Deus Vult: Trump’s Clash of Civilisations or The New Yellow Danger?

Dr Can Erimtan
21st Century Wire

At the outset, I would like to suggest that Trump and his crusader tattoo-wielding sidekick Hegseth (prominently displayed on his body are the words  “Deus Vult” and “Kafir,” meaning respectively, ‘God wills it’ [Latin] and ‘infidel’ [Arabic]) have now managed to revive a much-maligned thesis floated by the political scientist Samuel Huntington (1927-2008) in the final decade of the previous century (1993/1996): “It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural . . . The clash of civilisations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilisations will be the battle lines of the future.” In this context, Trump and Hegseth represent Christianity (as a civilizational unit), and they are now wantonly attacking Islam (or rather, the Twelver Branch of Shi’a Islam or Ithnā ʿashariyya). And, Huntington was rather sanguine about his contentions, saying that the “clash of civilisations is tribal conflict on a global scale.” Going on to explain at some length: 

[I} In the 1990s, many saw a “civilizational cold war” again developing between Islam and the West. In a world of civilisations, it will not be the only relationship characterised by that term. Cold peace, cold war, trade war, quasi-war, uneasy peace, troubled relations, intense rivalry, competitive coexistence, arms races: These phrases are the most probable descriptions of relations between entities from different civilisations. Trust and friendship will be rare.

READ MORE: Crusader-in-Chief: Pete Hegseth’s Christian Zionist Mission to Help Israel Confront Iran

The POTUS  and his tattoo-wielding sidekick are now quite literally putting Huntington’s prescriptions into practice. It remains to be seen, however, to what extent their  Huntingtonian partisanship will or can be contained.

IMAGE: Trump’s ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth proudly brandishing his crusader markings, “Deus vult” and “Kafir” (Source: Secretary of Defense via X)

On X (previously, Twitter), the Irish journalist Chay Bowes asked this poignant rhetorical question: “The United States has recently killed the Father, Mother, Sister, Wife, Son and many other family members of Iran’s new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. And they now expect him to fall to his knees and surrender?” Given that the Islamic Republic is unlikely to yield, what I have termed earlier the New Cold Re-Configurations will likely come into play at some stage (some argue that China and possibly Russia are already helping the Islamic Republic), and the global conflict that will then ensue has the potential to culminate in nuclear annihilation. 

Operation Epstein Fury

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, was interviewed in the aftermath of the above-mentioned incident (See the above Mary Trump quotation), which took place on 4 March 2026, telling the journalist in no uncertain terms that “attacking an unarmed ship full of training officers and sailors is a war crime, I have to say.” And quite apart from the fact that the naval attack obviously constitutes a war crime, in view of the Trump administration’s Christian pretensions and the U.S. Secretary of War tattooed with Christian war slogans on his body, this wanton act of deadly violence appears like an outright PR nightmare. In contrast, though, the public reaction in the U.S. and around the world has been rather muted, while the White House’s Christian constituency has also remained conspicuously silent. In view of the fact that the Jesus of American Protestantism appears to be a conspicuously white-skinned demi-god, it stands to reason that a respected analyst like the Dutch political scientist Dr Cas Mudde has referred to Trump as the “white supremacist-in-chief.”

Attacking and killing unarmed dark-skinned individuals does not appear to be a particularly Christian thing to do . . . quite to the contrary. The Gospel verse Matthew 5:39 springs to mind – “To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.” In reality, though, as related by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation‘s president, Michael Weinstein, U.S. Army Commanders are describing the current war as “biblically sanctioned” and an “undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’ as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.” At the same time, Tehran’s leadership appears to harbour quite similar eschatological expectations at the  moment: 

[T]he Iranian authorities really do regard [Khamenei]’s murder as a crime deserving serious punishment, a punishment that might even conjure up truly eschatological dimensions involving war and violence on a grand scale, a scale that might portend the end of the world and the return of the ‘Hidden Iman’ (Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan) as the ‘Mahdi,’ which means ‘The Guided One’ who ushers in the union of Islam preceding the end of the world – an expectation that has a “major ecclesiastical importance in Shia Islam.” 

The Reuters‘ news agency’s Matt Spetalnick and Andrea Shalal observed recently that “[o]ne week into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran that has plunged the Middle East into turmoil . . . [the] crisis   has quickly widened into a regional conflict . . . threatening a more prolonged U.S. military engagement with fallout beyond Trump’s control.” The U.S. President probably expected a repeat of the “January 3 lightning raid in Venezuela ‌[or of] June’s one-off strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.” The JHU SAIS Philip Merrill Centre for Strategic Studies’ Senior Fellow, Laura Blumenfeld, opines that, on the other hand, “Iran is a messy and potentially protracted military campaign,” adding that President Trump is now risking the global economy, regional stability and his own Republican Party’s performance in the U.S. midterm elections.” 

The End Times Are Here Again: New Cold War Re-Allignments

And why did Trump do such a thing, as I wrote recently: “It is interesting to note that on X (formerly Twitter), the hashtag #OperationEpicFury has also been accompanied by another one, namely #OperationEpsteinFury.” Would Trump really risk global instability to deflect attention from his one-time best buddy, who died mysteriously during his first term?!?? For one thing, one direct consequence of Trump’s air war on the Islamic Republic occurred in Shia-majority populated Bahrain, where violent clashes have erupted between pro-Iran demonstrators and security forces. And this is significant, as Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet – a key strategic asset for Washington in the Persian Gulf: ‘Unverified rumors on platforms like X have circulated about the king fleeing the country or an imminent overthrow, but no credible evidence supports these assertions as of early March 2026.’ 

At the moment, Washington’s reins are held by a most remarkable of religio-political constellations: Christian nationalists under Senator Ted Cruz and Right-wing populists fashioned by Trump and the “Alt-Right” under Steve Bannon. And the current aerial assault all but exemplifies this most unholy alliance of sorts. Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White, vocally beats the war drums in her sermons: 

Strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, until victory comes. And to every enemy who stands against you, let it be so. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of shouts and singing. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. For I hear victory, victory, victory, victory in the quarters of heaven, in the quarters of heaven. Victory, victory, victory, victory, victory, victory, victory. I hear the sound of victory, I hear the sound of victory, I hear the sound of victory, I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. 

On the other hand, one cannot ignore Iran’s vast underground hydrocarbon wealth. NBC News’ Peter Nicholas matter-of-factly relates that “President Donald Trump on Monday [09 March 2016] left open the prospect of acquiring Iranian oil as the U.S. proceeds with [its] war” against the Islamic Republic. Given Trump’s earlier seizure of Venezuela’s oil fields and his recurring claims regarding resource-rich Greenland, the administration appears to be releasing possibly somewhat or rather completely spurious statements to do with Iran’s vast oil wealth. At the same time, the U.S. now seems to possess a large stick to threaten China, dependent on Tehran’s oil deliveries east.

The world-spanning German news agency DW‘s Astrid Prange de Oliveira says that “Iran [did] send over 80% of its exports to China, according to data and analytics platform Kpler,” adding that “China is the biggest buyer of Iranian, Venezuelan and Russian oil”—a phrase that seems to disclose the real reasoning behind the Trump administration’s military adventures in the Caribbean and Iran—the Trump White House is now basically trying to neuter China and its influence around the globe in a roundabout way: “A White House official has stated that the United States intends to take control of Iran’s oil reserves as the ongoing military conflict continues to escalate. This directive aims to sever the primary financial lifeline of the Iranian government while simultaneously securing a massive energy asset for global markets,” as reported by the news website TechTimes, which, according to some peddlers of fake news, yet eloquently articulated an opinion reflecting the White House’s hidden reasoning, without providing proper sourcing, however. 

The current U.S.-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to rely on a somewhat erroneous understanding of Realpolitik, while displaying an out-sized reliance on Trump’s Christian base: “American Christian Zionists are made up of socially conservative Evangelicals with a premillennial dispensationalist eschatology,” relates Dr Tristan Sturm. According to a Pew Research Centre survey, White evangelical Protestants, White Catholics, and White non-evangelical Protestants turned out in great numbers to support Trump in the polling booths, with “White evangelicals, [and] Catholics . . .  likely to see immigration as a key issue.”  And Trump did famously shout ‘Build the Wall’ over and over again, baiting potential voters of the just-mentioned constituencies. 

IMAGE: Evangelical ‘end times’ preacher, John Hagee, founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, speaking at the Christian Zionist organisation’s 2024 summit in Maryland (Image Credit: Seth Herald for Al Jazeera]

The End Times Are Here Again: ‘Prophecy Unfolding in Real Time’

The above-quoted Dr Sturm explains further that “Christian Zionist performances of a national allegiance to Israeli Jews are grounded in an apocalyptic narrative of the future,” characterising Christian Zionists as “socially conservative Evangelicals with a premillennial dispensationalist eschatology.” And he next explains that “Premillennialism is the belief that Christ will return prior to the millennium to save the world,” whereas “Postmillennialism is the belief that there will be no intervention by God; only humans can bring about the millennium, whereupon Christ will return.” In this way, the tenets and beliefs of these premillennial Christian Trump voters seem to have provided a most convenient gambit for the White House to attack Iran in the midst of negotiations held in Geneva, negotiations that showed “significant progress,” apparently: 

Most [Christian Zionist] believe the wars in the Middle East are portending an imminent End Times scenario, which will be centered in the modern state of Israel. Here, Satan’s Russian and Arab led armies meet those non-Raptured Westerners who serve Christ’s army at the battle of Armageddon . . .

And now, Trump and his War Secretary Hegseth are apparently preparing the ground for Christ’s imminent reappearance on this sub-lunar surface, with the full support of their premillennial constituency, while salivating over the Islamic Republic’s underground hydrocarbon wealth – at the same time claiming to adhere to the principle of ‘Peace Through Strength.’ The Center for Security Policy’s Christopher Holton theorises that “President Trump himself has repeated those 3 words often, in both speeches and on social media.” In fact, this three-word mantra might as well be explained in legal terms as the Law of the Jungle. The think-tanker Holton goes on to say that both “President Reagan and President Trump . . . recognised that the theocracy in Iran was a threat to US security.” Subsequently, in the late Nineties, Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu put forward the idea that “Iran could pose a bigger danger than Iraq. He said the situation could develop where Iran had nuclear weapons aimed at Britain and the United States.” The Israeli strongman clearly wanted to push his American overlords (or rather dependents) into extending Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990-91) into the Islamic Republic next door. 

At the time, cooler heads seemed to have prevailed, or rather, the Iraqi insurgency constituted an armed conflict demanding Washington’s full attention, thereby safeguarding Iran next door for the 30-plus years. And now, the end times are here again. As I explained quite some time ago, the leadership of the Islamic Republic does harbor its own eschatological expectations to do with the “return of the ‘Hidden Iman’ (Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan) as the ‘Mahdi,’ which means ‘The Guided One’ who [would] usher in the union of Islam preceding the end of the world – an expectation that has a ‘major ecclesiastical importance in Shia Islam’.” This means that both warring factions appear to be motivated by purely ideological or, if you will, eschatological considerations.

The gruesome twosome Trump-Hegseth is currently engaged in an ideological wrestling match with Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei – ‘injured in the first wave of Israeli attacks’ yet fully functional and quite alive at present – his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his mother, his wife Zahra Haddad-Adel, and one of his sons were killed in the attack. Yousef Pezeshkian, a son of the president, revealed in a Telegram post that he had heard that Mojtaba Khamenei had been injured but that he was alive and healthy. The U.S. President attacked a sovereign nation without a declaration of war, while also lacking congressional approval. As long ago as 2006, Justice Samuel Alito, currently serving as associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, expressed the following view regarding the Commander-in-Chief’s power: 

The President has the power of the Commander-in-Chief. I think there has been general agreement, and cases support the authority of the President  to take military action on his own in the case of an emergency, when there is not time for Congress to react.

Huntington’s Revenge

The Trump War on Iran thus seems sanctioned by the U.S. legal system (or at the very least, by one legal opinion). While Christian nationalists under Senator Cruz supporting Trump also seem to cheer for war in the Middle East. There is reason to believe that certain conservative Christians interpret the current conflict in the Middle East as sanctioned by their God. In November 2016, 80% of Evangelicals voted for Trump; in 2020, that number increased slightly to 84% and came down again to 80% in 2024, which seemed sufficient to put him into office for a second term. 

It seems fair to assume that these voters all but approve of the current military action in Iran. The journalist Ryan Zickgraf even argues that “a certain strain of American evangelical theology has taught millions of believers . . . to read conflicts like Trump’s war with Iran not simply as geopolitics in action but as prophecy unfolding in real time.” In fact, reports allege that at the beginning of this month, an anonymous American combat unit commander reportedly told his officers at a briefing that Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” Still, the just-quoted Zickgraf avows that “evangelical influence in the Trump II administration is significantly weaker than in the first.” On the other hand, GOP Senator John Cornyn (“one of Israel’s greatest friends”) recently attended a sermon by dispensationalist TV preacher John Hagee (the founder of Christians United for Israel or CUFI), in San Antonio – a sermon ominously titled “End of Days: Operation Epic Fury.” As most dispensationalist profess belief in a so-called ‘pretubulation rapture,’ it seems fair to say that U.S. foreign and military policy is now being made by individuals looking forward to the end of the world – that their Christian God is warning the entire human race that the Rapture of the true believers (denoting the physical transportation into Heaven) is going to occur soon.

These dispensationalist End Time beliefs go back to an article published in the Princeton Review on 11 April 1881 – “Inspiration,” written by Archibald A. Hodge (1823-86) and Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921). Hodge and Warfield claim that the Bible is “absolutely errorless and binding for faith and obedience,” asserting that the Biblical text contains but “truth to the facts.” It is rather frightening to think that a preacher like Hagee would now have the ear of U.S. lawmakers. For Hagee does stress that the word of God (which is supposedly kept in the Bible) gives the “Jews the right to land stretching all the way across Iraq.” 

The New Yellow Danger

In the end, it would seem that President Trump authorized the current war in Iran with a view to further a U.S. agenda that tries to counter the growth in power and stature of China (what I would like to term ‘The New Yellow Danger’) – .an interpretation that would also take account of Trump’s recent seizure of Maduro’s Venezuela and his ambivalent stance on Greenland and Russia. At the same time, an overtly eschatological objective also seems quite feasible, given the outsized influence of the current administration’s Evangelical base. Either way, the end of the current war is not readily in sight in spite of any declarations made to the contrary. The fog of war seems set to continue indefinitely: President Trump said on social media that the U.S. “obliterated every MILITARY target” on Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal. The operation was meant to pressure Iran into reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that has been largely blocked for oil exports except Iran’s own.’ And in response, the Islamic Republic issued a statement, saying that the energy infrastructure of those who cooperate with the U.S. would now “be immediately destroyed” (14 March 2026). In contrast, but five days ago, President Trump said at a press conference at his golf club near Miami that the war against Iran will end “very soon,” but not this week. 

Ignoring reality on the ground, the POTUS told the press but five days ago (9 March 2026) that “[w]e’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective.” In reality, the Islamic Republic of Iran has now obliterated the myth of American military invincibility and effectiveness. . . and as the real reason behind the current military operation appears to be Washington’s desire to curtail the inexorable rise of China. It seems to me that, in spite of all appearances, the people running the Trump White House are now laser-focused on the People’s Republic of China.

Will this wanton war of aggression usher in the end of the American Empire’s credibility?!?!?  And will the Islamic Republic of Iran now become the effective prime mover in the Middle East?!?!?  Or, quite frankly, is Washington now merely digging its own grave?!?!?

***
21WIRE special contributor Dr. Can Erimtan is an independent historian and geo-political analyst who used to live in Istanbul. At present, he is in self-imposed exile from Turkey. He has a wide interest in the politics, history and culture of the Balkans, the greater Middle East, and the world beyond. He attended the VUB in Brussels and did his graduate work at the universities of Essex and Oxford. In Oxford, Erimtan was a member of Lady Margaret Hall, and he obtained his doctorate in Modern History in 2002. His publications include the revisionist monograph “Ottomans Looking West?” as well as numerous scholarly articles. In Istanbul, Erimtan started publishing in the English language Turkish press, culminating in him becoming the Turkey Editor of the İstanbul Gazette. Subsequently, he commenced writing for RT Op-Edge, NEO, and finally, the 21st Century Wire. You can find him on Twitter at @TheErimtanAngle. Read Can’s archive here.

READ MORE IRAN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire IRAN Files

SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

VISIT OUR TELEGRAM CHANNEL

21st Century Wire is an alternative news agency designed to enlighten, inform and educate readers about world events which are not always covered in the mainstream media.

Source: https://21stcenturywire.com/2026/03/17/deus-vult-trumps-clash-of-civilisations-or-the-new-yellow-danger/