Morally it was entirely justifiable to attack the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many will disagree honourably because of concern that the international order, represented by sovereign states with recognised borders respecting each others territorial integrity, is fundamental to international peace and security. They believe that this order protects peace and supports negotiation and diplomacy as the path to dispute resolution. However, it is a defensible position that the Islamic Republic of Iran (distinct from Iran the nation) is not deserving of that protection or recognition, because it does not afford that to some other sovereign states.
It is a regime that has spent its entire history calling for death to the USA and Israel, and used terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Israel and Yemen to spread its evil poisonous misanthropic ideology of ultra-conservative Islamist theocracy. Besides calling for "death to Israel" it has actively spread anti-semitism globally, including hosting conferences questioning the Holocaust. It has the world's highest per capita rate of executions, killing over 972 in 2024 alone, and most recently reportedly slaughtering tens of thousands of protestors across the country. Its theocracy includes a morality police dedicated to policing what women wear and how people interact in public, and it uses rape as a punishment of dissident women.
Given its long standing global sponsorship of terrorism (which included the IRA back in the Troubles), its pursuit of uranium enrichment and lack of transparency, it is easy to justify military action to stop it obtaining nuclear weapons.
Whether or not it was tactically correct for the US and Israel to take on Iran only history will tell. As much as those against the war will be wanting Trump to lose, to embarrass him, this is a very narrow and suicidal position. The very last thing anyone who supports liberal democracy, rule of law, individual freedom, human rights and civilisation should want is for the Islamic Republic of Iran to defeat the US, Israel and by proxy, the Gulf states as well.
Overthrowing the regime would be a success, weakening it so it fails due to domestic pressure (including from the Kurdish north) would be a partial success, but emboldening it even if its ability to project abroad is significantly weakened, would be seen as a victory for the regime, and a victory for its proxies.
For it would embolden Iran and its proxies to attack not just in the Middle East, but beyond, endangering Americans, Jews (don't even think Iran separates Zionists from Jews). This would make us all less safe, it would embolden Islamists across the world to promote their ideology, and for a few to be willing to use force to terrify us all.
If the Islamic Republic survives, it will embolden Putin and Xi to give it succour, money, arms and to push on. Putin already knows Trump wont stop him in Ukraine, Xi already knows the US will do little in the South China Sea, and wonders if he can attack Taiwan with little more than sanctions.
At this stage the biggest risk is that Trump chickens out, and wants a "deal". There is no "deal" with those who want you dead, who want your country dead and another dead. As much as the international law purists want pontification from the Western world about the legality of the war on Iran (they think it isn't legal), that horse has bolted.
While it's entirely possible (and probable) the Iranian regime could be replaced by one that is far from ideal (see Iraq, Libya and Syria), it is also likely it could be better. Better is not wanting to destroy other countries, better is not wanting to fund, train and arm multiple terrorist proxies across the Middle East, and across the world to "globalise the intifada" against the infidels.
Better is not expounding an ideology that is a fundamentalist misanthropic dark-ages view of humanity, as serving a supreme religious leader who sends people to their deaths for the sake of Allah, who restricts music, literature, art, apparel, human relationships and human expression, for the sake of blasphemy. Humanity, and in particular Europe and the Western world have been spending centuries unshackling themselves from the tyranny of theology.
The end of the Islamic Republic of Iran wont remove this, as there are plenty of others expounding such a view, including some it is attacking, but it will remove the most toxic, virulent and violent example embodied in a outwardly aggressive state. For it to "win", survive and double down on militarising itself and securing weapons of mass destruction would be dangerous to us all.
Allister Heath in the Daily Telegraph:
Either Donald Trump holds his nerve, crushes the Iranian regime, rides out the oil shock and reopens the Strait of Hormuz, or he and America are finished, exposed as unserious, fickle and incapable of forward planning, a superpower manquée felled by drone-wielding barbarians.
The challenge is Trump’s character, his willingness to accept short-term economic and electoral pain, not America or Israel’s exceptional military capacities. Does the US president, a hawk on Iran for 47 years, have it in him to finish the job, going down in history as the saviour of civilisation from nuclear Islamism, or is he merely the unidimensional man child his critics believe him to be?..
The great danger is that Trump snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. A loss would involve the Iranians shutting the Strait for an extended period, the Americans panicking at elevated oil prices and the US president walking away with a premature declaration of victory. Iran would be bloodied, but unbowed.
This would be a calamity from which neither Trump nor the West would recover. It would be interpreted by our enemies, chiefly China, North Korea and Islamists, as proof that their stereotype of the average Westerner is correct, that we are coddled, narcissistic consumers who cannot handle even the smallest discomfort.
It would also embolden the West’s defeatist class. Their “analysis” relentlessly asserts that the US cannot possibly win, and dismisses any contrary evidence. Everything to them is a miscalculation; killing Ali Khamenei will backfire, we are told, but not killing him would have been criticised just as harshly.
There is nothing wrong with caution, but some of these people sound as if they want Iran to win. These same experts rightly loathe Putin, correctly seeing him as a fascist monster, who is willing to kidnap children and ethnically cleanse civilians. They rightly support Ukraine, emphasise its victories and urge it not to give up when Russia strikes a blow.
Yet they are not as passionately opposed to the Iranian regime, even though it is just as fascistic as Putin’s. They loathe Trump and Israel. They were willing to suffer high energy prices to help defeat Putin, but cannot tolerate dearer petrol to take out the Iranian regime. Their double standards and hypocrisy are vile.
This is a civilisational struggle, a battle between good and evil. The West must win, or all bets are off...
No comments:
Post a Comment