British author and politician Enoch Powell said, “History is littered with wars that everyone knew would never happen.”
A full-scale conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel once seemed unlikely. But last month, the long shadow war between the two countries came to light with an unprecedented series of drone and missile attacks, with enough advanced technology, paramilitary forces, and The fear of fighting with mutual hostility increased. The crisis in the Middle East will collapse the world economy and involve the United States and other major powers.
It appears that both sides are currently on suspension, but how long will it last? As long as Iran is ruled by an Islamist government that prioritizes revolutionary ideology over national interests, both countries will never know peace and the Middle East will never know meaningful stability.
Iran and Israel are not natural adversaries. In contrast to other modern conflicts (between Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan), Iran and Israel do not have bilateral land or resource disputes. The national strengths of both countries, Iran being an energy superpower and Israel being a technological innovator, are complementary rather than competitive. The countries also have a historical affinity that dates back more than 2,500 years to when the Persian King Cyrus the Great liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity. After its founding in 1948, Iran became the second Islamic state to recognize Israel, after Turkey.
Their modern-day hostilities are best understood through an ideological rather than a geopolitical lens. It began with the rise of Ruhollah Khomeini, the arbitrary Shiite cleric who led the 1979 revolution that transformed Iran from a US-allied monarchy into an anti-American theocracy. Khomeini’s 1970 treatise, “Islamic Government,” which served as the basis for the constitution that governs the Islamic Republic, is filled with harsh language and threats against “wretched” and “demonic” Jews. Then, as now, anti-Semitism often lurked beneath the surface of anti-imperialism.
“We must protest and make our people aware that Jews and their foreign supporters oppose the very foundations of Islam and seek to establish Jewish domination around the world,” Khomeini said. wrote. “Because they are a cunning and resourceful group of people, I believe that one day, God forbid, they will accomplish their purpose and that the indifference shown by some of us will one day bring the Jews to my side. I’m worried that I’ll allow them to control me.”
In the same manifesto, Mr. Khomeini casually advocates what, in modern parlance, is best understood as ethnic cleansing. “Islam has eradicated numerous groups that bring corruption and mischief to human society,” he wrote. He went on to give the example of the “troublesome” Jewish tribe in Medina, which he said was “eliminated” by the Prophet Muhammad.
Among the Iranian revolutionaries and Western progressives who supported Mr. Khomeini in 1979, some compared him to Mohandas K. Gandhi, but few took the trouble to scrutinize his vision for Iran. Ta. Upon his rise to power, he built his newfound theocracy on three ideological pillars: the death of America, the death of Israel, and the subjugation of women.
More than 40 years later, the worldview of Iran’s current rulers has evolved little. Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s 85-year-old successor and now one of the world’s longest-serving dictators, has condemned Zionism in virtually every speech and criticized Hamas’s “epic” Oct. 7 attack. He was one of the only world leaders to publicly praise him. About Israel. In 2020, Ayatollah Khamenei said: “We will support and support any group that opposes and fights against the Zionist regime in any country.”
As Khamenei’s words make clear, the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the few governments in the world more intent on abolishing other countries than developing its own. “Death to Israel” is the regime’s cry, not “Long live Iran.”
Khamenei’s government backs up this rhetoric with action. Iran has spent tens of billions of dollars arming, training, and financing proxy militias in five failed states: Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Iraq, and Yemen. Together these groups make up the so-called Axis of Resistance against America and Israel. Although these groups pledge to pursue justice for the Palestinian people, they are deeply involved in corruption and oppression in their own societies, including illegal drug trafficking and piracy.
Hostility toward Israel is a useful tool for Shiite-majority Persian Iran to compete for leadership in the Sunni-majority Arab Middle East. But that should not be confused with concern for the well-being of Palestinians. In contrast to American, European, and Arab governments, which fund Palestinian human welfare efforts, Iran pours hundreds of millions of dollars into arming and financing Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. . Iran’s goal is not to create Palestine, but to destroy Israel.
But as committed as the Islamic Republic is to its ideology, it is even more committed to maintaining power. German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt once said: “The most radical revolutionaries will become conservatives the day after the revolution.” As Israel’s cautious response to the recent military attack on Iran demonstrated, full-scale war and existential economic pressures When faced with the possibility of
After decades of living under an economically bankrupt and socially repressive police state, Iranians realize that the biggest obstacle between them and a normal life is not America or Israel, but their own. We realized a long time ago that our leadership is our own. In a 2021 poll conducted in Europe, only about one in five Iranians supported their government’s support for Hamas and the “Death to Israel” slogan. Few countries have the combination of rich natural resources, human capital, geographic size, and ancient history like Iran. This wide gap between Iran’s potential and the reality of its people is one reason why the country has experienced numerous mass uprisings over the past two decades.
For the past two decades, Iran’s Axis of Resistance has given more power to Israeli right-wing politicians than to Palestinians. The threat of a Holocaust-denying Iranian regime with regional and nuclear ambitions has stoked Israeli anxiety, diverted attention from Palestinian suffering, and facilitated normalization agreements between Israeli and Arab governments that also fear Iran. In fact, Iran and its proxies were such a useful adversary that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helped prop up Hamas’ rule in Gaza until the deadly attack on October 7.
“The dream of Israeli leaders is to one day restore normal relations with the Iranian government,” retired Israeli General Amos Yadlin told me recently.
Meanwhile, the dream of Iran’s Islamist leaders is to end Israel’s existence. The conflict between Israel and Iran was a war of necessity, but the conflict between Iran and Israel was also a war of choice. It will not end until Iran has a leader who puts the interests of Iranians ahead of the destruction of Israel.
