The US struck Iran not because of regional politics or alliance obligations - but because American policymakers are haunted by a specific nightmare: a nuclear weapon loaded onto a cargo ship, sailing into New York Harbor under a foreign flag, and detonating. George Friedman, founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, laid out this scenario as the core driver behind Washington's decision to attack.

As "Hvylya" reports, Friedman shared his analysis on the Talking Geopolitics podcast hosted by Christian Smith, recorded shortly after the joint US-Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior Iranian officials.

"Now imagine a nuclear 9/11," Friedman said. "A situation where a nuclear weapon is loaded on a ship flying a foreign flag, a French flag or a Polish flag or something, sailing into New York Harbor and detonating." He stressed that the groups capable of carrying out such an attack - Al Qaeda remnants, Hezbollah, and other Islamist militias - operate in Iran and receive Iranian support.

Friedman drew a sharp distinction between Iran and North Korea. Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal serves as a defensive deterrent - a guarantee against invasion. Iran's case is fundamentally different. "The Islamic forces that are deployed there did 9/11," he said. The memory of September 11 reshaped how American policymakers assess threats from the Islamic world. A nuclear-armed Iran, in their calculus, would not simply deter - it could enable an attack of civilizational proportions.

This fear, Friedman argued, explains why Washington refused to accept any compromise. Iran offered to scale down its program, keep it for "medical research," but the US demanded total elimination. "We didn't trust them. We didn't trust them for on-site inspection," Friedman said. Unlike nuclear Russia, China, or North Korea, a nuclear Iran was seen as a country that might actually use the weapon - not through an ICBM, but through the proxy networks it has spent decades building.

Friedman acknowledged he has "no evidence that this was on Trump's mind" specifically, but added bluntly: "It should have been." He noted that this scenario has never been publicly discussed by officials, but comes up constantly in private conversations with policymakers. "I don't think anybody wanted to have that discussed publicly," he said.

Also read: "The Clock Is Ticking": Why the U.S. and Israel May Lose the War of Attrition Against Iran