Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are constructing a new narrative for the war on Iran. Iran is no longer portrayed as a threat to Israel alone, but as an ideological regime bent on destroying Western civilisation itself. The original case for war centred on Israel: Iran was presented as an existential threat to the Jewish people. Now the argument has expanded to encompass Europe and America. Netanyahu speaks of a battle between civilisation and barbarism. Standing beneath the Acropolis, Rubio cast the war as a modern-day struggle between Athens and Persia, with a West whose heroes die for a cause facing an enemy supposedly devoted to death. Trump has claimed that Iran, given the chance, would have struck Los Angeles and San Diego first. The White House subsequently clarified that he meant a nuclear strike. This is a dangerous narrative. It casts the conflict as an existential struggle between good and evil, making compromise appear like surrender and an end to the war seem impossible. Its purpose is to prepare the public for a war with no clear end. Start with Israel. Iran's policy has never been the physical destruction of the Israeli people. After the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic refused to recognise two regimes: Israel and apartheid South Africa. The decision reflected its revolutionary principles and its opposition to racial domination, a principle enshrined in international law. At the time, Washington was treating Nelson Mandela's movement as a terrorist organisation, and Mandela himself remained on a US terror watch list until 2008. Iran's position on Palestine follows a similar logic. It calls for a referendum in which Muslims, Christians and Jews would decide together on an inclusive system of government that guarantees the rights of everyone in historic Palestine. Such a process would end a political order founded on ethnic supremacy, as South Africa's transition dismantled apartheid without seeking the destruction of its people. A referendum is neither an extremist nor an apocalyptic proposition. Its underlying principle, that Palestinians should determine their political future and enjoy equal rights, has found growing support around the world, including in protests across Western cities and university campuses. There is equally little in Iran's historical record to support claims that it has long sought to attack Europe or America. Again and again, Tehran has pursued cooperation with Washington, only to see those efforts collapse. The record speaks for itself. - Algiers Accords (1981). The agreements committed Washington to non-intervention in Iran's internal affairs. The United States subsequently supported Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. - The Lebanon hostages. Iran helped secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon after President George H. W. Bush declared that goodwill begets goodwill. The expected reciprocity never materialised. - Bosnia. Iran helped arm besieged Bosnian Muslims with the Clinton administration's tacit acquiescence. The response was a comprehensive trade embargo. - Afghanistan (2001). Iran helped broker the Bonn settlement that laid the foundations for a post-Taliban government. Weeks later, President George W. Bush placed Iran in his "axis of evil." - The JCPOA (2015). Iran signed the nuclear agreement and opened the door to major Western companies, including Boeing, Airbus, Total and Renault. In 2018, Trump withdrew from the deal despite the IAEA's repeated confirmation that Iran was meeting its nuclear commitments. - Negotiations in 2025 and 2026. Iran was engaged in negotiations in June 2025 and again in February 2026 when American and Israeli bombs fell. - The Islamabad MoU. Iran signed the memorandum in June 2026, only for Washington to press ahead with a "southern corridor" through the Strait of Hormuz, in breach of the agreement's terms. The historical record offers no credible basis for this new clash-of-civilisations narrative. What it shows is a recurring pattern of diplomacy pursued, agreements reached and opportunities for cooperation squandered. The civilisational script has no record to stand on. Its purpose is to turn a political conflict into an existential struggle, frighten the public into accepting an open-ended war and make any negotiated settlement look like a betrayal of the West itself.