U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated openly at a congressional hearing what many people think but prefer to keep to themselves: the economic turmoil caused by a war with Iran is the lesser of two evils compared to a nuclear-armed Tehran.
At a June 3 meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rubio clearly outlined the Trump administration’s logic: yes, a war with Iran has and will continue to have global economic consequences. Oil markets are in turmoil, global trade is facing serious difficulties, and prices for everything are rising.
The White House administration understood all this, foresaw it, and still deemed it necessary to attack Iran, because a nuclear Iran is an incomparably more terrifying threat than economic problems. It’s unpleasant to pay twice as much for gas. Watching everything around you become more expensive is hard. But all of this can be endured.
But if the insane Muslim fanatics in Tehran get their hands on a nuclear bomb, then the civilized world will pay for it with tens of millions of its citizens’ lives and the radioactive contamination of most of the planet Earth. And not everyone will be able to survive that.
Western politicians, analysts, journalists, and experts have been making the same mistake for decades: they try to analyze the behavior of the Iranian leadership in terms of rational geopolitics. They speak to them as if they were normal people, mistakenly assuming that they think the same way they do and pursue the same rational goals as people in the West. This demonstrates the stupidity of the majority of the Western political establishment.
Deterrence, balance of power, economic interests—all of this works when the adversary fears death, seeks re-election in the next election, and values the well-being of its citizens, economic development, and the interests of the state. But what if the adversary not only does not fear the apocalypse—but is actively bringing it closer?
The Iranian political establishment, primarily the senior clergy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is infected with a medieval eschatological ideology that the West, due to idiotic leftist tolerance, tends to gloss over. This refers to the doctrine of the Mahdi—the hidden twelfth imam of Shia Islam.
According to the doctrine of the Twelvers (Itna-Ashariyya)—the dominant branch of Shiite Islam and the state religion of Iran—the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, did not die but went into “the Great Occultation” in 874 CE. He is alive, he is in hiding, and he will return—to establish a kingdom of justice on earth and finally destroy the forces of evil, or, to put it simply, to slaughter everyone who does not believe in Allah correctly and establish an Islamic caliphate throughout the world with all its medieval savagery and cruelty.
The ayatollahs who seized power in Iran 47 years ago sincerely believe that the coming of the Mahdi must begin immediately after a great global slaughter of the “infidels,” in which these very infidels—that is, you and I—will be utterly destroyed. Therefore, as devoted followers of Shiite doctrine, gripped by messianic ecstasy, they are making every effort to hasten the Mahdi’s return. Chaos, terror, the murder of millions of people, and global catastrophe are not side effects of their policy; they are its primary goal.
The key point is the conditions for the Mahdi’s return. According to the doctrine of Shiite Islam, the Mahdi will come only when the world is plunged into maximum chaos, war, and suffering. The worse it is, the sooner he will come. For the Iranian clergy, global instability, wars, and catastrophes are a godly cause that brings the savior’s arrival closer.
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly invoked this doctrine. In 2005, at the very first meeting of his cabinet, Ahmadinejad forced all ministers to sign an official “pact of allegiance” to the Mahdi.
Speaking at the UN, he prayed for the imminent appearance of the Mahdi. His advisers publicly discussed how Iranian policy should create the conditions for this coming. One of Ahmadinejad’s closest associates—Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei—openly stated that Iran is an “instrument” for preparing for the appearance of the Hidden Imam.
In Iran, this ideology became state policy. Ahmadinejad, a devout Muslim, transformed the Jamkaran Mosque near Qom—a place where for centuries people had thrown notes (arizah) into a sacred well, containing requests to the Mahdi—into a grand state project. Tens of millions of dollars from the budget (oil money) were invested in expanding the mosque, building prayer halls, roads, and infrastructure to accommodate crowds of thousands.
A highway was built from Tehran to Jamkaran. This was so that when the Mahdi emerges from hiding, there would be no traffic jams, and his motorcade, along with millions of believers, could reach the capital unimpeded. The road was built literally for the apocalypse.
At government meetings under Ahmadinejad, an empty chair was left at the head of the table “for the Mahdi.” According to eyewitness accounts, the most important documents—including cabinet lists and even draft state budgets—were ceremoniously thrown into the Jamkaran well for “divine approval.”
This worldview, combined with a nuclear bomb, is deadly dangerous for humanity. For the Muslim fanatics in Tehran, for the decision-makers in IRGC bunkers praying for the coming of the Mahdi, a global nuclear war is not a catastrophe. It is a POLITICAL AGENDA.
And here, the classic Western logic of nuclear deterrence does not work.
For those who consider a global catastrophe, the destruction of Israel and the United States, and the establishment of a global caliphate—with the killing of all who do not believe in Allah correctly—to be a necessary condition for the return of the Mahdi, nuclear weapons are not a means of deterrence. For them, it is a tool to trigger the final stage of the Mahdi’s coming—that is, a global nuclear catastrophe. Which, in the view of these religious fanatics, must reenact a martyrdom narrative similar to the Battle of Karbala 1,346 years ago, in the year 680. Do you understand what kind of madmen we are dealing with?
Rational logic does not apply here. A mad thirst for global catastrophe and the destruction of humanity is perceived by Muslim fanatics in Tehran as a sacred goal.
The Soviet Union was a totalitarian atheist state ruled by an inhuman communist nomenclature. These people committed monstrous crimes—but they wanted to live, they wanted power, they wanted privileges, and they very much did not want to turn into radioactive ash. That is precisely why the doctrine of mutually assured destruction worked. In Moscow, they feared death—and that was a reliable guarantee against a nuclear apocalypse.
With Iran, everything is different. A regime for which martyrdom is the highest virtue, for which the apocalypse is a desired goal rather than a catastrophe—such a regime cannot be contained by standard methods based on Western values and philosophy. A nuclear bomb in the hands of people who pray for the end of the world is not an instrument of deterrence. It is an instrument for fulfilling a prophecy in which they believe with all their hearts and are doing everything in their power to bring about.
In this situation, decisive action by Israel and the United States to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, its missile program, and its entire military potential is not aggression, but a necessary defense of the entire civilized world.
Israel understands this better than anyone. The destruction of the sole Jewish state is a theologically grounded program of action enshrined in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The destruction of Israel, as part of Iran’s state apocalyptic doctrine, is a prerequisite for the appearance of the Mahdi. The fanatical extremists in Tehran firmly believe that by destroying Israel and plunging the rest of the world into nuclear chaos, they will create the conditions for the immediate establishment of a global Islamic caliphate.
Rubio is right. Rising oil prices, market turmoil, regional instability—all of this is serious. All of this is bad. But it is fixable. Economies recover. Markets stabilize. History knows dozens of examples of how countries have weathered the most severe economic crises and emerged from them.
But if Iran is allowed to acquire a nuclear bomb, a nuclear strike on Israel will become inevitable, and the consequences irreversible. Radioactive contamination of Europe—and, first and foremost, Cyprus—will also become inevitable. The island will turn into a radiation-scorched, lifeless desert.
This is not understood by the dim-witted leftists, the useful leftist idiots who stage protests against the actions of the U.S. and Israel. They lack the brains to understand that Trump and Netanyahu are saving them, too, from an inevitable, agonizing death in the nuclear flames that the Iranian ayatollahs will unleash upon them if they ever get their hands on a nuclear bomb.
The free world owes a debt of immense gratitude to Israel and the United States. Without their courage, resolve, and willingness to act, the Islamic fanatics in Tehran—guided not by pragmatism but by doomsday prophecies—would already possess nuclear weapons. The consequences would be catastrophic: Muslim fanatics, ready to unleash a global nuclear war guided by medieval myths, would, without hesitation and to the howls of mad mullahs, bring about a nuclear apocalypse for all of humanity.
If Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons, nuclear war is inevitable, and its consequences are irreversible.
The world is dealing with bloodthirsty Muslim fanatics who sincerely believe that their historical mission is to lead humanity to global catastrophe. And who are on the verge of obtaining weapons capable of bringing about that catastrophe.
Israel, living under a constant existential threat at its borders, and the United States, as the leader of the free world, having taken on the mission of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons among mad regimes, have become a true shield against this nightmare.
Israel and America did not wait for the “red banner of vengeance” to rise over Jamkaran, nor for the nuclear buttons to fall into the hands of those who see the destruction of humanity as divine progress. For this resolve and self-sacrifice, humanity owes them a deep debt of gratitude.
Every right-thinking person must wish the U.S. and Israel success in their difficult mission to save humanity from Iran’s nuclear threat.
The editorial board of Cyprus Daily News supports the efforts of the United States and Israel aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear program and neutralizing the threat that the anti-human Islamic regime in Tehran poses to the entire civilized world.
At the same time, we categorically condemn President Trump’s position regarding the war in Ukraine. Attempts to achieve a settlement through territorial concessions to the aggressor are not peace; they are capitulation, which rewards crime and paves the way for new wars. The only path to genuine and lasting peace in Europe is comprehensive support for Kyiv with all necessary resources to secure victory on the battlefield. Only Russia’s military defeat will end this war and deprive the Kremlin of the ability to continue threatening its neighbors.