THE recent events in the region – particularly in Syria, the sudden collapse of the Baath regime, and the defeat of Hezbollah, which was the crown jewel of the Iranian axis in Lebanon, should teach Tehran a lesson.
By following a sectarian path, Tehran will not be able to achieve its long-standing goal of “exporting the revolution”, which was enshrined in its constitution.
The Persian regime must realize now that the balance of power in the region has shifted, and it can no longer contend with the surviving factions of defeated militias.
In the Gaza Strip, where attempts have been made for years to reshape the religious and social beliefs of its people through its obedient pawns like Hamas and Islamic Jihad in accordance with that nonsensical slogan, Tehran’s influence is no longer as strong. There is now little space to govern the forces Tehran has relied on for decades.
Tehran can no longer claim that it can force its vision on the Iraqis or control its party in Lebanon, which has been weakened and reduced to a shadow of its former self.
The Iranian leadership has overlooked the fact that the Shiite sect played a pivotal role in driving the British out of Iraq in 1920 and contributing to the development of the country. This suggests that Iraqis, regardless of the strength of sectarian militias, will soon resist Persian interference in their internal affairs, especially given the recent events in the region. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards will not be able to suppress millions of Iraqis.
Iran sought to incite sectarian strife, and assisted groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda to open sectarian fronts, which led to conflict during the years following the US invasion of Iraq, the dismantling of state institutions, and the resulting chaos.
However, Iraqis eventually realized that they were not protected by foreign powers and began to see Iran’s excessive influence as a myth.
Tehran once boasted about its financial support for Yemenis, Syrians, Iraqis, and Lebanese, but it soon became clear that it was exploiting their resources, using the groups it created as paper tigers to intimidate the people.
About 44 years have passed since the slogan of “exporting the revolution” was first implemented, with Syria being the first to succumb to this influence during the reign of Bashar al-Assad’s father.
His son later opened the country wide for Iranian intervention, transforming Damascus into a hub for those with their own agendas. This shift altered the ideological reality that Syrians had long rejected, leading to a powerful uprising against this new reality.
With around 150,000 detainees languishing in prisons without trial, many of which are secret, and with every city having its own prisons and torture chambers, the revelations of horrific atrocities in the secret facilities and the bodies found in hospital refrigerators suggest that the “exporting of the revolution” was, in fact, a genocide against the Syrian people.
More than 12 million people have been displaced abroad, and there are reports indicating that around one million have died as victims of the regime in the last 54 years.
This is why we were not surprised to see Syrians, both inside and outside the country, filled with joy at the prospect of escaping the nightmare that burdened them for five decades.
What matters now is that the Arabs who supported this criminal regime come to their senses and recognize that they were used as tools to carry out one of the greatest crimes in history against their people.
Without a doubt, Yemen must now eliminate the Houthi threat that has been undermining its citizens’ national and Arab identity, and transforming their religious beliefs for years.
Today, the nation is trapped in ignorance and stagnation, and it is clinging to the leaves of qat that numb both the body and the mind, all while overlooking its rich history as a center of knowledge and wisdom.
