A war of words

SHYAM BHATIA

In the current confrontation between the United States, Israel and Iran, the shift is both remarkable and unmistakable. The vocabulary of international politics has hardened into insult. Iranian leaders are described as “deranged scumbags”. At a Pentagon briefing, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested Iran’s leadership was “desperate and hiding”, adding: “That’s what rats do.” The language may energize domestic audiences, but it signals something more consequential: a redefinition of the enemy.

Yet this erosion did not begin in Washington. It has deeper roots. Following the 1979 revolution, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, routinely described the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan”, framing them not simply as adversaries but as embodiments of evil. The language was theological, absolute and deliberately dehumanizing.

Diplomacy has traditionally drawn a distinction between governments and peoples. Even at moments of extreme tension, leaders preserved a minimal vocabulary of respect. This was not mere etiquette; it was strategic. Statesmen understood that once an adversary is completely dehumanized, negotiating with them later becomes politically — and psychologically — difficult.

History suggests that political language rarely collapses all at once. It deteriorates in stages. Opponents are first cast as immoral, then illegitimate. Eventually they are depicted as animals, parasites or disease. In Nazi Germany this progression became systematic. Under Joseph Goebbels, Jews were portrayed as vermin and infection — imagery designed to recast violence as cleansing. The objective was not rhetorical flourish but psychological conditioning: to make the destruction of human beings appear necessary.

The pattern has appeared in other political cultures. During the Cultural Revolution, opponents of the Chinese Communist Party were denounced as “running dogs” of imperialism — a phrase that reduced them to servile, sub-human creatures and stripped them of political legitimacy. The language was crude, repetitive and ubiquitous, precisely because its purpose was not persuasion but conditioning.

Imperial language followed similar lines. British colonial officials and commentators routinely described Indians as “treacherous”, “degenerate” or “fanatical”, casting entire populations as morally suspect and politically unreliable. Such language did not always dehumanize in biological terms, but it served a similar function: to diminish, to distance, and to justify control.

The comparison is not exact, and today’s rhetoric does not carry the same intent or consequence. Yet the technique is recognizable. To describe adversaries as “rats”, “animals” or similar creatures is to draw from a well-established repertoire: the language of dehumanization.

The Middle East has long had its own lexicon of demonization, shaped by decades of ideological conflict and mutual hostility. The language on all sides has tended to frame opponents not simply as rivals, but as forces beyond the normal boundaries of politics.

Donald Trump has gone further still. In a recent statement, he referred to the “decapitation” of Iran and urged allies to “go to the Strait and just take it”. The language is not merely insulting; it is operational. It frames conflict not as containment or deterrence, but as removal.

What is striking in this phase is the convergence of this language across all sides. Washington, Tehran and Jerusalem increasingly describe one another not simply as adversaries but as entities beyond the normal bounds of politics. Once that boundary is crossed, the logic of restraint begins to weaken. Recent history shows how this shift can translate into action. The 2020 US assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani marked a turning point: the targeted killing of one of the most senior military figures of a sovereign state. It was justified as counterterrorism, but it also signalled a willingness to redefine the limits of acceptable state behaviour. The threshold had moved.

That is the deeper risk embedded in today’s rhetoric. When opponents are framed as vermin, animals or existential evils, their elimination begins to appear not only permissible but necessary. The movement from language to action is not inevitable — but it becomes easier, and over time it can begin to feel logical.

This was not always the case. During the Cold War, when nuclear confrontation was a constant possibility, leaders maintained a disciplined vocabulary. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy spoke of “the Soviet government” and “Chairman Nikita Khrushchev”. The language remained formal even as the stakes approached catastrophe. The discipline of language helped sustain the possibility of restraint.

Earlier generations understood that words define the space in which diplomacy operates. Winston Churchill, for all his rhetorical force, directed his fiercest language at the Nazi regime rather than the German people. That distinction helped make post-war reconciliation possible. It preserved a conceptual boundary between enemy and humanity.

In many political cultures, such restraint remains instinctive. In Germany, the language of vermin and parasites is politically unthinkable because of its historical associations. French diplomacy avoids crude insult as a matter of tradition. Japanese political speech remains indirect even in moments of tension.

India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, once warned that words could become weapons. That warning feels newly relevant. Words do not merely describe reality; they shape it. They define who belongs within the bounds of humanity and who stands outside it.

Which raises a simple question: how will this moment be explained a decade from now? When textbooks describe this period, they may have to account not only for the conflicts themselves, but for the vocabulary that preceded them — why leaders spoke of other nations as rats, animals or Satans, and how such language became normal.

History offers a consistent lesson. When rhetoric descends into dehumanization, the distance between words and violence narrows. And once that distance collapses, events tend to move faster than anyone intends. 

Shyam Bhatia is the London correspondent of The Tribune.