The war in Iran rages on. The discrepancies between the IDF and the US armed forces strategies start to show: Bibi’s intentions have been clear from the start, albeit the shared hail Mary appeal to the Iranian people to rise up, issued in the first days of the war, stated by both him and the felon in chief, who has come up with too many rationales for the US involvement to keep track of. Yet we are at war and this is what war looks like.
Israel is a very small country with a population of 10 million people. The Israelis have been fighting a war of survival since 1947 and defending their sovereignty since the dawn of their independence in 1948. They have no people to spare and no room to maneuver. Every casualty is a terrible loss and every inch of land is more precious than anywhere else in the world. This is why when threatened, Israel projects its power beyond its borders and preemptive warfare is key to victory.
No matter who holds power in Israel, these facts never change; the only difference lays in the tactics, timing and execution - and that is a very important distinction but, in effect, the fundamentals of Israel’s military response to threats to its territory remain, regardless of the composition of the Knesset. This abstraction helps to understand the context of Israel’s position in this war, however I fear it is not enough to make it acceptable to the world at large, this time.
It is not about the sound logic of a small country with no room for strategic movement within its borders, but about the credibility and integrity of the two leaders allied against the Iranian regime. Both are untrustworthy criminals who cling to power to escape justice, who desperately are trying to destroy their respective judicial systems and are doing all they can to ensure electoral success at the expense of electoral integrity. Not the kind of people you trust to start a war.
Once again: Israel has a case for making sure the Iranian government is set back decades in terms of its military capability, but the US only gets to benefit from that if it declares itself clearly acting on behalf of that goal. For Israel, the benefits of this achievement are clear and immediate, for the US they are distant in time and space, making them hard to justify from a stand alone perspective. The fundamental difference between the two countries is the threat level.
To an American citizen, the Iranian regime is almost an abstract threat; the full extent of its terror both in Iran and around the world is not as obvious. To an Israeli, that threat is only too real and immediately recognized. Any significant increase in Iran’s military power poses an existential threat to Israel, not to the United States. When that happens, any Israeli government has no difficulty making its case to the people. This is not true outside Israel.
Israelis fight for their freedom every single day. They have been doing it since 1948; meanwhile the rest of the world is distracted by big things and insignificant ones, from the Cold War to the price of the gallon of gas, and since the Soviet era they have been effectively infected by the anti-Zionist virus, which is no small factor in this equation. This brings us home, to the effects of and reactions to the current war.
Living in a democracy can be a bïtch. There’s all sorts of things to consider when it comes to analyzing matters of this magnitude, the most important of which is building a case to justify whatever action is required. Because of our people’s understanding of the Middle East, and taking into account what I mentioned above, coupled with our infamous record of interventions in that part of the world, making the case for war with Iran is extremely difficult.
The diaspora people living in the US make it even harder: Israeli Americans and Iranian Americans don’t need much convincing about the need to inflict maximum damage to the Iranian regime, while those of Arab origins who align with Palestinian interests see a weakened Iranian theocracy as a threat to their aspirations, which basically are summarized by the destruction of Israel. In this scenario, the bulk of the people from these regions living in the US are themselves threatened.
This is where tribal extremism comes into play: to the uneducated, the uninvested, or the radical, stereotypes are easy. Jews want to kill Arabs, Arabs want to kill Westerners, Persians want to make Iran great again. Basically, every Jew, Arab and Persian in the United States becomes, respectively, a Kahanist, a Jihadi, or a Pahlavi hard liner. The fact there are enough sympathizers of all these radical views among each of these diasporas to reinforce this nonsense doesn’t help.
Quick note on the “make Iran great again” crowd: it is what it sounds like; diaspora Iranians who would love to have a government similar to our current one in Tehran. The Shah himself muddying the waters by declaring to be a transitional figure at the same time he is scheduled to show up at CPAC, on the same stage Viktor Orbán stood. Several Iranian voices in the diaspora frequently quote and amplify MAGA die hard Christian nationalists. Make Iran great again, indeed.
The results are not only harmful to any of the rational arguments made against the Ayatollah’s regime: they have the potential to become catastrophic as a consequence of the chaos they create. Case in point: Jake Lang. A seemingly irrelevant antisemitic scoundrel who shows up to promote the inane “Islamophobia” concept any chance he gets; which begs the question: is he really that irrelevant or is he a symptom marker? I believe he is the latter.
Leading an “anti-Islam” protest in NYC, aimed at Mamdani, he purposefully aligns himself with the Jewish community that expresses legitimate concerns about the NY city mayor’s views regarding Israel. The optics are deceiving but accepted by the uneducated masses: a neo-Nazi takes action against a figure identified as a threat by the Jewish community so Jews must really be neo-Nazis after all. If this sounds stupid to you, as it does to me, it’s because you know what Palestine is.
The Jake Lang case study is but a small example of the confusion that is being created, by design, around the war in Iran. Those praising TFG for his role in this war, especially those of Jewish and Persian origins, should take notice it was presented to the military as a holy war, falling a little short of calling it a Crusade. If that doesn’t give you pause I don’t know what will. The Iranian people will be lost in a conflict that barely used it as an excuse. That is the tragedy.
The reality is, in spite of the legitimacy of the Iranian diaspora’s aspirations, they will live to fight another day while many in Iran will not, and those who manage to survive the war they apparently can’t take advantage of, and the ongoing brutal crackdown of their fanatical regime, will continue to suffer the ineptitude of a global community that will gladly throw them under the bus for $2 a gallon of gas. There’s no moral clarity here.
Iran deserves to be free, but all the wrong people are in charge. How ironic is it the best chance for the Iranians to free themselves happened as a result of the actions of people who couldn’t care less about them. There are rumors of dissent among the ranks of the Iranian regular military and, at this point, the hope of a civil war between them and the IRGC seems like the Iranians best chance. A long shot, a terrible prospect, the result of 47 years of various forms of appeasement.
Diplomacy may still have a part in this play, but only when this act is over. And not a soul in this planet knows how it will end; not even the very few among us who know exactly why it really started. Will Iran be free of its regime? Will a more radical one emerge? No one really knows. The reality is most of us can only try to change the play writers, so the next act can at least look rational, because right now it’s just bat shit crazy. The theater of the absurd.
