A great day for the Jewish people. A huge day for the Iranian people.
And a beautiful day for mankind.
I saw this video on the Guardian which made me smile:
I have several things to say.
1. We should take a moment to remember the tens of thousands of brave Iranian unarmed protesters which the regime has committed organised mass murder against in the past weeks.
2. The US and Israel are showing the world what military might can do to make the world a safer place by preventing Iran, a pariah and rogue state, from making nuclear and ballistic missiles. Take note China. They definitely deserve our gratitude. They have my support.
3. I think Ayatollah Khamenei more than warranted military action, and that Trump has already exhausted so-called “negotiations”. Iran’s paramilitaries, in other countries, have gunned down or abducted thousands of civilians. They have launched tens-of-thousands of unguided missiles at civilian areas. The Islamic Republic, since its founding, has constantly threatened to destroy a much smaller country thousand-miles away, which was allied with Iran and had never attacked it. And it is enriching uranium to weapons grade, while maintaining a public “countdown clock” to their use.
4. I don’t think peaceful or grassroots uprisings can succeed against a deeply entrenched military state. The IRGC was established after the 1979 revolution specifically to protect the Islamic system and prevent internal dissent or military coups. They have an estimated force of nearly 190k active personnel. I think a full-scale invasion, foreign occupation, and forced regime change by the West in necessary. This is the exact playbook the US used during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and historically during the post-WWII occupations of Germany and Japan. If the Shah-in-exile is assisted to become the pro-tem leader of the country while a new administration is put in place via elections then Iran stands a better chance of becoming a safe, civilised state than if it’s left to whoever on the streets has the most weapons when the dust settles.
Khamenei's death is certainly worthy of celebration. In London, Iranians and Jews celebrated together, hopefully a harbinger of a future partnership in the Middle East itself.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately his death alone will not bring down the regime. The Islamic Republic has never been a one-man show like most Arab or Latin American dictatorships. It has very strong institutions. It's going to take a lot more work to vanquish it.
There have been cases where peaceful grassroots resistance has defeated oppressive authoritarian structures -- I would point to India's independence movement, the black civil rights movement in the US, and Minnesota last year. The main difference is that the Iranian theocracy has shown a willingness to use violence on a far larger scale than the oppressors in any of those cases. However, the Israel-US military campaign should be aiming to erode the theocracy's ability to inflict such violence in an organized way, even if it cannot erode its willingness to do so.
I can't see a real invasion and occupation of Iran happening. Israel doesn't have the logistical capability (Iran has almost ten times Israel's population), and the US public would rapidly turn against the huge commitment of resources involved, which would also detract from our capabilities in Europe and east Asia. There's also the risk that anything that looked like foreign rule would turn the Iranian people against us. It is hard to think of any two countries less analogous than Iran and Iraq. The modern Iraqi state was thrown together by the British from former Ottoman territories, consisting of three rival groups which had no common identity and never gelled into a coherent state or people. Iran has been a coherent and continuous nation for twenty-six centuries, surviving several foreign conquests. It's a completely different situation.
I do worry that Trump will get distracted and try to go back to negotiating, and lose focus on bringing down the regime. All this effort will be wasted if the theocracy is allowed to survive, since it will simply rebuild whatever offensive capabilities are destroyed.
But in the meantime, yes, it's worth celebrating the death of this monstrously evil man who ordered the murder of tens of thousands of his own people just so he could cling to power.
Yeah, I can't see too many people (honestly) mourning his loss. But don't count your chickens yet about regime change in Iran. And Trump's unilateral rogue willingness to go to war without Congressional authorization should give Americans (and the world, actually) pause.
ReplyDeleteToday feels like a decisive moment of resolve, where strength and moral clarity have converged in the hope of securing freedom, safety, and a more stable future for millions who have endured far too much.
ReplyDeleteWhile I am happy enough to see K leave this planet, I really have my doubts that they will leave Iran in a much better place. But I hope so.
ReplyDeleteHopefully things will get better there now. I'm not sure it will but the killing of all those protestors was not right.
ReplyDeleteWill whatever new regime is established in Iran be any better than the last one? Somehow I doubt it. And yes, the US attack on Iran is completely illegal. Trump is once again doing his own thing and to hell with what Congress (or anyone else) thinks.
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