While Donald Trump proclaims that the war is "practically over" and that Iranian military power has been "erased," what is truly beginning is a new and dangerous phase of a pathology that American imperialism and its steadfast ally Israel have kept disturbingly alive: state-sponsored Islamophobia.

This is not merely a matter of geopolitics or the price of crude oil. It is also the construction of an absolute "other" designed to justify illegal aggression. Trump's rhetoric — ranging from a messianic "spirit of liberation" for the Iranian people to the psychopathic threat of "making the name of Iran disappear" — is not an isolated phenomenon. It is yet another episode in a structural racism that has already manifested itself in well-documented ways.

Every day is an appropriate day to denounce the pretexts that the United States habitually manufactures to frame a "dangerous enemy." But today is March 15, the date designated by the United Nations to combat Islamophobia, and it is worth pausing on this dimension of the complex web that continues to claim its highest price: human lives.

On its official website, the United Nations acknowledges that intolerance and discrimination against Muslims has existed for a long time, but has intensified in recent years due to factors including the "war on terror," economic insecurity, and growing social diversity. Media coverage and political rhetoric have frequently fueled fear and resentment by portraying Muslims as extremists and a security threat. This "us versus them" mentality, combined with limited understanding of Muslim culture, reinforces harmful stereotypes.

The apex of such campaigns came in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. However, that trajectory did not end with the capture of Osama bin Laden, nor does it show any sign of reversal as long as power remains concentrated on one side. War does not begin with the first missile. It begins with the first word that strips the adversary of their humanity. Once again, the United States is not merely targeting a theocracy — it is feeding an imagination in which everything Muslim is synonymous with "imminent threat."

By bombing civilian infrastructure and schools — as reported in the tragedy at Minab — while simultaneously calling for "regime change," Washington sends an unmistakable message: the lives of nearly one hundred million Iranians are expendable on the altar of American hegemony. This mirrors the historical treatment of Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Syrians, Yemenis, and Palestinians — peoples systematically devastated by Israel with the blessing of powerful patrons.

The persistence of Crusades-era language in the twenty-first century, the insistence on "unconditional surrender," and the demonization of an entire region as an "axis of evil" feed the "us versus them" logic that proved so catastrophic after September 11. The bombs falling on the Middle East cannot be separated from hate crimes in Houston or Chicago, nor from the fascist shadow cast by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over immigrant communities at large.

Islamophobia is the instrument that allows the military-industrial complex to silence internal dissent. When Iran is labeled a "radical and malevolent dictatorship," a target is automatically placed on the chest of every Muslim citizen living in the Western world. The media machinery to sustain that war has been firmly secured. A portion of the world has been persuaded, or at the very least rendered indifferent and morally disengaged — which may, in fact, be the more damaging outcome.

Trump is losing against Iran from the very moment he ordered strikes that killed children — presumably to "liberate" them from Islamic patriarchy. He lost when the Persian people rose with dignity in the face of political assassination, named a new leader, and stood firmly against the orange-haired despot to declare that the war ends when they decide — not when Washington dictates.

Nevertheless, the day will come when all of us prevail: the day when the value of lives buried beneath rubble is not determined by their origin, gender, or religion. The day when every human rights decree is genuinely enforced, and definitively, no human life carries a price tag.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff