Flashmag! Issue 171 April 2026 Flashmag! Issue 171 April 2026 Flashmag! Numéro 171 Avril 2026 | Page 23

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that teaches the reconstitution of the State of Israel within its biblical borders is a necessary condition for the return of Christ and the end of times. This theological framework, largely ignored by secular European analysts, concretely influences legislative positions, funding decisions, congressional votes, and the diplomatic agenda of Republican administrations. When two eschatologies face each other, ordinary diplomacy loses its purchase. The usual tools— mutual concessions, shared interests, honorable exits— lose their relevance against actors who believe themselves engaged in the fulfillment of divine prophecy.
The Anatomy of the Shift: A Synthesis
It is time to draw the threads together. What is unfolding around Iran is the simultaneous convergence of seven structural dynamics that mutually reinforce each other. The first is creeping de-dollarization: the progressive erosion of the American monetary weapon, which deprives Washington of one of its most effective and least costly instruments of domination. The second is the military withdrawal from the Gulf: the end of the oil pact that had guaranteed regional stability since 1974, and the pivot of Arab monarchies toward a de facto multipolarity. The third is the rise of the anti-hegemonic bloc: the consolidation of a coalition of heterogeneous actors— China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, parts of Africa— bound not by common ideology but by a shared refusal of the Western order. The fourth is the revolt of the Global South: the sovereignty claims of nations that have too long endured the conditionalities of financial institutions and Western military interventions. The fifth is the American internal fracture: the growing inability of the United States to produce a coherent foreign policy, owing to its own ideological civil war. The sixth is the Israeli-Arab regional recomposition: the expansionist ambitions of an Israeli government seeking to redraw the Middle East within a growing American power vacuum. The seventh, finally, is eschatological resurgence: the return of end-of-world religious imaginaries into political decisions that should never have left the rational domain. These seven dynamics are not parallel. They intersect, mutually reinforce each other, and produce a systemic instability of which Iran is simultaneously the symbol and the node.
Flashmag! Edition 171 Avril 2026
Hubert Marlin Elingui Jr. Journalist

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