MADRID – A few days ago, CNN International aired an interview between Fareed Zakaria, one of the most prominent voices in the U.S. geopolitical landscape, and Yossi Cohen, former director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. The question Zakaria posed to his guest— “Will the Islamic Republic of Iran exist in ten years?”— goes beyond mere speculation about the country’s future. 

More than an analysis, it carries a projection of desire: the expectation, shared by sectors of power in Israel and the West, that the political order born in 1979 should disappear from the international stage.

This article examines the political and semiotic density of that question, reflecting Israel’s explicit desire to witness the disappearance of Iran’s political system and the implicit complicity of Western media in presenting that desire as objective analysis. Without resorting to demagoguery or propaganda, it considers the limits and implications of such framing, the place Iran occupies in regional and global political imagination, and the instrumental role of major media platforms in transforming normative expectations into seemingly neutral diagnoses.

A question that seeks to command, not understand

Zakaria’s formulation should not be interpreted simply as geopolitical curiosity. In practice, it establishes a normative framework: “Will it continue to exist…?” Rather than exploring trends, it legitimizes the aspiration for Iran to vanish in its current political configuration. Thus, the question not only defines the horizon of possibility but also imposes an implicit political mandate.

It is no coincidence that this type of question recurs in interviews between Western journalists and figures of the Israeli establishment. Far from reflecting analytical neutrality, they reveal the performative character of the encounter: a political desire is produced and legitimized, while space for counterpoints or divergent interpretations is neutralized.

Cohen’s response— “My prediction: it will not exist”—reaffirms that mandate. The disappearance of the Islamic Republic is presented as an explicit objective and, more than a mere prediction, becomes a declaration of intent: Israel does not only analyze, it projects and actively works for that outcome.

The desire to see the Islamic Republic extinguished is central to Israel’s recent political history. Iran’s construction as an existential enemy permeates official discourse, security strategies, and media representations. Iran operates as the absolute antagonist, the reference point that legitimizes and gives meaning to confrontational policies projected into the future.

This desire is not only expressed in media discourse. It has underpinned covert operations, international lobbying, and regional initiatives of containment and pressure. The media question, then, is both echo and extension of that desire: it does not ask, it anticipates and reinforces the architecture of suppression politics. The complicity between interviewer and interviewee is not accidental but structural: international media replicate, amplify, and organize political desire as a framework of the possible, normalizing the fantasy of “the end of Iran.”

This mandate is far from innocent. It lays the groundwork for the acceptance and even legitimization of political actions—military, economic, diplomatic—aimed at eroding Iran, under the idea that its disappearance would be a “natural,” “desirable,” and “inevitable” variant.

Western media: from description to normative framing

Here, the ambiguous but significant role of Western media becomes evident. CNN and Zakaria—carrying the weight of analytical credibility—legitimize the most radical expression of Israeli desire, and contribute, perhaps unconsciously, to transforming the interview into an act of political invocation. Rather than interpreting context, tensions, or negotiation space, the question installs itself as one seeking confirmation of expectation rather than understanding historical processes.
 
In this sense, international journalism operates not as an observer but as an active constructor of the normative: the adversary’s survival is presented as an anomaly rather than a geopolitically complex phenomenon. Hence, the only “realistic” future in dominant media imagination is disappearance. Merely verbalizing this possibility repeatedly begins to normalize the idea as both legitimate and desirable in regional and global terms.

This journalistic approach highlights how political desire—over facts or plural analysis—shapes international public opinion, displacing evidence and multiple perspectives that should underpin any serious assessment of the region’s future.

Iran and the resilience of facts

Against the tide of international normative desire, the reality of the Islamic Republic demonstrates steadfast persistence and remarkable capacity for reorganization. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has withstood massive sanctions, covert operations, sabotage, and international blockades, adapting to numerous economic and political crises without losing its essential structure.

Far from anecdotal, this reflects the strength of a political project whose revolutionary vocation has been renewed precisely through resistance and strategic management of adversity. For decades, predictions of “inevitable collapse” have circulated in international media, yet Iran has transformed its marginality into legitimacy and strength, building social and institutional resilience capable of sustaining an autonomous vision under external pressure.

Rather than fixating solely on “threats,” the country has mobilized internal and regional resources to navigate challenges, maintaining political and cultural continuities that confound critics. This capacity for resilience, confirmed by multiple specialists, shows that the media and diplomatic fantasy of its disappearance is far more probable in discourse than in reality.

The question of Iran’s survival embodies, on its flip side, a logic of exclusion and the legitimization of external intervention. Presenting the transformation or suppression of a sovereign state as desirable operates within a neo-colonial legal framework, where certain states are invited to survive while others must accept condemnation or forced reconfiguration.

This trend is reinforced in Western coverage, where political actors deemed “disobedient” are automatically placed under suspicion, and their continuity depends on the granting or revocation of international legitimacy. The Iranian case clearly illustrates how Western media and political frameworks assume that “normality” requires the country’s disappearance, not its coexistence, adaptation, or redefinition on the global stage.

At this point, journalism should recover critical capacity, questioning not only the plausibility of desire but also its political and ethical legitimacy.

Beyond desire: geopolitical pluralism and the limits of prediction

Iran’s resistance to external erosion should be understood as part of a broader process of geopolitical pluralization in the region. Despite Israeli and Western pressure, Iran has established, maintained, and expanded networks of influence and cooperation in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond. Its ability to forge alliances and negotiate intertwined interests demonstrates singular adaptability, and its survival exposes the insufficiency of normative frameworks seeking its extinction.

Against the predictive mandate of Israeli political desire—replicated in media questions—reality presents a political architecture in motion, where states resist, negotiate, and reinvent themselves beyond their adversaries’ will. The 21st century has shown that multiple poles and actors challenge the designs of a single power. In this sense, the question of Iran’s existence in ten years is less an analytical window than a reiteration of desire and exclusionary politics dominating the international narrative.

Rigorous analysis requires international journalism to go beyond mere reproduction of the desires and expectations of dominant actors. Iran’s future must be explored in its sociopolitical, structural, and cultural complexity, considering internal challenges, external legitimacy, and regional aspirations.

Zakaria’s question and Cohen’s response illustrate the tendency to turn political narratives into normative mandates, and journalism into a conduit for strategic desire. This logic is problematic, as it normalizes exclusionary thinking and promotes justification for interventions and pressure campaigns with real consequences for millions.

The future is constructed in spaces of plurality, negotiation, and political imagination; turning questions into mandates closes that horizon and returns to the fatality of desire.

The interview between Fareed Zakaria and Yossi Cohen, more than an exploration of Iran’s future, stages the limits separating political desire from geopolitical reality. The Islamic Republic’s survival does not depend on its adversaries’ will or media mandates, but on its resilience, adaptability, and legitimacy in facing internal and external challenges.

This media scene confirms that major Western outlets often align more with regional power actors—and their transformative ambitions—than with rigorous critique. The challenge ahead is to develop analysis that acknowledges desire without confusing it with diagnosis; that probes contradictions without turning them into dogma; and that treats politics as process, not the fulfillment of fantasies.

Iran’s future will be shaped by complex interactions of history, power, sovereignty, and resistance. True journalism must provide space not to reinforce exclusionary mandates, but to open the door to understanding and the coexistence of possibilities.