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?
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