying intelligence to our enemy in Ukraine for four years and continue to do so now — these wars are intertwined. Moreover, these are two fronts of the same battle with a common enemy and common values. We and Iran are fighting for a multipolar world, while the West and Israel are fighting to preserve an agonizing, collapsing unipolar world. Objectively, we are on Iran’s side. As for how China and Russia are helping Iran, I prefer to follow open sources, OSINT. I haven’t slept much this past week, constantly monitoring what is happening — these are very important processes that are changing everything. We are probably in the first preparatory phase of World War III. It has been announced repeatedly that it has begun, and then it has ended, so it may happen again now. No one can be sure, but the situation is very serious — more serious than a year ago. The gravity of what we are seeing in the Middle East is beyond measure.

Four ideas about the end of the world have collided there. In America, supporters of radical Protestant sects, so-called Christian Zionism or dispensationalism, have seized complete power. They believe that this is the final battle between the forces of “good” (to which the US, Netanyahu, and the Zionists belong) and “evil” (which includes us and Iran).

In their model, we are a more important enemy than the Islamic forces of Iran. In the White House, they are performing rituals and praying for Trump; there is the head of Trump’s religious affairs office, a female pastor who shouts meaningless words (this is called “glossolalia” among charismatic evangelists), utters curses, and demands money. This has nothing to do with Christianity; these are snarling women who worship some clearly different spiritual or anti-spiritual entity. This is very serious. These Christian Zionists are determined because, from their point of view, the events in Israel precede the second coming of Christ and the appearance of “unidentified flying objects” on which true Protestants will be raptured into heaven — this is called the rapture theory.

Defense Minister Hegseth, head of the War Department, belongs to this sect, and they have established complete control over Trump. Netanyahu considers himself the last prime minister before the coming of the Messiah — the savior who is to become the king of the Jews and rule the world. This is an absolutely radical point of view. Netanyahu asserts that it is necessary to build “Greater Israel” and destroy Amalek. It is difficult to defeat people who not only think this way, but also act so radically.

The Iranians respond that the US and Israel themselves are the so-called Dajjal, the antichrist, the usurper, the evil of the world, the children of darkness who must be destroyed in the final battle. Our position is less eschatologically focused, but it also exists, and paradoxically, it is closer to the Iranian understanding of what the modern West and modern ultra-religious Zionist Israel represent.

This does not affect Judaism or Jews — it only affects the radical extremist forces that are at the helm of Israel.

Host: Let me clarify our position. Against the backdrop of escalation, Russia has prepared a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the region. But if we are in close diplomatic relations with Iran, why should we demand a truce if Tehran clearly has other goals and is determined to continue the fight?

Alexander Dugin: First, there are two points here. The first is the desire to be consistent. This paper, since any member of the Security Council has the right to submit it, will simply be thrown into the trash. We are doing this for appearances’ sake. It will have no effect. Secondly, we want to show that we are against war, the we want to say: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” This is, in general, in compliance with the commandments of the Gospel.

But, at the same time, I believe that there is a weak side to this position: Russia is desperately clinging to the world order that emerged after the end of World War II — the so-called Yalta order, the UN system — which no longer exists. It is like phantom pain. It is not there. We need to build a new multipolar world, practically from scratch, and achieve our own results in it. The idea of turning to a world order that no longer exists — which, incidentally, Peskov recently spoke about — is, if you will, a little belated. We propose: let the UN work, but it does not work. Let’s have the Security Council decide something, but it won’t decide anything, because the Americans occupy a polar position in it. We say: let’s respect sovereignty, but no one respects it; in the contemporary world, only force is respected.

I have a proposal: let’s just accept the reality of the situation — that this international order does not exist and it is useless to refer to it. Any action in this regard will be either meaningless or ineffective. Let’s propose a model for the future world order. Let’s achieve our interests, which are necessary conditions for us to become active participants in building this order, rather than just passively watching others impose theirs on us. Let’s achieve these goals, support our allies, put an end to the agonizing unipolar world, and then, having divided the spheres of influence and recognized different states as civilizations, we will build a completely new international order with new rules. But precisely one with rules.

Right now, this is a time without rules. And in this time without rules, we can either dream about the future, which is useless, or accept the present and simply fight as effectively as possible on all fronts where we are attacked, sometimes carrying out preventive operations. We must build our world, in which Russia will be given a worthy place, where we will be sovereign, where we will be actors, where we will be subjects, not objects. This must be done now. In my opinion, we can politely say goodbye to the old world. It no longer exists. There is no bipolar world. There is no UN. The Westphalian system is gone. The Yalta world is gone. We have entered a different era; all of that is in the past, behind the horizon. Let’s move into the future, let’s live in the present, including with regard to the international situation. And to do that, we need to win. And help our allies, friends, and strategic partners win.

Host: We have already mentioned Mojtaba Khamenei, who has become the new supreme leader of Iran, several times. I would like to delve into this topic in more detail. How significantly do you think Iran’s policy will change in the future, and what significance does the election of the new Rahbar have for Iranian society at this critical moment?

Alexander Dugin: First, he is the head of the entire system, not only the political system and the state, but also the religious leader. The Wilayat al-Faqih system prevailing in Iran transfers supreme power to the Rahbar, that is, to the person who has now been elected to this post. He is the third leader after Ayatollah Khomeini. Ayatollah Khomeini was the creator of this system, his successor was Ayatollah Khamenei, who ruled until the last moment, and now it is his son. This is rare, because such a special position is not usually inherited, but the Council, the Supreme Council of Iran, probably made an exceptional decision.

What does this mean? First, it is a generational change. It is a change from the generation of people who, with the exception of the Iran-Iraq war, lived for several decades under sanctions, but still in a state of peace. Ayatollah Khamenei, unlike his predecessor, the founder of the Iranian Republic and the Wilayat al-Faqih system, was more moderate, more inclined to compromise, and more peace-loving. His son is not like that, especially after the personal losses suffered by Iran as a whole, after the strikes on oil storage facilities — the “black rain.” These are the end times.

The current Rahbar is much closer to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and he certainly rules out — in my opinion, at least under conditions that may be dictated from outside — any peace talks with the aggressor.

He will fight to the end, the people will fight to the end, and the excesses that have accumulated in Iranian society over the past decades were linked precisely to something very subtle: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is fundamentally geared toward the “war of the end times,” toward confrontation with the enemy, toward battle with the Dajjal, with the Antichrist. And when, year after year, decade after decade, these warriors, who were in fact trained and prepared for the final battle, were engaged in peaceful life, then, of course, a warrior in such conditions decays. He begins to engage in economics, business, corruption. When a warrior does not fight, it is a dangerous thing; he becomes a toxic resource. A warrior must fight. And now this veil of so-called peaceful life, where everything has lost its meaning for many Iranians, where everything has become boring, where no one understood why these sanctions were imposed, why the West should be hated — all this has been dispelled. Now they see why it must be done. If they do not destroy the West, if they do not fulfill their destiny, then their regime, their system, their culture, and their great country — which has existed much longer than the United States or modern Israel — will be under attack. After all, all these elements of identity — the great Iranian empire, the Islamic world that has taken over half of humanity — are alive and now awakened in Iranian society.

METAPHYSICS OF WAR

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by Julius Evola

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Iran’s new ruler embodies this: new energy, new faith. Iranians believe that the 1979 Revolution took place on the eve of that historic event when the era of evil rule in the world will end and the 12th Imam — Imam Mahdi — will emerge from his hiding place, according to Shiite theology. In fact, everything was created for this purpose.

I spoke with Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli, who issued a fatwa on the need to wage jihad for the complete destruction of the United States, its leaders, and Israel and its leaders. He told me in Qom, the holy capital: “We live in a culture of expectation.” And indeed, Iranian society has lived in a “culture of waiting.” After our meeting with him — a deep, philosophical, poetic, theological meeting — we left and the guy who was accompanying us, an Iranian, said, “How tired I am of these old men always talking about the culture of waiting, while we have sanctions, problems, social prohibitions.” It was a generational gap: the older generation believed that it was necessary to wait for the end times, while the younger generation began to become disillusioned, considering it all to be myths. And now all these myths — the culture of waiting, the final battle, the clash with the absolute enemy — have finally been historically confirmed. They have waited for their moment.

They see aggression, and the new generation that had ceased to understand why it was necessary to hate Israel and the US, why it was necessary to shout “Death to America!”, has now seen the reason. The destruction of the leadership, the unfortunate Iranian girls killed by the targeted strike — the Americans took responsibility for this. All this has reminded them what this hatred is based on.

We need to look more closely at what is happening with Iran, because we are fighting the same enemy. Remembering the atrocities committed by their Ukrainian satellites against our people, we should also come to our senses very quickly, but we are more lenient about it. The Iranians are absolutely right to call a spade a spade, set the right goals, and achieve them decisively and uncompromisingly. The story about Ayatollah Amoli in Qom now takes on a different meaning: I think the guy who was skeptical about the old man’s words about the need to wait is now fighting the aggressor on the front lines and defending his country. Judging by the information I am receiving from Iran, this is indeed the case.

If Trump wanted to divide Iranian society, he achieved the exact opposite result: more radical political and religious figures have come to power who will take revenge for their personal losses, for their fathers, and for their loved ones. The entire nation is in the same position. Iranians are more united than ever and ready to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. I don’t think they will reach America, but they may well cause the collapse of Trump and the American world order by fulfilling their mission to build a multipolar system, for which we are also fighting in Ukraine.

Host: Incidentally, American sources have repeatedly reported that Iran had prepared a plan of action in case of a direct attack by the US and Israel long before the current escalation. The strategy allegedly includes not only strikes on military bases and Israeli territory, but also the destruction of civilian infrastructure, which could sow chaos not only in Arab states, but on a global scale. In this context, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is already putting enormous pressure on world markets, takes on particular significance. I would like to know how realistic such a scenario is, whether Iran is prepared to cause a global economic collapse, and what consequences this could have.

Alexander Dugin: First of all, this is no longer a plan, it is already a fact: all three points you listed are already being implemented. Iran, of course, had such a plan; they understood how it would all end, that you can never trust the West, that you cannot negotiate, and even more so, that you cannot trust these negotiations with Trump.

And yet they made a mistake: if they were truly prepared for these negotiations to lead nowhere, they would, first of all, not have entered into them, and secondly, they would have paid much more attention to protecting their political, military, and religious leadership. I consider this a mistake. And these sinister figures — Kushner and Witkoff, whom we, I think, also naively fawn over, taking their welcoming smiles at face value — have only misled the Iranians by overestimating their willingness to engage in dialogue. This is a big lesson for all of us.

I think we must understand that we will achieve real results in Ukraine only with a genuine, decisive victory, and not through any kind of negotiations. But even the Iranians, having prepared this plan and implemented it so quickly, in literally a week, succumbed to the West’s hypnosis. You can’t trust the West — no one, not Trump, not the liberals, not Europe. Absolutely no one. Because it is pure deception: if they want to achieve a truce with us, it means that it is beneficial for them, but for us it will be a disaster. Until we win, until we create this irreversible multipolar world, there is nothing to talk about with them; we must talk to them only from a position of strength, defending our interests. Iran developed this plan, implemented it, but still succumbed to hypnosis at some point. The less contact with the West, the calmer and more reliable.

How will it end? The question most often boils down to when the final collapse of the world system will occur and whether the nuclear factor will appear in the course of these catastrophic processes. Will the US, realizing the failure of the entire operation and the hopelessness of its position when moving according to the inertial scenario, launch a nuclear strike on Iran? This could change the situation, but even the use of strategic, or rather tactical, nuclear weapons will not be enough to break Iran. Therefore, we are talking about something completely different. Will America use its entire arsenal of weapons to simply destroy Iran, turning it into something like Gaza? This is an open question. But the fact is that we are either on the brink of World War III — or already in its first stage — or on the brink of a global collapse of the entire financial and economic system.

If anyone in the world still believes that “everything is fine, everything will work out, everything will pass,” this is only a psychological defense of the mind against information it cannot cope with. There is a tradition in Islam which says: when the angels blow their trumpets announcing the coming of Judgment Day, only the mule driver, who at that moment will be adjusting his saddle, will hear it and lift his ears to the sky. He will run and shout to everyone: “Listen, the angels have sounded their trumpets, the end times are coming!” And they will answer him: “We don’t hear anything.” This is a perfect image of today’s world. Everyone says: “Come on, oil will come back, Dubai will be rebuilt, real estate will rise in price again.” But it will never be the same as it was before. It will be different.

Who will win, who will destroy whom — nothing is predetermined, but the stakes are extremely high. Some things depend on us, on Russia, some on China, and many, if not all, on Iran — whether it will be able to achieve its goals and wipe the aggressive Israeli state, which has fallen into the hands of religious extremists, off the face of the earth, and fight off the US. How will other Islamic countries behave?

The rosy dream of Dubai and the Emirates of a secure international hub is long gone: it is no longer a center where you can make huge money, it is a periphery that will soon be covered with sand, and everything will return to Bedouin principles. Maybe it’s even better this way: society will become traditional, and the moral image of the Arab people will be saved.

Everyone must now take the exam. You can skip it, you can choose not to go, but then one will be removed from the category of those who make decisions, who participate as subjects rather than objects of world politics. Therefore, I am convinced that everyone must get involved in what is happening, define their positions and strategies.

India, for example, much to my regret, recently boasted that it had provided the Israelis with the coordinates of an Iranian ship, which allowed them to sink it. In this case, India is departing from the position of a multipolar world. This is not how sovereign civilization-states, especially those belonging to BRICS, should act. Leaning too far toward the aggressor is a reckless move. But India is a great civilization, the great state of Bharat, and we will see many new developments there. All global players are now being tested, and this applies to everyone, including us, because we find ourselves in a completely different position.

Host: Let me ask you one final question. How will the current global economic situation affect Russia? For example, Kirill Dmitriev notes that the price of oil above $100 per barrel certainly plays into our hands. In this situation, are we beneficiaries, or will the global crisis still overwhelm us if it inevitably occurs?

Alexander Dugin: First of all, you see, in such a critical situation, where religious, ethical, moral, and geopolitical factors are involved, it seems a little inappropriate to me to talk only about who is the beneficiary and who will profit from this. These sanctions will affect us to a lesser extent.

This collapse will probably have less of an impact on Russia because we are already under sanctions, we have been cut off from the Western-centric economy, so we don’t care. The faster everything collapses, the better, in my opinion. We have already adapted and turned to sovereignty. We still have our partners, Iran, and the rest of humanity remains with us. As for the West, if this collapse kills it, destroys it, I don’t think we will feel sorry, because the way it has been behaving lately, it deserves it.

Therefore, I would take the position of “kick a man when he’s down.” It is not worth profiting from the suffering and death of people; we must support our own, and our “own” have already been defined. In this situation, we must defend our sovereignty by any means, including economic ones, and take advantage of any window of opportunity that will strengthen us.

Right now, our enemies are clearly weakening. They are divided and confused: some support Trump and Israel, others do not. There is discord among European countries; they are rushing from side to side, and that is very good. There is panic in the camp of our enemies. This is extremely beneficial for us, and if it leads to the collapse and demise of the existing global economy, we will, frankly speaking, only benefit from it — we will build a more just, more correct and, if you will, more humane and democratic global financial and economic system.

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