By Ismail Allison, The New Arab, 07 March 2026

 

Americans shouldn't be fooled by US evangelical propaganda & anti-Muslim rhetoric used by the military & Trump administration to justify their war on Iran.

 

 

A group of religious fanatics with access to nuclear weapons are using a powerful army to wage a holy war in the Middle East while claiming divine sanction.

 

You might assume those fanatics are Iran’s ruling religious leaders, but the description increasingly fits prominent officials in the Pentagon and the U.S. military.

 

After the joint US-Israel war on Iran began, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) received over 110 complaints about officers in every branch of the military telling their subordinates that the war was part of God’s plan and even that President Trump had been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”

 

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told journalist Jonathan Larson. That's not a coincidence. That's a system-wide problem.

 

While officers preached this Christian version of an apocalyptic holy war to their units, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth gave a press conference in which he said that “crazy regimes” that are “hell-bent on prophetic Islamic delusions” cannot have nuclear weapons.

 

This declaration is ironic from Hegseth, a man who obsesses over Muslims so much that he has a crusader cross and the Arabic word for “disbeliever” tattooed on his body. Hegseth also reportedly attends a White House Bible study hosted by a pastor who believes God commands America to support the modern, secular Israeli apartheid government.

 

Christian Zionists in the Trump administration and the military have every right to their private religious beliefs, but now they have turned those apocalyptic beliefs into government policies with disastrous results.

 

They are not alone.

 

Although Benjamin Netanyahu and many of Israel's other political leaders are secularists who do not actually follow the Torah, the current Israeli government is dominated by religious extremists just as fanatical as Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth.

 

Ben Gvir and Smotrich believe themselves to be eschatological agents acting to wipe out the Palestinian people, restore Greater Israel and bring about the arrival of the Messiah.

 

Attacking Iran is just another step towards achieving that goal by making Israel the sole regional hegemon.

 

The people paying the price for this religious fanaticism are American taxpayers, American servicemen and women, and the Iranian people; over 1000 of whom have already been killed. Over 180 of those were little girls at a school in Minab.

 

A majority of Americans disapprove of this war, around 59% according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS. Americans don’t want to see their country hijacked by a group of genocidal religious fanatics attempting to usher in the apocalypse, whether they are Christian Zionists in the U.S. military or fascist leaders of the Israeli government. They don’t want to see American servicemen coming home in caskets because of the interests of these groups.

 

Many Americans increasingly recognise that we did not need to fear the “prophetic Islamic delusions” of an Iranian government that posed an imminent threat to us. We need to worry about Pete Hegseth and the other religious fanatics here in the US controlling our military.

 

Unlike Iran, these fanatics actually do possess nuclear weapons.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/13 March 2026 - - -