Individual presentation:
• Brian D’Agostino:
Profiteers and Sick Leaders: Understanding the Iran War
(60 min)

Abstract:

On 28 February 2026, Israel and the United States launched an aerial attack on Iran, assassinating the country’s Supreme Leader and other senior leadership. The attack set in motion a still ongoing war that has killed and maimed thousands and devastated the Middle East, including oil infrastructure and US military bases. With Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, effects on the world economy are expected to be catastrophic and long-lasting. The Trump Administration has offered multiple rationales for the attack, including the false claim that Iran was on the brink of attaining nuclear weapons. How should psychohistorians understand this war? My explanation focuses on psychopathological leaders interacting with a trillion-dollar permanent war economy and military bureaucracies.

Keywords: geopolitical violence, Iran war, leadership psychopathology, military bureaucracy, nuclear threat narratives, permanent war economy, psychohistory, Strait of Hormuz

Short Bio:

Brian D’Agostino, Ph.D. is a political scientist and a past president of the International Psychohistorical Association.  He is the author of peer-reviewed research in political psychology, numerous popular and scholarly articles on psychohistory and public affairs, and of The Middle Class Fights Back: How Progressive Movements Can Restore Democracy in America (Praeger, 2012). Visit his website at: https://bdagostino.com/