The war that is being waged against Iran cannot be described as “unprovoked.” Since reaching power in 1979, the theocratic regime has been doing its considerable best to persuade its many enemies that if they failed to remove it, they would have good reason to regret their forbearance. They got away with this because hardly anyone in the West – or, for that matter, in Russia and China – took their rhetoric or their religious beliefs seriously. If many had, the ayatollahs would surely have been swept aside decades ago. Instead, it was widely assumed that as time went by they would forget about all that apocalyptic Shiite stuff and get down to the serious business of “modernising” the economy and, with it, the society they ruled. Unfortunately for millions of people, they did not.
For fanatics who imagine they are fighting a holy war against the legions of darkness, warning them that, if they go too far, they would face destruction is not a deterrent. On the contrary, as the late historian Bernard Lewis often pointed out, it is an inducement. Hard as it may be for those raised in other traditions to understand, in Iran and neighbouring countries there are plenty of people who yearn for martyrdom and are more than willing to die for their faith. There is certainly no shortage in the Middle East or the Islamic diaspora of suicide bombers who, before blowing themselves and anyone near them up, relish the thought that they will be rewarded in heaven for their services to the Jihadist cause.
To justify the decision to subject Iran to an aerial onslaught, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu stress the need to prevent the ayatollahs from acquiring a nuclear arsenal which, given their way of thinking, they would be more than likely to use in order to put an end to the existence of the world’s only Jewish State.
For them, annihilating Israel – the “little Satan” – for the crime of building a thriving society in territory that for many years had been under the sway of Muslims, is a priority, but their long-term ambitions go much further. They have never made a secret of their willingness to take on the “Great Satan,” the United States – their favourite slogan has long been “death to America”.
Because Netanyahu has been warning for several decades about the dangers posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there are many who assume he was just making it up for political reasons, but it would seem that – despite the damage done last year to their installations by Israel and the US – headway towards this goal has continued to be made. The other day, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the UN’s Atomic Energy Agency, stressed that Iran is the only non-nuclear power to have enriched uranium to 60 percent, which in his view is “playing with fire.” To put it another way, Trump and Netanyahu are far from being the only people to fear that what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as a band of “lunatics” were on the brink of acquiring the means to wreak havoc on an almost inconceivable scale.
Though few would disagree that a “diplomatic solution” to the Iranian problem would be far better than one reached at gunpoint, efforts to persuade the leaders of the regime that it would be in their interest to call a genuine halt to their nuclear programme were always bound to fail. Unlike other similarly ruthless totalitarians who want to remain alive so they can see whatever they manage to bring about, they think in eschatological terms. The refusal to recognise this by people who cling to the belief that religious fanaticism belongs to the past is what allowed them to survive almost unscathed until barely a week ago, but the cost not just to Iran but to the entire region and even further afield of getting rid of them could be much higher than the optimists in Washington are telling themselves.
It is almost certainly true that, given a choice between democracy and a clerical dictatorship, a large majority of Iranians would much prefer the former. The huge public demonstrations that last year were put down with bloodthirsty violence by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij militia and Jihadists imported from neighbouring countries encouraged Trump to such an extent that he told protestors that “help is on its way.” There can be little doubt that accusations that he was betraying them by calling on them to rise up against their oppressors and then sitting on his hands weighed heavily on his mind before he decided to take action.
Nonetheless, hopes that somehow the Iranian people could take charge of their own destiny almost overnight remain far-fetched. Low-ranking regime loyalists – who even if they do not share the ayatollahs’ religious beliefs, are certain to fight because they know their lives are at stake – are far better-armed than those seeking to overthrow them and bring them to justice. It would appear that, with the top layers of the regime already in disarray, power is falling into the hands of local bosses who are responsible for the firing of salvoes of missiles at neighbouring countries and thereby inviting them to strike back which, for a regime which is getting battered, makes little sense.
Trump has let it be known that he and those surrounding him have no interest in pinning their hopes on the pretender to the Iranian throne, Reza Pahlavi, who enjoys a measure of support not only among exiles but also in the country itself, but the alternatives look even less promising. There is no well-organised opposition party waiting to take over, as might have been the case in Venezuela, and finding an ayatollah who would be willing to play the role of interim leader Delcy Rodríguez and take orders from Washington looks like a pipe dream.
There are many Iranians who would be fully capable of governing their country in a civilised fashion, but for them to get into a position to do so would probably take a revolution as complete, and possibly as violent, as the one that was carried out by the ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor as supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. However, for this scenario to come about, those who favour democracy would have to be liberally supplied with arms and receive a great deal of material support from abroad. “Boots on the ground”? For understandable reasons, Trump would like to see everything done from the air so he could be hailed as a liberator whose forces suffered hardly any casualties, but the world being the place it is, this is most unlikely to happen.
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