Madrid recently brought a debate framework to the forefront, once again deeply rooted in colonial traditions, under the supervision of the U.S. and Israeli coordinated attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
It is not a novel story, but based on the genealogy of Orientalists who have built West Asia and Islam as irrational “others” since the 19th century, without the possibility of autonomy and need external guidance.
The Iranian case is a paradigm. Its nuclear program is under international supervision and shows no indication of diversion to military purposes, but official rhetoric continues to emphasize the need to “contain” the countries that “contain” the countries that belong to this story. This logic not only preemptively justifies aggression, it also strips Iran’s sovereignty, history and agency, reducing its political complexity into a dangerous caricature.
However, critical reading can dismantle these stereotypes. Islam has closed its own rich, multi-traditional traditions for centuries, targeting both its own Canon and the social and political structures surrounding it. This important practice is not the exclusive realm of the intellectual elite. It is expressed in everyday life, mosques, markets, homes and public spaces. Not only do Muslims practice their faith, they also interrogate it, discuss it, and reformulate it within a debate framework that strengthens their ability to project into the future, rather than dilute doctrinal consistency.
This approach allows for the dismantling of one of the imaginary pillars of Orientalism. Muslim representations, and even societies like Iran, are inherently irrational, trapped in “religious” passions, and without strategic logic. Through this lens, Iran transforms into a radical coat of arms of others. This is a kind of “absolute other” that embodies the most sustained “terror” of the West: fanaticism, sacred violence and irrationality. This structure depoliticizes international action, emptying strategic decisions of meaning, and turns them into subjects of legitimate intervention.
Reducing Iran to an irrational political Islam paradigm reinforces the colonial matrix that denys the legitimacy of alternative forms of rationality. The aim is not to ignore tensions, but to acknowledge that the political project corresponds to historical, cultural and geopolitical logics that must be understood in its own terms. Denying this not only reinforces Islamophobia, it also obstructs a serious understanding of political movements from the global South that challenge Western monopoly on the definition of rationality and politics.
Islamophobia as a structure of power
Islamophobia should be understood not merely as a cultural bias or religious phobia, but as a specific form of structural racism directed at the expression of Muslim identity or the manifestation of the public so perceived. This discriminatory logic is replicated throughout media, institutions, and international diplomacy. In Iran, it does not necessarily respond to the actions of the country, but manifests itself as systematic hostility that corresponds to its cultural and religious identity.
This form of symbolic violence, known as epistemological violence, manipulates people by denying their right to define their own ethical, political and civilized frameworks. By outlawing its own rationality, it strengthens global asymmetry and justifies international architecture designed to exclude, separate and punish those who fall outside the liberal Western canon.
Overcoming this approach requires important revisions to the languages used to describe actors like Islam and Iran. It is not about idealising, but about restoring the historical and political depth of these projects. Ultimately, dismantling Islamophobia in all forms assumes the construction of new political vocabulary, differences with threats, and things not associated with religious discourse and irrationality.
Attack on Iran and the collapse of the international order
The bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities is not just an offensive, one-sided act. This is a warning sign of the erosion of international law. The nuclear non-proliferation regime, which appears to be designed to ensure global security, applies on a double standard. Western countries retain atomic weapons without serious disarmament commitments, but face international threats from sanctions, surveillance and military threats in the southern part of the world.
The rhetoric that justifies these interventions is based on tired but still effective narratives: civilization and wild conflict. This binary logic, which historically justified colonial wars, still serves as a moral excuse today. As colonial ideas pointed out, this discourse is not only unjust, but also deeply unstable. By denying other people’s institutions and rationality, it perpetuates the cycle of violence and recreates an international order based on exclusion and hierarchy.
In this context, Iran is not only a victim of Islamophobia, but also an offensive mirror that reflects the failure of the universal principles that the West argues to support. Reclaiming the possibilities of a more just international politics requires not only ending military violence, but dismantling the symbolic framework that allows such violence. Only then can multiple orders truly emerge. The difference is not punished, but it is something that is heard.