Is This a Holy War?

Religious narratives have some power, but can obscure both the domestic angle of Trump’s Iran actions and its brutal incompetence.

Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

As the war in Iran stretches into its fifth week, the Pentegon apparently preparing for ground operations, and American B-52s flying overhead, it bears asking whether “Holy War” narratives are driving the administration’s actions. The answer is yes and no. To understand how both can be true at the same time, we need to look at the granular details as well as the bigger picture. Once you recognize the role this strategically destructive war plays in Trump’s domestic political agenda, the crusader narratives start to make sense—in a twisted way.

On the one hand, some Republican politicians and GOP-aligned pastors like John Hagee and Sean Feucht are framing the conflict in terms of religious war or religious differences. Pete Hegseth’s Department of Defense has made a habit over the past year of producing promotional videos featuring Bible verses or prayers overlayed on clips of tanks and soldiers, fighter jets and missiles. Earlier this month, video emerged of religious right leaders praying over the President in the Oval Office.

On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine that Trump himself started this war for high and holy purposes. (Hegseth may be another story and we will get to that in a moment.) Regime change in Iran has been a recurring aspiration of U.S. foreign policymakers for half a century (even if no prior President acted upon it so aggressively). The containment of Iran, nuclear and otherwise, is surely one of the many ends in play in Trump’s war of choice.

The apparent tension in these two different frames for the war dissolves, however, when we consider that the principal aims of this war may have much to do with domestic politics, not global politics.

First, let’s set aside the argument that the people of Iran deserve better than the current repressive, theocratic regime. They surely do. But in the absence of any credible plan that would connect the rain of bombs with a revolution in Iran, the goal of regime change just amounts to wishful thinking associated with a project that must have been undertaken with other goals in mind—and that now appears may even have strengthened the Iran regime. Trump has no trouble with repressive theocracies provided they shower him with luxury airplanes, real estate deals, and other goodies. Also, he has made clear that he believes that he, not the people of Iran, should be the one to decide who leads the country. In fact, when asked who would control the key waterway of Hormuz, Trump stated, “Maybe me” and added, “Me and the ayatollah. Whoever the ayatollah is.” So much for democracy-building.

We can also set aside the hope of understanding this conflict in terms of rational geopolitical aims—that is, in the language of national security strategy. As far as U.S. economic and strategic interests go, it has already proven disastrous—for all the reasons that prior U.S. presidents declined to attempt it. Who will come out ahead? Not the U.S., which is expending money, lives, and allies for serious economic loss and no clear benefit in national security. The smart money is now on China, Russia—and maybe even Iran itself, if this war allows it to set up a toll booth in Hormuz.

Rather, we can make better sense of this conflict if we understand it in terms of internal matters. Its principal purpose, from the perspective of the Trump administration, is to strengthen the MAGA movement and Trump himself.

This where the religious messaging comes in. Trump wants to shore up his support among the dwindling base, a disproportionate number of whom are supporters of Christian nationalism. Trump also wants to send a signal to the wider American public. He wants to establish a precedent, or at least an expectation, about his unchecked power to use military force or, for that matter, do anything, domestically or internationally, without legal sanction, moral sanction, or even coherent explanation.

This war has record low levels of support amongst the American public. But Trump and MAGA-aligned politicians don’t win by getting the support of everybody. Their strategy is to divide the population, not unite it. They achieve and sustain power not by building a majority but by locking in a disproportionately loyal base.

The religious messaging is extremely useful to them in holding onto that base. But here we have to parse it, because not everybody in that sector thinks the same way or adheres to the same theology.

A good number of Trump’s supporters see him in sacralized terms. Religious-right leaders, particularly those in the charismatic vein such as Paula White-Cain and Lance Wallnau, have been telling us for years that Trump was “raised up by God.” And Trump plays along, surrounding himself with sanctimonious proxies and posting religious prophesies on his social media. It’s all about appealing to that base and the leaders who command the voter turnout apparatus that turns them into a powerful bloc. That sector of Trump’s base is all in on the war in Iran. As one attendee at CPAC, 87-year-old Deanna Averett, commented,
I love it. It’s biblical.”

There’s another group, some of which overlaps with the previous group, that is convinced that the West is in a clash of civilizations with Islam. Religious rhetoric also helps frame the war as part of that civilizational struggle.

The appeal of this religious rhetoric also involves a psychological attraction to brutality, cruelty, and domination. Amongst Trump’s base, many adhere to an idea of religion that, properly understood, is one of domination, of crushing of foes, of iron will, a celebration of hypermasculine violence.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth manages to appeal to all of these religious framings. Hegseth, as is well known, has adorned his own body with neo crusader tattoos. They include the Latin phrase “Deus Vult,” which means “God Wills It,” believed to have been a rallying cry of the first crusade in the 11th century, and a Jerusalem Cross, also known as the Crusaders Cross because it was popularized during the Christian crusades. This kind of crusader aesthetic is increasingly popular among members of America’s white supremacist groups.

Hegseth also has displayed on his left bicep what appeared to be the Arabic word “kafir,” which is usually translated as “infidel” or “unbeliever.” It is not meant to signal that Hegseth is an atheist, but rather to deliberately mock Muslims and to define himself in opposition.

The same ideology is written not just on Hegseth’s body but in his published writings. In his book American Crusade, Hegseth casts the medieval crusades as a defensive war and promotes the idea that Muslims and Christians are engaged in a civilizational battle. Writing that Europe is “demographically and culturally overrun” by Muslims, he blames “quivering European beta-male politicians.” Then he writes:

“Could the same thing happen in America? Of course. With enough leftism and enough time, anything is possible for Islamists.”

What’s the solution? Hegseth writes:

“Just like the Christian crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes in the twelfth century, American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against Islamists today.” (One wonders how much “courage” these crusaders will need, given that Muslims make up just slightly more than 1 per cent of the total U.S. population and have, in fact, statistically been shifting away from the Democratic party.)

It bears looking at the religious movement Hegseth follows, because he has credited it with guiding his life, including his life in the military.

Hegseth attends Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a church linked to the religious leader Doug Wilson, whose Idaho-based ministry has multiple offshoots. Wilson has openly advocated an extremely theocratic and patriarchal vision for America. He has said that giving women the right to vote was a “a moral and political tragedy for America.” As the Baptist minister Dr. Brian Kaylor has reported, Hegseth has implemented monthly evangelistic worship services at the Pentagon, where he invited Doug Wilson to speak.

This warped understanding of global religious conflict isn’t exclusive to the Defense Department. Marco Rubio was singing a similar tune at the Munich Security Conference in February. There he declared that “the fate of Europe will never be irrelevant to our own.” Rubio’s speech may have been softer around the edges than JD Vance’s attack on European liberal democracy last year. But the underlying message is the same.

They are signaling that America’s foreign policy serves the interests of Trump and his MAGA movement. That means advancing the interest of ideologically aligned movements in Europe and elsewhere. The implication is that a main objective of U.S. foreign policy in Europe now appears to be to promote far-right movements in Europe with the view of advancing the far-right in America. The administration has made not just U.S. policy but the world order subservient to the political ambition of America’s authoritarian and antidemocratic extremists.

Much has been made of the so-called Donroe Doctrine—the idea that the world will be divided amongst the U.S., China, and Russia, each controlling its own “hemisphere.” The Donroe Doctrine, however, is not serious policy; it is fantasy masquerading as global strategy. The post-World War II international order was indeed the result of a global strategy—intensely deliberated, imperfect, but based on fact and argument. The Trump regime is essentially parasitic on the economic and political order that previous American leaders and their allies built up over the past eight decades. The only thing systematic about it is the ransacking and looting of American assets. Its only consistent goal is the enrichment of Trump, his family, and their cronies in an emerging international oligarchy.

If this vision of a global order founded on theocratic principles and committed to the defense of a ruling oligarchy centered around the Trump family and its venal global network does not appeal to you, that does not mean that this administration does not have a message for you in prosecuting this war. The broader mission is to demonstrate, by example, Trump’s unchecked power over everything in America and the world. It is further evidence, if ever it was needed, that no degree of incompetence, malfeasance or criminality, either conventional or in the war-crimes category, will shake the Republican Party’s slavish devotion to this manifestly unfit commander in chief.

Unfortunately, Trump has succeeded so well in establishing these sordid truths about American politics that we now take for granted that, at a whim, Trump can unleash the tremendous power of the U.S. military on anyone – and also withhold it. This is a message that he wants to convey to his internal political enemies along with his supporters.