Today Iran, Tomorrow Russia
Conversation with Alexander Dugin on the Sputnik TV program Escalation.
Host: Dear friends, today we are addressing a large and serious topic. Everyone is talking about it right now, and understandably so, because a historic event is unfolding. Let me remind our listeners: on February 28, 2026, a joint operation was launched by the armed forces of the United States of America and Israel. Strikes were carried out against Iran, as a result of which Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed. In addition, many other high-ranking figures were eliminated in the attack. Iran has begun responding with strikes against both Israel and American bases, and as we speak, military clashes are taking place. There are many questions about what the consequences will be, who will suffer most from these developments, and whether Iran will be able to withstand the pressure. But the first thing one wants to understand is: where is all of this leading?
Alexander Dugin: This is indeed an extremely important event. It is entirely possible that it could become the beginning of the Third World War, because forces of enormous scale are now involved. The actions of the Americans—Trump together with Netanyahu—directed against the political leadership of Iran were extraordinarily abrupt.
This is already the second such case. First, the United States abducted Maduro, establishing direct control over Venezuela and effectively occupying that country. Now they have destroyed the entire military-political and religious leadership of Iran. In significance, this is comparable to destroying the Pope or an Orthodox Patriarch, because the spiritual leader of the Shiites—the Rahbar, Ayatollah Khamenei—was revered not only in Iran. He was effectively the head of the entire Shiite world, which includes hundreds of millions of people across the globe. Before this, Israel eliminated the leadership of Hamas—a more limited case—and then the leadership of Hezbollah, which was already more serious.
Now the leadership of Iran has been directly and openly destroyed. This means that there are no longer any international norms, no rules, and the United Nations effectively no longer exists. That organization now belongs to the past, like a phantom limb from a vanished world. Trump himself essentially said as much: there is no international law; whatever he does is moral. This changes everything. The previous world order has collapsed. We had been gradually moving in this direction, but now the point of no return has been crossed. If a country can destroy the military-political and religious leadership of a sovereign state without any grounds whatsoever, then we are living in a completely different world—a world where everything is permitted, where law is replaced by force, where the principle operates: “If I can do it, I will.”
Trump’s behavior is particularly striking. All of this happened during negotiations involving Kushner and Witkoff, and according to available information Iran had agreed to almost all American demands—literally to almost everything. Despite this, such a strike followed directly against the leadership of the country. First of all, we must understand that in this situation we are next. Venezuela, Iran, and before that Syria and Hezbollah—these are all regimes or political systems currently targeted by the United States, and they are our allies.
In effect, if such actions can be taken against our allies, if all of this goes unpunished, if Trump succeeds in everything he attempts, then at the next stage—perhaps even during negotiations between Kirill Dmitriev and Kushner and Witkoff—a similar operation aimed at regime change in our country could occur.
And what protects us from such a scenario? Nuclear weapons? Even here the question remains whether we would actually use them. In an extreme situation, the West has serious doubts that we would be prepared to take that step—we issue threats too often and fail to follow through. At the same time, efforts are underway to surround and isolate our president. Our president, beyond any doubt, is the figure upon whom everything rests. In our country, and perhaps even in the world, everything depends on him. He is the one who restrains—the Katechon, as our Orthodox tradition describes it. Today this is simply a fact of geopolitics, a fact of the global order.
But if the Americans—Trump himself—become convinced that other Russian leaders who might, God forbid, replace our president would be more accommodating towards the West—and this was precisely the calculation in Iran, when the sovereign leaders of that country were physically eliminated because they pursued policies that did not align with American interests—then what would prevent them from attempting to implement the same scenario here?
Trump is conducting a completely consistent neoconservative geopolitical strategy of attack. The states that were targeted by globalists under Biden, under Obama, and under Clinton are exactly the same states being targeted now. Nothing fundamentally new has appeared. Despite the scandals and disputes with European NATO allies, in the end those allies align themselves behind the United States and adopt the same position. For us, therefore, this is extremely serious. It is the final warning.
https://alexanderdugin.substack.com/p/today-iran-tomorrow-russia