Nihilism, understood as the absence of a transcendental purpose, lies at the heart of the conflict that Israel initiated against Iran. But it is also what lies at the heart — the empty heart — of the West’s belligerent attitude. I believe it will also be the defining characteristic of the new nomos emerging from the decay of the US-led Western order. And that should worry us, because nihilism breeds violence.
This is not new. Many thinkers — Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus, and Heidegger, among others — have warned for over two centuries that this would be the outcome of a long process: the structuralization of meaning and purpose — once embodied in religion in the West — and its subjugation to the state. They spoke while in the midst of this process, foreseeing the consequences if the course was not altered. It wasn’t.
Heidegger argued that the material, utilitarian worldview — which values things solely for their external utility — had deprived humanity of any sense of meaning. The war between Israel and Iran seems to have no meaning: it is logical, but it does not make sense. Logical, because we can trace the geopolitical path that led to it, even identify individual motivations — and yet, it still does not make sense. Unless we interpret it as proof of its nihilistic nature: its sense lies in the fact that it has none.
That is what historian and sociologist Emmanuel Todd suggested in a 2024 interview for Elucid: “I have two working hypotheses on Israel,” he said. “The first is that of nihilism, due to a lack of meaning in Israeli society — the meaning of its history. The second, a consequence of the first, is the hypothesis that the situation will get even worse.” And it has. The violence unleashed in Gaza — and now in Iran — is violence stripped of moral restraint, driven only by material logic.
I will not attempt to predict the outcome of this conflict or who will be victorious, because there are many better analysts than myself — and they hold contradicting views. Is Iran following Russia’s Ukraine strategy to turn this into a war of attrition? Or has Israel really weakened its capacity to react? Personally, I find the first option more plausible — but Iran has also been hurt, so we cannot rule out the second completely.
Will direct US intervention — its indirect role being obvious — lead to regime change? I believe the Iranian regime is stronger than many assume — certainly stronger than Assad’s — because its strength (and its weakness) lies in a metaphysical claim. But regime change remains a possibility — and one that would be catastrophic for the region. Perhaps even more so for the US, which would have to deal with the fallout.
Some argue that this is precisely what the US wants. They point to a 2009 Brookings Institution report titled “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran” which appears to support such a conclusion. A collapse in Iran would also disrupt plans for the North–South trade corridor and the Chinese New Silk Road — both of which threaten US control of maritime trade. It could also cut off cheap oil flows to China, though I doubt this would have a major impact, given China’s diversified energy sources. Still, both China and Russia have condemned Israel’s actions in the strongest terms — lending credibility to these claims.
Israeli strategists appear to believe that their state will benefit from the ensuing chaos by asserting regional dominance — there is no other way to interpret their desire for regime change in Iran. The US under Trump wants to pivot away from West Asia and toward East Asia. Israel is either trying to carve out a position of power amid declining US presence, or it wants to drag the US into yet another Middle East war that will force it to stay — to the detriment of its own interest.
Iran has long been on Netanyahu’s radar. It was the end goal of a 1996 policy paper titled “A Clean Break” written for him by a group of neoconservatives led by Richard Perle, just as he came to power. And power is something Netanyahu is now desperately clinging to. Just days before the attack on Iran, he narrowly survived a proposal at the Knesset that could have dissolved his coalition. He still faces multiple criminal charges in Israeli courts. Many suggest that the ongoing genocide in Gaza — and now the attack on Iran — are attempts to distract from a political collapse that could land him in prison.
Trump could be decisive in this war — but true to form, he behaves erratically. On the one hand, he amplifies Israel’s claims about a nuclear threat. On the other, he seems to foresee the consequences this intervention might have on his presidency. He manifests the divide that runs through the US establishment — and, more broadly, through US society — torn between its delusions of grandeur and the inescapable reality of internal incoherence and lack of purpose.
Leaders reflect the common denominator of the people they represent. Both Trump and Netanyahu seem to lack a clear sense of purpose, even though they clearly state their objectives. Trump because he seems to grasp that the US role in world affairs must change, but does not know how. Netanyahu because he has plunged into a profound nihilism. He no longer defines himself by what he is, but by what he is not — his enemies define him.
That is what Emmanuel Todd also suggests in the same interview quoted above: “Perhaps in the unconscious depths of the Israeli psyche, being Israeli today is no longer about being Jewish — it’s about fighting the Arabs.” This is the only way to explain the uncontrollable violence unleashed in Gaza — and now in Iran. Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said that “Tehran would become Beirut,” referring to the application of the infamous Dahiya Doctrine.
Camus once said that nihilism is “not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to destroy.” The urge to destroy — to enact violence — is the result of a lack of purpose, where violence becomes the substitute for meaning itself. But as Hannah Arendt warned, violence, though it may fill the void momentarily, cannot create — it can only destroy. And that is why Israeli society is collapsing.
Iran stands as a mirror to this collapse — only differing in degree. I believe — though I stand to be corrected — that these are the only two states that explicitly legitimize their existence based on a metaphysical claim. Shi’a Iran, under the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih and the concept of the occultation of the last Imam, has made support for the state a tenet of faith. Zionist Israel was, according to Ilan Pappé, founded on the principle that “God does not exist, but He promised us this land.”
The Shi’a subordinated God to the state; the Zionists instrumentalized God, then discarded Him. In both cases — in all such cases — when religion is subordinated to the structural logic that gives rise to the state, nihilism inevitably follows. And nihilism breeds violence.