Escrito por Antonio Peña (*)
On Saturday night, 22 June 2025, the United States entered the war between Israel and Iran in the Middle East. The US dropped ‘anti-bunker’ bombs on nuclear facilities in Iran, confirming and justifying its refusal to allow Iran to develop an atomic or nuclear bomb.
This confirms the intensification of the conflict in the Middle East, effectively showing that the world is facing a new international context: the clash of civilisations. Israel insisted on US intervention in the war, from a Western coalition, to achieve the immediate surrender of Iran, identified as part of the Muslim civilisation. However, this surrender does not seem to be forthcoming. By the nature of the new type of conflict or war, characterised by different religious identities, the effects are rather uncertain and may be more catastrophic.
The following note was written a week ago, when the war between Israel and Iran had begun. Although some facts have changed, this does not affect its content regarding the new war of civilisations that is taking place.
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What we have been experiencing in the world for several years now is a clash of civilisations, as Samuel Huntington argued in 1993 (2003)[1]. But recent events in the Middle East lead us to affirm that it is now a WAR of civilisations: between the West, through Israel (and the support of the United States), and Islam, through Iran (which symbolises – although partially – Muslim civilisation). This note is written after the fourth night of bombings and missile barrages by both states, with hundreds of dead on one side (Iran) and dozens of dead on the other side (Israel). Our purpose is to seek to understand what this war means for the world and its repercussions in each country, such as Peru.
The clash of civilisations was described by Huntington after analysing paradigms, and verifying data or information on processes of ‘indigenisation’ or ‘religiosity’ experienced in the world after the loss of power of the socialist countries in 1989 (due to the fall of the Berlin Wall). From the previous bipolar context, led by the United States (US) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a new international context emerged after the latter’s defeat.
This new international context is described as ‘multipolar’, but above all as ‘multi-civilizational’ (Huntington, 2003). This means that the set of international relations and the conflicts that flow from these relations are no longer between two poles or centres, but between many poles or centres identified as different ‘civilisations’.
Huntington managed to describe after the analysis of the information he knew, that it is wrong to affirm that after the fall of the USSR the US capitalist model would be universal (that is, that from now on all the countries of the world would align themselves to its model). Only Europe, affected by the destruction of the Second World War and being under dispute between the two blocs after the war, came closer as a community or union to the new US centre. They would be joined by Israel, because of its context and geographical situation, and other countries with a dominant Western past. But the other countries of the world faced changes that gave rise to the appearance or reappearance of cultural or religious groups, or civilisations, that had remained ‘dormant’ or ‘controlled’ until then, giving rise to the multi-civilizational.
One such civilisation that has re-emerged is the Muslim civilisation. Although it does not have a centre as such to date, and its leadership is contested by historic Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey, or countries with the largest number of Muslims such as Indonesia or Egypt, dominance in the use of atomic or nuclear energy in the hands of one of these countries could define that leadership. Iran, complementing Pakistan, pointed to this.
Iran’s theocratic Shiite Muslim government has been striving since the last century to develop an atomic bomb. The US and its allies, such as Europe and Israel, have opposed it, monitoring and sanctioning its actions. In this context, Iran’s support for rebel or terrorist groups attacking Israel, and Israel’s violent reaction to defend itself against those groups, led to a confrontation with the country behind it, Iran, which led to the current situation of war.
In the war, the USA has a side. It supports Israel. This confirms that the war in the Middle East is not only a war of two states or countries (Israel, a small but heavily armed country, and Iran, a comparatively giant country, but with half the military budget), but a war of civilisations.
Iran’s Muslim civilisation is not accepted, because it is a theocratic government which, by its religious nature, contradicts the concepts of freedom, individuality, equality and development of Western culture (‘hates’ the West) and can support rebel or terrorist groups which, beyond the search for the liberation of the Palestinian people (the origin of the current war), can lead to an endless situation with an atomic bomb.
Under this short analysis, we can understand that the sense of the Israeli and US war against Iran is aimed at stopping the type of Muslim civilisation that has developed, rather than the theocratic state that it represents. Although Iran does not currently have the backing of other powerful weapons states such as Russia or China, nor of its theocratic Muslim neighbours due to internal hegemony disputes, the future is not without controversy. The meaning of this kind of war goes beyond victory or defeat.
The type of warfare applied by Israel and the US is selective: elimination of those who run the theocratic government or of the scientists involved in the development of the atomic bomb, as well as the destruction of Iran’s war assets. While Iran’s attacks consist of sending drones and destructive missiles to different parts of Israel’s occupied territory, but which are controlled by Israel’s protective assets, without much effect to date.
This leads one to believe that Iran is at a loss.
But here it is important to return to Samuel Huntington’s text. Civilisations do not end in war:
“The West’s universalist pretensions [US, Europe, Israel] increasingly bring it into conflict with other civilisations, most seriously with Islam and China; at the local level fault line wars [under identity or ethnic conflicts], largely between Muslims and non-Muslims, generate ‘kin-country rallying,’ the threat of broader escalation, and hence efforts by core states [such as the US] to halt these wars.” (2003: 20)
The result of this situation is one or many wars of major proportions: wars of ‘non-Western’ civilisations that would be united by the ‘solidarity of like-minded countries’ against ‘Western’ civilisation. If the majority of states or countries are ‘non-Western’, disaster is imminent: a world war that this time involves even the smallest and most remote countries of different civilisations.
Is it possible to avoid it? Huntington himself offers an answer: ‘The survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their identity as unique and not universal….’ (2003: 20-21, emphasis added). In other words, the solution lies in every civilisation, and in particular in Western civilisation itself: to recognise that the West is not the ‘best culture’ or ‘best civilisation’, but one in the world, important and recognised for its contribution to global welfare, but at the same time different and with limitations.
This response is not a novelty in pluricultural countries like Peru, where we clearly know that the ‘non-Western’ is real and dominant in fact. The Andean and Amazonian cultures and civilisations are an example of this.
In sum, current events in the Middle East, between Israel and Iran in particular, give us an insight into what is happening in the world and its various civilisations. It is not a context of peace, as Samuel Huntington notes. But it also leads us to understand how this context affects each country, including countries such as Peru: their diverse cultures and civilisations do not have an atmosphere of peace, recognition and mutual acceptance. But, in both contexts, the situation of war or conflict can be prevented.
Lima, 15 and 16 June 2025.
(*) Sobre el autor: Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and lecturer at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Lawyer, Magister in CCSS, and PhD. in Laws.
[1] Huntington, Samuel (2003): The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order. New York, Simons and Schuster Paperbacks, 368 pages. [First edition 1996].
