Iranian war in my eyes

The war with Iran continues. War is (always) cruel, brutal, costly, tragic for the victims and their families, unpredictable for strategists (all sides have a surprisingly 100% certainty of surprising the opponent and of the opponent acting in ways not foreseen in their plans). Wars can be necessary, although rarely, and they are always destructive. This one is too. Of course, aside from everything I have written, and which is a truism, it is a very media-driven war. I am not a military expert or a military strategist, nor am I a historian specializing in recent Iranian history, although I know it fairly well, but still as an amateur. All the experts and specialists mentioned have been speaking publicly for a month, taking varied positions; one can read what they say (and should, even if one disagrees with a given person, it always adds something to the picture).

I would like to focus on something else in today's post.

I love Israel. And a disclaimer: I am writing as an outsider, I am not Israeli, I do not live in Israel, although I know it well and have many close friends there. Basically, I do not mix my private life with my blog, but here I had to make such a disclaimer. Because despite clear sympathies, I am not inside the current events, I look at them from the outside, and that always means a slightly different perspective. But such a perspective have (I will selfishly say: fortunately) most of us, because even if we have in the Middle East the people most dear to us and a clear opinion on some matters (let alone when that is not the case), most of us do not live in and are not located in the area that is the theater of the current military actions.

Getting back to the point: I love Israel (not to be confused with support for certain political currents or politicians in Israel, which often evoke very different emotions) and I care about its security and prosperity. But I also admire, deeply sympathize with, and feel compassion for the society of Iran, obviously the part that opposes the ideology of the ayatollahs, which is a very significant portion of the nearly 100-million-strong population. I also wish peace, prosperity, and the ability to manage their affairs peacefully to all the inhabitants of the Middle East who do not directly resort to violence and terror against the Other (in Kapuściński's understanding). A somewhat aged and non-naive idealism, but idealism is always needed. It can set or correct direction and goals if it is well-used and not being the only tool people rely on. Excess is harmful, but deficiency can lead to equally bad or worse places.

And with all my conceptual apparatus, I look at the ongoing war. I listen to the commentary: sometimes very stupid, hateful, and anti-Semitic, sometimes wise, surprising, revealing another perspective. I see suffering, uncertainty, resentment, anger, fatigue, sadness. In millions of people frustrated by what is happening. Of course, on different levels. Different is the stress of a person fleeing with a small child to a shelter several times during the night, or trying to get there on crutches, with a walker, with a white cane. Different is the stress of a person who fears that the next attack might mean the death of a loved one, the loss of a home just after paying off a mortgage for 30 years, the burning of an orchard or garden, the death of a herd of sheep they raise. Different is the stress of a specialized firefighter looking at a refinery, an oil or gas field, or a gas installation, including in countries that are neither formally nor (so far) actually participants in the war, but are targets of attacks. Different is the stress of a tanker captain, who is responsible for his ship and crew, while the route he navigates may be closed, shelled, mined, etc. And the fear of a Europeans or Americans living in peace (for now?), who look at energy prices and wonder how to finish renovations, pay for heating, go on a planned trip, or cover the cost of a service they agreed to perform three months ago, from which they and their family make a living, when suddenly it turns out that instead of the expected profit there is a growing list of costs, is different. But everywhere frustration, anxiety, fear, anger, sometimes terror, repeats itself. And the search for someone to blame begins (or rather, is in full swing).

In today's Western world, even when someone dies in an accident or from an illness, we look for someone to blame. This trend is only increasing, as if we need to find fault to believe that we are truly fragile, temporary, mortal. And it doesn’t even require a drunk driver or an incompetent doctor or official. There always has to be a 'guilty' party. All the more so when what is happening goes far beyond the unpleasant but somehow expected facts of life and actually concerns a full-blown war, the start of which was decided by someone. And here we come to what I wanted to share today. This is my very personal reflection, very banal, but I still wanted to say it out loud.

Decisions regarding this war were made by people.

By the Iranian authorities, who for 50 years have made the destruction of Israel a state doctrine (in Palestine Square in Tehran, a clock measuring the time until the destruction of Israel has been standing for 15 years, and this is the most common rhetoric of the ayatollahs), who armed the country to the teeth and created militias such as the Houthis or Hezbollah at the expense of a very low standard of living for the country's citizens, which could lead lives similar to Kuwaitis or Qataris (also not democratic countries) if the ayatollahs cared about Iranians and developing the country.

By the Israeli authorities, who, although they perfectly diagnosed the threat and could not ignore it, intertwined these obvious reasons with other, decidedly more personal, ideological ones, arising from greed or personal fear of the decision-makers, for whose decisions others pay. Yes, most Israelis support the war with Iran, because when for 50 years one hears someone declare that the main goal of the state they govern is to destroy your country and kill you, and sees how this scenario is consistently carried out, defense is a natural reaction, and the unhealed and still fresh wounds of October 7 reinforce this very strongly, but this understanding of the war does not translate into support for the way it is conducted or for individual decisions, nor for the people who made them for reasons that are not always, to put it mildly, noble.

By the American authorities, whose bluster and wishful thinking (I am trying to be merciful) have remained for over a year directly proportional to their ignorance, lack of preparation, and anticipation of subsequent quarrels.  

By the authorities of Russia and China treating Iran the way the ayatollahs treated part of the Yemenis, as perfect actors for a proxy war with the USA and weakening the United States on the way to Taiwan, hegemony, and the division of influence in the world.

By the authorities of the Sunni Arab countries of the Middle East, who, wanting to maintain satrapies, influence, and 'bread and circuses' (for the people deprived of any real influence on the way power is exercised), fueled anti-Israeli street rhetoric, armed Hamas, and gave shelter to its leaders, while at the same time playing 'mediators' of the conflict. They refused to accept Palestinians or provide them with a path to integration, simultaneously maintaining and exploiting grotesque refugee camps, trying to constantly sit on the fence and—even when they had no real power—applying the principle of divide et impera.

By the authorities of European countries, who, chasing after the position of secular saints saving the world from climate change, after the role of bearded moralists from fairy tales, and after quite real profits of power, often showed extreme bias, demonized Israel (while at the same time cooperating with it militarily and in intelligence, because it has a lot to offer) and turned a blind eye to the complete disregard for human rights by Sharia countries, if only it was profitable (then FIFA and UEFA happily did not notice who and how was building football infrastructure in 50-degree heat, and at what cost).

These authorities were sometimes elected, sometimes not. But they represented (often without any mandate or with a questionable one) people who also did not want to see their own complicity and preferred to point fingers. One of the people closest to me in the world, looking at such a Gordian knot, says: "We should have evolved from bonobos, not from the far more aggressive African chimpanzee." Yes, we should have, but we cannot change that now.

Human beings are aggressive animals, always acting expansively (sometimes it is Columbus's expedition, da Gama, a space voyage, landing on the moon, and sometimes war). But I would terribly like us never to stop seeing ourselves in others.

Wars are sometimes necessary. Unfortunately. And in my opinion, the one with Iran probably was. That doesn’t mean that it is/was necessary now, in this form, and fought in this way. Wars consume people’s possessions, which they have worked for and saved, they consume nature, which people there (but also the rest of us) often want to protect and preserve, they consume children (on all sides), they consume soldiers, who are someone’s children, siblings, partners, sometimes parents. If a war is considered necessary in our supposedly democratic and value-based world, the minimum the authorities must ensure is limiting its worst effects, having a plan B, C, D, E, and perhaps even F. Anticipating that the opponent will not play according to our wishes and how to react to that, assumptions (realistic) about where the war should lead us and how it should end.

Do I think a war with Iran is necessary? Yes. And it is already very much overdue. If in the 1990s, when China was still just the factory of the world, and Russia, the successor of Khomeini's sponsor, was at a historically low point, and the USA at a historically high point, an attempt had been made to change the regime of the ayatollahs, it would probably have turned out better. Provided common sense was maintained. Iran was not and probably will not be a democracy in the Western style (which is changing anyway). Iranians have the right to govern themselves as they wish. Iran should not threaten Israel with extermination and pursue it, try to colonize Lebanon and Iraq (unfortunately successfully), try to dominate the Middle East, wage proxy wars with Saudi Arabia at the expense of Yemen, etc. And most Iranians support such assumptions. Preparing for war requires impeccable intelligence, assumptions about what and how we want to achieve, how to prevent the greatest losses and threats, how to limit costs, and with whom to cooperate. After World War II and the denazification process, Germany was governed by Germans, sometimes with an unseemly record, but that allowed progress to continue. It was similar (even more so) in Japan. Certainly, within Iran's apparatus there are factions with which a coup could be carried out. The age-old quid pro quo, sometimes unpleasant, but allowing the war to end quickly, achieving the set (realistic) goals, saving Iranians, shielding the Middle East, protecting ourselves. Here, such preparations are not visible. The Shah, who has been in exile for 50 years and deprived of his own political base, is not the answer. Emotions of 'let's hit them' are even less so. If this is to be the next Afghanistan, it will lead nowhere (aside from tragedy).

Such a war had to be prepared for half a year, or a year. In detail. To fight it for a week. Not to prepare it for a week, to fight - well exactly, how long? And at what cost?

How Iranian regime, trying to go after Israel devastated Lebanon

 As I wrote in the third part of the story about Arafat and the PLO Arafat played a huge role in unleashing and shaping the course of the civil war in Lebanon. Here's a few words about the political system of Lebanon, necessary to understand what was happening at the moment the civil war broke out and afterward, and which still affects the current situation in the Middle East. This former French colony gained independence in 1943, taking advantage of France's problems. In the National Pact of that year (which in this respect served the role of a constitutional power-sharing agreement), attempting to prevent the escalation of religious conflicts, the presidency was reserved for a Maronite Christian, the prime minister's position for a Sunni Muslim, and the role of parliamentary speaker for a Shia Muslim. In this way, it attempted to prevent a political (and perhaps also a real and bloody) war among the followers of the three main religions of Lebanon. This division served its purpose for many years. In the 1960s, Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East, and the country, not without problems, but which country is free from them, was developing in peace.

The violation of interfaith balance, the enormous influence of Syria and the USSR (in Lebanon, often operating through Syria) contributed to the disruption of this fragile balance, which at the end - as I described - was destroyed by the large influx of Sunni and revolutionary-minded supporters of Arafat lead by Arafat himself. Arafat was supported by the USSR (his successor Abbas earned a doctorate in Moscow in the 1960s writing thesis on the links between Zionism and Nazism - that idea was a communist construct, and is still frequently repeated by various activists today). The Lebanese system, already heavily weakened by this religious-ideological burden, could not bear more, and the country slid into a long (1975-1990) civil war.

During the course of the war, something happened that has affected and continues to affect Lebanon, the history of the war, the state system, and brought about its downfall. Its influence continues to this day. The Khomeini Revolution. Without it, the civil war would probably have lasted shorter, the Israeli intervention in the war in Lebanon probably would not have occurred, or at the very least, it would have been much shorter and less significant, and today's Lebanon would have looked differently (I dare say, much better).

I have already written about the linguistic, ethnic, and above all religious divisions between Iran and the Arab countries of the Middle East. Lebanon, with its very delicate religious-political division, and at the same time a small country with an ongoing civil war, was perceived by Khomeini's Iran as a gateway to the Arab Middle East and to attacks on Israel.

In 1981, even before Israel's invasion in 1982 (contrary to what the ayatollahs and Hezbollah itself had insisted), Iran funded Hezbollah, thus strengthening the Shiites in Lebanon. The Party of God (as the name Hezbollah is translates), in addition to terrorist activities (always the most important and costly), was indeed involved in supporting the Shiite minority in Lebanon, running schools, hospitals, and lending institutions. This earned it the gratitude of the Shiite citizens of Lebanon, who were indeed neglected (and certainly perceived themselves as such) by the state.

Hezbollah took part in the war with Israel during the first IDF intervention in Lebanon (in response to cross-border shelling of towns and settlements in Israel by Arafat's PLO, and not because of any dominant conflict with the Lebanese authorities; the IDF aimed to ensure the safety of Israelis in Israel).

Soon, many countries designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. However, some did so only with regard to the military, not the political, wing of the organization. This was essentially a nod to Iran, and often simply a gesture of hostility toward Israel, since Hezbollah leaders themselves - neither Naim Qassem nor Sheikh Nasrallah - recognized any such division and repeatedly expressed this publicly. (“in Lebanon there is one Hezbollah, named Hezbollah. We don’t have a military wing and a political wing. We don’t have Hezbollah and the Party of Resistance, because Hezbollah is a political party, a resistance party, and the party of striving in the path of God Almighty and service of the human being. This, in short, is Hezbollah.” Naim Qassem in 2012).

Iran has used its tool - Hezbollah - skillfully, bringing about political turmoil and revolts in Lebanon's Shiite Amal Party and sending more than 1,000 revolutionary guards to the Beqaa Valley to consolidate its terrorist organization. Ayatollahs used Hezbollah not only to fight Israel, but also to attack the Shah's supporters in the 1980s in Europe and to attack France during the Iran-Iraq war, when France sided with Iraq. Iran has been funding and arming Hezbollah all along, but the organization has also created an underground state in Lebanon capable of, at least partially, circumventing U.S. sanctions.

Hezbollah, which fought wars with Israel in the 1980s, in 2006, in 2024 (when it joined the war after a Hamas's attack) and is currently at war with Israel, is also an enemy of the State of Lebanon. Its founding document, the so-called 1982 Open Letter, published in 1985, directly calls the secular constitutional republic that Lebanon was 'product of an arrogance so unjust that no reform or modification can remedy it.' Nevertheless, exhausted by the civil war, fighting against the Syrian intervention, and divided, Lebanon was not able to resist Hezbollah, which did whatever it wanted there, being de facto an occupier of Lebanon together with Syria. The Lebanese army was weaker than Hezbollah, at least until 2024. After Hezbollah's defeat in the war against Israel in 2024, the situation changed somewhat, and the Lebanese government to some extent began conducting military operations against Hezbollah. A few days ago, the Lebanese government announced that all captured Revolutionary Guards would be deported to Iran or imprisoned.

Although periodically, after the civil war, Hezbollah pretended to accept the Lebanese system, it never abandoned the plan to turn Lebanon into a Shiite religious state modeled after Iran. Of course, almost all Lebanese citizens who were not Shiites, and some of those who were Shiites, did not agree with such a plan.

Hezbollah, alongside the PLO, has enormous merit in bringing Lebanon, once a thriving country, to collapse and near bankruptcy. It bears great responsibility for economic deficiencies, power and water shortages, and chaos in the country. It is responsible for the huge explosion that significantly destroyed Beirut in August 2020, although this time it was not a deliberate attack, but the result of careless storage of large amounts of ammonium nitrate. More than 200 people died at that time, nearly 8,000 were injured, and about 250,000-300,000 lost their homes.

When I read in the press that Israel, while fighting Hezbollah, is attacking Lebanon (or fighting Lebanon), I can only sigh at the easy propaganda of the Western media. The Lebanese government would gladly get rid of Hezbollah (just as it once, with effort, got rid of the PLO at the end of the 1980s and – later – its main occupier from the time of the civil war – Syria).

Hezbollah, indeed, has seized a significant part of the Lebanese government's prerogatives, but it did so like a cancerous tumor – destroying the state and bringing it to the brink of collapse, which none of the apologists of the Iranian regime (not to be confused with Iran) and fierce critics of every Israeli move, just because it is Israeli, seem to remember.

And so the Iranian bloody and criminal regime, striving for expansion and the destruction of Israel, helped destroy Lebanon (a fact barely noticeable), and in the West almost no one saw it.

Beirut harbor after explosion in Hezbollah's warehouse.

We are Sunni Jewish state :)

 Many years ago, before the current war, before October 7, before the upheavals in my life, and even before Covid (do you remember those beautiful times?), I attended a very interesting meeting with an Israeli journalist, reporter, and commentator, organized as part of the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow.

The meeting concerned, among other things, the geopolitical situation, Israeli politics, and its possible consequences. The host of the meeting spoke, among other things, about the differences in attitudes toward military service in the West Bank among fresh olim (immigrants to Israel) from different countries. Depending on the thought patterns and experiences acquired before immigration, the same duties, orders, and situations provoked extremely different reflections and reactions.

One of the questions that came from the audience was whether, in the long run, Israel is capable of reconciling its deeply humanistic approach to all minorities, its commitment to individual rights, openness, and the enormous, enormous energy of life with the necessity of ensuring the population's security, suppressing terrorism, and counteracting it. And how military service under these conditions affects the attitudes and behaviors of the very young soldiers who are still mostly so (olim are somewhat of an exception here).

The speaker reflected on this difficult question and admitted that the matter is difficult, raises concerns, and is fervently discussed in certain circles. Indeed, for a state built on leftist ideals, still optimistically looking at relations with its neighbors, these issues were difficult to balance. Nevertheless, as he concluded in a lighter tone, there is hope, because 'recently we discovered that we are a Jewish Sunni state in the Middle East.'

That was 8 years ago. The world has changed incredibly (and not for the better, in my humble opinion). Nevertheless, looking today at the tragic war with Iran I think about these words.

Iran has tried not only to destroy Israel since the beginning of the Ayatollahs' republic (I once wrote about the excellent relations between the two countries before the revolution). Israel was Iran's main target, but closely behind it was the desire for hegemony in the Middle East. Iran is a huge, populous, and ambitious country (sometimes in a criminal or tragic way, yet ambitious) and the Ayatollahs definitely wanted to be the main force in the region. Nevertheless, all the differences with most Arab countries played against them. Religious divisions (Shiite Iran versus Sunni majority of the Gulf states), linguistic (Persian versus Arabic), ethnic (Persians versus Arabs), and the not necessarily welcome political ambitions of Iran were a great obstacle. In the Ayatollahs' plan, a common enemy (Israel) and a shared grievance (emphasized grievance of the Palestinians) were supposed to unite. Undoubtedly, during the period of the revolution's victory in Iran, this worked, at least roughly speaking. Nevertheless, the revolution in Iran was preserved like an old photograph, and while Khomeini was a revolutionary, Khamenei was in many ways was the custodian of the revolution.

Khomeini and Arafat had a lot in common (support from the KGB and Moscow, political role in a bipolar world, partially similar goals). Khamenei had much less in common with various leaders, both of states and terrorist groups, in the Middle East.

Israeli diplomacy has for years tried to get closer to its Arab neighbors. Not without success. With the end of Nasser's era and the dominance of pan-Arabism, the chances increased. Peace with Egypt in the 1970s and with Jordan in the 1990s greatly improved the situation. In 2023, the signing of the Abraham Accords with Saudi Arabia was close.

This was perceived as a great threat by Iran – its militias did everything they could to torpedo such a move, as well as by Hamas. Iran, after creating and arming Hezbollah, vassalizing Lebanon, largely colonizing Iraq, and winning a proxy war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, could not afford normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. It could not, and neither could Hamas, hence the attack on October 7 (in the following week, the Abraham Accords were supposed to be finalized).

Surely both Hamas and Iran thought that 2023 would be a blow to Israel that would bring them closer to 'pushing the Jews into the sea.' The blow was cruel. The largest, bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the world's lack of compassion, accusations of genocide even before the war in Gaza began. The first major clash with Iran in 2025. It seemed that hopes for an alliance had at least greatly faded.

Today, when Iran is sending missiles not only at civilian targets in Israel (including apparently Jerusalem, so important to Muslims), but also at the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, it may turn out that Iran's desire to destroy Israel was the best catalyst for Israel's understanding with its neighbors.

A Jewish Sunni state?

Why nothing was done before? WHY? (part 2)

 The war is ongoing. Terrible, because every war, even a necessary one, is terrible. Is this a necessary war? And did it really start yesterday? Could it have been prevented? Could the world, which today began a traditional session of condemnation, have done something and did it want to do something?

In my opinion, the answer to these questions is: it could, but it definitely did not want to. Where do such (my) conclusions come from?

Here is a continuation of the analysis that began yesterday in the heat of the moment.

Chapter III What was the attitude of the Iranian regime towards Israel since 1980 (from the beginning).

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran's Islamic regime has openly made the elimination of the State of Israel a top priority and has made it a central element of its ideology. The U.S. appeared in this ideology as the "Great Satan" and Israel as the "Little Satan."

September 9, 2015 Khamenei declared that Israel would be eliminated within 25 years. In June 2017, in Palestine Square in Tehran, the ayatollahs set a clock to count down the maximum of 25 (then less) years until the annihilation of Israel.

In 2018, Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami said that "there is no other way but to throw [the Israelis] into the sea," and in 2020, the same general urged the Israelis to "take a good look at the Mediterranean, which will be their final dwelling." In his speech, he added that "our Hezbollah is enough to destroy this political, cancerous tumor [Israel]." thus admitting (as if anyone had any doubts) that Hezbollah is an Iranian creation and that its mission is to destroy Israel.

In 2019, Majlis member Mohammad Baqer Ebadi advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "start learning to swim in the Mediterranean." He added that Israel's doomsday was approaching and that Israelis would trample each other while trying to escape.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while still president of Iran, became famous for statements (some delivered at the UN) such as: "A world without the United States and Israel is desirable and achievable," "We don't have homosexuals in Iran like you do in America," and "Iran can recruit hundreds of suicide bombers a day. Suicide is an invincible weapon. Suicide bombers in this country have shown us the way and illuminate our future." Finally, "the use of nuclear weapons is Iran's right." For years, the Iranian authorities have not only called for the destruction of Israel, but also established, financed, and armed terrorist organizations directed against Israel.

Iran has called for the destruction of Israel, threatened to destroy Israel, built infrastructure to destroy Israel, praised terrorists, and praised the October 7 attack, yet none of this has been taken seriously in the West.

Chapter IV: The Ayatollahs and the Iranians

How did the regime treat Iranians? Those who didn't support it, as well as all women, Baha'is, homosexuals, and independent thinkers, were treated cruelly. Women were veiled, married off (on Khomeini's orders) before they started menstruating, raped after arrest, and subjected to the political police. Homosexuals were publicly hanged from cranes. Efforts were made to exterminate the Baha'is.

Summary Iranians protested repeatedly, and Western intellectuals expressed concern and outrage. However, when Israel turned against the regime or its offshoots, it was accused of aggression. One may disagree with the Israeli government (every government, including the current and most controversial one, the regime in Tehran treated everyone equally). However, turning a blind eye to threats, calls, and preparations for annihilation is siding with the perpetrator. And that is not Israel. Israel has never been bothered by Iran's existence, and until 1980, it had friendly relations with it. Just as Ukraine was not bothered by Russia's existence. However, ignoring, or—worse—tacitly sanctioning, Iran's threats and efforts to carry them out is a different matter. One Shoah survivor once said: "When someone tells you they want to kill you, believe them." Israel believed them. After October 7th and Iran's praise of them, it could not have done otherwise. And let me remind you who the Redzikowo base was against, who sells shaheed to Russia, who expresses hope for the fall of the West and takes steps to bring about such a turn of events? And going further, I'll recall the West's irritation with Poland's refusal to cede the corridor to Hitler, and the ceding of Czechoslovakia to him as a guarantee of "peace for our generation," and Chamberlain's betrayal of German officers who were preparing for a coup and Hitler's ouster in 1938. Peace seems blissful and priceless as long as others pay for its maintenance, as long as others are the appetizer (never the whole meal) of criminal dictatorships.

Could today's war have been prevented? Yes, years ago, by reacting (correctly) to the ayatollahs' threats, by deploying peacekeeping forces in Lebanon as required instead of sending them there on vacation, by reacting to the anti-Semitism that has been consuming the Western left for years, by calling the ayatollahs' regime's crimes against Iranians by their proper names, by showing a modicum of shame when they listed beautiful values ​​one by one, just enough for some action to follow, by naming the criminals after October 7th. But they didn't. Trump and Netanyahu are certainly not motivated by a desire to establish the rule of law in Iran and provide relief to the Iranian people. Both are concerned with their own interests, and Netanyahu also cares about the survival of his country (which is his role). I fully understand that one might dislike many things, but the time to prevent such an escalation has long passed. It was not used. There was time to point the finger of blame (and it wasn't used). War is terrible, and politicians, well, behave like average politicians. Only this situation didn't arise yesterday. It had been brewing for 45 years, and the Western left's beauties did everything they could to avoid seeing it.