After the bloody and tumultuous demonstrations that claimed tens of thousands of lives in various Iranian cities, as confirmed by the most credible sources, local observers predicted the fall of the hardline religious regime, especially after the pledge of Trump to support the protesters and urge them to continue their demonstrations. However, it later became clear that the promises of Trump are not better than the promises made by successive American presidents to the Iraqi people to revolt. Therefore, at the height of the recent Iranian uprising, I tweeted, rejecting all predictions of the regime’s imminent collapse, as many had hoped. Iran is neither Venezuela nor Iraq, and its ruler is neither Maduro nor Saddam, and certainly not the Shah.
President Trump mobilized his fleets and threatened an unprecedented war against Iran, coinciding with similar Israeli threats and unlimited military support for the battle that Tel Aviv has been anticipating for decades. This contradicts the pronouncements of all the analysts whose claims about a secret alliance between Iran on one side, and Israel, with America behind it, on the other side, have long troubled us.
This alliance supposedly prevents any conflict between them. The American threat of using force against Iran is not different from the one that preceded the attack which ousted Maduro. However, the difference between the leaderships and circumstances of the two countries is clear, and their geographical locations, importance and conditions are entirely different. Venezuela has never possessed either the desire or the capability to strike Israel, Trump’s favored darling. Venezuela has neither the power nor the intention to strike the American bases near its borders, nor the resolve to destabilize the security of Middle Eastern countries allied with America. For these reasons and others, the American decision was delayed. The consequences of striking Iran are incalculable because Iran is a far more formidable adversary than Venezuela, Iraq and the dozens of other countries that have previously been subjected to American aggression. Hence, even as this article is being written, America is still weighing its options, aware that eliminating the entire Iranian leadership cannot be achieved without a full-scale war. This is what Israel wants, alone, without the support of the rest of the world.
Despite all the apparent weaknesses of Iranian military power, this very weakness is one of the reasons for its leadership’s ferocity in clinging to power and responding violently, because it is a struggle for survival. Iran will resist, even if it means setting the entire region ablaze, to preserve its position, because they are fully aware that their fate will be annihilation in either case. But this desperate resistance might give them a greater chance of survival.
In my humble opinion, Iran holds three powerful cards: First is the capability of Iran’s ballistic missiles to inflict significant damage on Israel, other Middle Eastern countries, and American bases in the region. This is what America is trying to avoid at all cost. Second is Iran’s disregard of the scale of human losses it might suffer, based on ideological principles, as has been demonstrated repeatedly whenever it violently suppresses any protest movement.
According to this ideology, anyone killed fighting against the ‘Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist’ regime is destined for hell. Whoever is ‘martyred’ fighting in defense of the ‘Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist’ regime is destined for paradise. Therefore, the huge number of victims does not mean much. Third is that the fall of the regime does not just mean the fall of its leaders, but also the fall of the ‘idea of the Twelve Shiite theocratic state’, which is governed by the theory of the ‘Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist’, and perhaps, even the postponement of Mahdi’s reappearance. This is something the Iranian authorities will not allow to happen easily or without enormous bloodshed.
By Ahmad alsarraf
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