From a Western perspective, Iran is just one of over 50 Islamic countries. However, long before the birth of Christ, when Arabs and Turks still roamed the steppes as nomadic tribes, a sophisticated culture had developed in Persia, present-day Iran. Although this culture was militarily overrun by Islam in the early Middle Ages, it persists to this day in the language and values of the Iranian nation.
This cultural contrast is present in the historical consciousness of Arabs and Turks. This is made clear by the words of Azzam Pasha, then chairman of the Arab League, spoken in September 1947 during (failed) negotiations for a solution to Palestine: “We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia.” https://israeled.org//resources/documents/abdulrahman-azzam-pasha-rejects-compromise-zionists
Besides Lebanon, which remained predominantly Christian until the 1970s, Iran was one of the few progressive countries in the Middle East open to Western ideas as early as the beginning of the 20th century. The first truly democratic elections were held in 1951 – and the last. For in 1953, the CIA and the British MI6 overthrew the elected President Mozadegh. This scandalous action against the interests of democratic nations was largely driven by the greedy ambitions of ultra-wealthy individuals, namely the owners of the British oil companies operating in Iran. The liberal Mozadegh had made himself their rival by placing these resources under state control to ensure the nation a fair share of the revenues.
In his place, Shah Reza Pahlavi was installed as the autocratic ruler. This undeniably capable man, however, paved the way for a fatal counter-movement with his extravagance, his CIA-trained secret police, and his excessive pace of Westernization. This counter-movement was carried out by the notorious Islamist Ayatollah Khomeini from his exile in France. Khomeini's seizure of power in February 1979 would never have been possible without massive support from the West.
One such support came from the naive President Jimmy Carter, who gave the US intelligence service the green light to induce the Iranian military to remain inactive during a change of government. This 500,000-strong, Western-trained, and state-of-the-art armed force could otherwise have prevented Khomeini from replacing the Shah. Even more crucial to the establishment of the Ayatollah dictatorship, however, was a third Western force: the British broadcaster BBC. At great expense (and with internal repercussions), the BBC provided Khomeini with exclusive opportunities for propaganda in Persian. This allowed the extremist to conjure up the deceptive image of a freedom providing Islamic republic. https://www.nation.com.pk/11-Feb-2019/iranian-revolution-at-40-britains-secret-support-for-khomeini-revealed?version=amp
For Western nations, it is vital to belatedly incorporate this history into their consciousness. Otherwise, they will fall into a trap in the conflict between the Iranian despots on the one hand and the US and Israel on the other. While this historical context is concealed by Western mainstream media, it is well-known in Iran.
The trap's effectiveness has already been tested, which, 'of course,’ has also remained outside the public consciousness. The testing took place in about a dozen countries of the 'Arab Spring’. Extensive, democratically motivated protests against the autocratic regimes took place there in late 2010/early 2011. The similarity with the current situation in Iran lies in the fact that the protest marches were violently suppressed. In the Arab Spring, this escalation was followed by definitive revolutions that swept away several of the old regimes.
However, what happened after the revolutions in these countries, and what continues to happen today, gives cause for the utmost vigilance with regard to Iran. Generally speaking, in all the countries of the Arab Spring, there was a apparently well-prepared and amply funded takeover of the movements originally aimed at democracy and individual freedom by Islamist forces.
Alarmingly, the consequences for freedom and the rule of law remain devastating to this day, particularly where Western military intervention occurred. The events namely in Libya, serve as a cautionary example of the potential dangers of intervention in Iran. For in Libya, too, the primary concern of the then-US government Obama was to protect the civilian population from violent government attacks.
In stark contrast to Trump's successful minimally invasive intervention against the Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela, the Libyan intervention against the Gaddafi regime became a somewhat modified repetition of the disastrous military interventions in Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
- In the context of the supposed liberation, the number of civilian casualties has increased approximately tenfold. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/22/coups-terror-nato-war-in-libya-west-intervention-boko-haram-nigeria
- In Libya, too, a decisive military strike followed by an establishment of order failed to materialize. - As a result, the country remains in an unstable state of political division and occasional flare-ups of civil war.
- As if to stabilize this instability, the divided rulers in eastern and western Libya invited two different foreign military powers to act as advisors and trainers. In the east, with its capital Tripoli, this is Türkiye, and in the east, with its capital Benghazi, it is Russia.
- The psychological climate is unsuitable for introducing the population to the values of Western civilization.
- Extensive arms shipments to supposedly pro-Western militias have led to a proliferation of American weapons across large parts of Africa in this widely corrupt environment.
Terrorist organizations such as Boko Haram (whose name means "Western education is forbidden") have particularly benefited from this and from the uncontrolled looting of Gaddafi's military stockpiles. https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/15/from-benghazi-to-boko-haram/
- According to an interim assessment in 2014, the American military was active in 49 of the 54 African countries.
The tendency toward procrastination, already practiced in the Korean War (1950-1953) and intensified in Vietnam, suggests the influence of forces not interested in solutions, but rather in perpetual tension and war. The profile of this distorted US postwar policy consisted of the de facto support of Islamist and other autocratic movements, all under the false guise of defending democracy.
Jimmy Carter was by no means an extreme case among the presidents who, after Kennedy, were invariably more or less naive and lacking a broader perspective. They allowed themselves to be led astray into political decisions that caused great damage to liberal civilization—while generating huge profits for the arms industry, the financial sector, and the oil multinationals. One example alone cost approximately one trillion dollars and, moreover, damaged the global reputation of the USA: After only two months of the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban leadership was ready to surrender and lay down its arms in December 2001. The George W. Bush administration refused. https://www.commondreams.views/2021/08/18/taliban-surrendered-2001
The war ended in 2021 after 20 years with a humiliating withdrawal.
Without careful learning from these mistakes, a potential clash in Iran promises to surpass even these catastrophes. Due to its tiny, extremely vulnerable territory compared to Iran's, the Israeli leadership has a fully automated nuclear counterstrike plan in the event of a nuclear attack. Since Iran itself possesses no nuclear weapons, any of the nuclear powers could detonate a nuclear explosion in Israel, thereby automatically exposing the Iranian civilian population to an inferno.
However, besides the learning process now underway in the West, there are other favorable circumstances that point to a turn for the better. One lies in the presidency of Donald Trump, who differs positively from his predecessors (including himself during his first term). This holds true despite some mistakes, such as the Greenland claim. Trump is not an opportunist, but an idealist who genuinely wants to achieve the best for his country and the entire free world. In his revival of American values and principles from the founding decades, he is also aware of the influential opponents of liberal democracy.
These rivals are those who have already twice cheated the Iranian nation out of its democratic self-determination in the interest of their own profits, namely in 1953 and 1978/79 (see above).
The second favorable factor is the Iranian nation itself. Its experiences during 47 years of Ayatollah dictatorship have left behind a profound sense of disillusionment. To put it bluntly, the people are fed up with the political and ideological side of Islam, which seeks to exert a dominant influence in all matters concerning the state and personal life.
In other words, the majority of Iranians are completely immune to the polarizing influences of the Islamists to which citizens in the countries of the Arab Spring succumbed en masse.
It is in the survival interest of both the Iranian and Israeli nations not to be provoked into the trap of war. A minimally invasive liberation from the outside, modeled on that from the Maduro dictatorship, would serve this purpose, as well as democratic self-determination and a properly reformed international law. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/maduros-overthrow-crossroads-world-politics-short-version. As long as the Ayatollah regime remains in power, continued provocations are to be expected, making a decision between war and a minimally invasive intervention under international coordination unavoidable.
In preparing for such a possible intervention, the following must be given particular attention:
- Israel's automatic readiness for a nuclear counterstrike requires modification that minimizes the impact on the Iranian civilian population.
- BBC propaganda in the lead-up to the 1979 revolution and the subsequent neutralization of the Iranian military demonstrate that intelligent alternatives to a bloody, heavy-handed approach exist—if the political will is there.
However, this will has also to be ensured at the leadership level within the American military and intelligence services. Unfortunately, 80 years of failed US military operations point to a fundamental need for purging the entire security apparatus. This finding is strongly underscored by the unlawful persecution of Julian Assange from 2010 to 2025. https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-spricht-ueber-wikileaks-gruender-julian-assange
- Iran's geographical surroundings are practically overflowing with supposed friends of the West. In reality, they are all friends of a 'Western' policy that has long subordinated the interests of their own nations to the interests of corporate oligopolies and the financial establishment. The direction this policy is heading is made clear by the words of Turkish President Erdogan at an Islamic conference in November 2024:
“…while Western civilization collapses with a great crash, …our civilization of divine and human love will flourish with our essence and spirit and rise even stronger…” https://www.memri.org/tv/turkish-president-erdogan-western-civilization-will-collapse-we-will-flourish
While the Turks rightly seek their authentic solidarity in uniting with the Turkish-speaking countries of Central Asia, https://www.eurasiareview.com/13112024-orban-joined-erdogan-and-other-central-asian-presidents-to-receive-supreme-order-of-the-turkic-world-understanding-the-backdrop-of-this-summit-oped/, the policy towards the Arab world tends to point towards an imperial revival of the Ottoman Empire. This should have been clear to everyone, at the latest since Assad was replaced by pro-Turkish rebels. In reality, only a few have voiced such ambitions, among them Donald Trump. This provides further evidence that, despite all his weaknesses and flaws, he is precisely the right man to initiate the long-overdue, thorough reform of liberal civilization and international law.