So, the United States has attacked Iran. Some held it for impossible, others are not surprised at all. To be precise, it was not merely that United States, but the United States in cahoots with Israel that carried out the assult. Talk of the impending war with Iran has been present in the media for years, so the recent events are merely a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Two most spectacular events stand out: the intentional killing of Al Khamenei, the top spiritual leader of Shiite Muslims, and the (unintentional?) destruction of a school, where approximately 150 schoolgirls were killed. These two events are potent enough to enrage Iranians, and to upset the Muslim world.
Iran is striking back. How much the retaliation is effective is hard to say since the Western media will not report such data.
Picture to yourself a similar event launched by Russia… Yes, there would be a deafening howl across the Western world, while Putin would be called another Hitler. As it is, the American president justifies the assault on Iran, saying, that the United States had to defend itself because it felt threatened by Tehran… Weird. When Russia says it feels threatened by Western military presence in Ukraine, then such a claim is dismissed as unfounded; when, however, it is the United States that claims to be threatened by Iran, a country located thousands of miles away from America, then such a claim is legitimate.
One might tend to think that even the blind can see the hypocrisy, but rest assured: there are many who do not see it. As the saying goes: no one is as blind as the one who won’t see.
Why did the United States attack Iran? The answers are many. One is that Iran posed a threat to Israel, America’s most important and influential ally. Another is that that West wants to lay hold on Iranian oil and gas reserves. Still some others hold forth that it is the almost sixty-million strong Christian-Zionist community in America that did all in its power to necessitate the war. Christian Zionists identify more with Judaism than with Christianity, and since some of their members are the influential politicians and billionaires, they have much political leverage. President Donald Trump is believed to share the religious convictions of the Christian Zionists. After all, his daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism after she had married a Jewish man.
Sure enough, it is not only money that makes politicians act. Ideologies and religions are equally potent. The medieval Crusaders were motivated by religious principles; Montezuma, the ruler of the Aztec state in Mexico, rather than resisting the Spanish incursion, gave in to them, being convinced that the Spaniards were God’s messengers. American Christian Zionists are doing the same. Their loyalties lie with the state of Israel in the first place. Split loyalties is a phenomenon testified by history many a time. Religious minorities very often did not feel the ethnic ties with their compatriots. Rather, they felt and acted in unison with other ethnicities against their own so long as the other ethnicity shared the same creed. The same was true of ideologies.
Now what was the purpose of killing Ayatollah Al Khamenei? This act can only stiffen Iran’s resistance. The murder of a spiritual – religious – leader sets the war in a different dimension. Add to this the murder of the 150 schoolgirls: Iranians of whatever ethnicity will rather rally around the government than betray it. While the school event might be understood as a miscalculation, the killing of the Ayatollah was beyond a shadow of a doubt purposeful.
Despite what the Americans and the Israelis had expected, Iran has not disintegrated nor has it collapsed. Iranian did not take to the streets, so regime change is nowhere in sight. What can be envisaged is a protracted war. Washington had not reckoned with it, or did it?
