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IQBAL SULEIMAN argues why a war on Iran would destabilise the Middle East, threaten the Muslim world, and deepen global injustice and conflict.
Islamic Iran is the final frontier of resistance to imperialist and Zionist military aggression and the inalienable right to self-determination for all people in the Muslim world. The Gaza genocide has liberated the Muslim public mind from the superficial and sectarian divisions advanced by imperialism and Zionism. The eye of the Muslim street can now see with clarity that all leaders and governments in the Muslim world collaborated and were complicit in the Gaza genocide. The one and only exception is Iran.
Israel’s unhinged barbarism is now even spooking its allies in the region. Israel will always be first to Trump and America. Qatar had just given Trump a private jet. The Gulf states provided trillions of dollars to the American government, which provided military, diplomatic and economic support to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Gulf regimes today realise the existential threat presented by Israel to their countries. When Israel bombed Qatar, the American military did nothing to defend Qatar. It was a wake-up call. With all the begging, bowing and brown-nosing of these Gulf states, Trump and America made their policy succinctly clear: ‘Israel first’.
If Iran falls, the gateway to hell opens for the Middle East because American and Israeli hegemony will be firmly established. Israel will proceed with its expansionist settlement policy and invade other countries in pursuit of ‘Greater Israel’. Now everyone, from the common man to presidents and kings, is starting to imagine the worst-case scenario of the dirty shoes of Zionist soldiers desecrating Makka and Madina, as they have repeatedly desecrated Al Aqsa.
All of the Arab and Muslim countries combined did not fire a single bullet in more than two years of genocide. Islamic Iran, under the leadership of Ali Khamenei, is the only country that has no economic and political relations with Israel, has provided weapons to the oppressed people of Palestine, and fired missiles and bullets at Israel. Iranian leaders and civilians were martyred in their thousands as a result of Israeli military aggression. Were it not for the imposed, cruel and crippling sanctions over 47 years because of Iran’s solidarity with Palestine, every Iranian would be living a decent and comfortable life. This is why the Muslim street sees a war with Iran as a war against all Muslims.
Effects of a war with Iran
In 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu, whilst zealously beating the drums of war against the Muslim people of Iraq, stated that ‘If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you, it will have enormous positive reverberations throughout the region’.
Positive reverberations? Six hundred thousand Arab civilian deaths. 3.9 million refugees. The creation of Isis, the spectre of beheadings, civil strife, blood everywhere, and the complete destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure.
Ali Khamenei is not Bashar Al Assad, Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi. Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards will not go down without a fight to the death. Iran is very different from Iraq, Libya or Syria. Unlike these other countries, the Iranian government has popular support. Whereas within Assad’s Syria, Saddam’s Iraq and Gaddafi’s Libya, the security establishment and military personnel were largely professional servicemen on a payroll, with loyalty inspired by a pay cheque, the IRGC and the Basij are ideologically committed to the Islamic Revolution and the school of Muhammad.
The Basij are volunteers and number between 800 000 and one million members. Their allegiance cannot be bought and they are prepared to die for their faith. These revolutionaries are willing to fight to the death until the last man is standing. The leader and founder of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini, said: ‘We have no fear of America’s military or its economic blockade. We have God. Even if the world’s doors were shut, the doors of God’s mercy would remain open.’
It is bewildering that the American leadership have not been advised on this ideological dimension, which is the most critical aspect in a war with Iran. The empire will be fighting a foe the calibre of which it has hitherto not faced.
An American war on Iran will set the entire region on fire. With all the oil fields in the Persian Gulf going up in flames and the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, it could very well trigger a global economic recession. More Israeli and American soldiers will return in body bags than in any previous wars. There is no doubt that America and Israel have superior military power. Iran, while not having military parity with its enemies, has developed an impressive indigenous military capability, specifically its missile and drone systems, which can hit and hurt Israel and America in ways they have not experienced before.
However, Iran’s greatest weapon is the fearlessness and faith of its fighters. There is no other national army in the world that is fearless of death and has a yearning for martyrdom like the revolutionary fighters in Islamic Iran.
These Revolutionary Guards and Basij are devout followers of Muhammad (p.b.u.h), who was offered all the material comforts of the world in exchange for capitulating to his enemies and giving up his struggle. His response was reported to the effect that: ‘If you put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left, I will not give up my struggle for truth and justice.’ The Prophet’s response was revolutionary, principled and defiant, while simultaneously drawing attention to the limitations of earthly power and God’s authority over human affairs. For these followers of Muhammad (p.b.u.h), they would rather fight and die than bow down to imperialists and Zionists.
No one can predict the outcome or duration of a war with Iran, or who will emerge victorious. The Americans may initiate a war and desire a short conflict, but history tells us that those who initiate wars most often do not determine their outcome or duration. Trump and Netanyahu, despite boasting of the bravery of their soldiers, will opt for a cowardly war, striking Iran from the air and not exposing their troops to direct combat. They will not send soldiers onto Iranian soil to face Iranian revolutionaries. But if regime change is the intention, ground forces will be required, and many will meet their end.
The Iranians have the stamina for a long war. The Iraq war was fought for over eight years after Saddam Hussein, with Western support, invaded Iran and used chemical weapons against its people. There is no doubt that many Iranians, particularly civilians, will suffer. The death toll may reach hundreds of thousands, or even millions, when one considers how America and Israel conducted the genocide in Gaza, the dirty war in Syria, the unlawful war in Iraq, and the military intervention in Libya. The results of these wars were millions of Muslim deaths, perpetual civil strife and internecine conflict.
Netanyahu’s desire is the Balkanisation of Iran, as he sought the Balkanisation of Syria, resulting in a weak state plagued by perpetual instability and civil strife.
The war will not be limited to Iran and will almost immediately morph into a regional war. Israeli and American military bases throughout the Persian Gulf will be targeted by Iran’s ballistic missiles. The Axis of Resistance — Ansarullah, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Fighters — will, in all likelihood, join the fight in solidarity with Iran.
Iran and the Global South
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Beyond the Persian Gulf and the Muslim world, millions who are not part of the military Axis of Resistance will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience as an expression of resistance to Zionist and imperialist barbarism. Symbols of imperialism will be targeted and shut down by anti-war protesters in every neighbourhood where there is a Starbucks, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Pepsi outlet. The Fifa World Cup will be boycotted. The boycott of American products will be internationalised.
Along with honouring its indigenous freedom fighters, such as the great Ali Shariati, Iran honours international freedom fighters revered in the Global South, naming streets after Patrice Lumumba and Malcolm X.
The masses in the Global South stand in solidarity with Iran. The poor and working class see how the poor in the ghettos of Gaza are supported by Iran, and the principled position taken by the revolutionary government at its inception to cut off all ties with apartheid South Africa and apartheid Israel.
Any war on Iran will be unlawful and unjust. There is a famous saying of Imam Khomeini: ‘Acceptance of injustice is worse than the injustice itself.’ One thing is certain: Iranians will never accept the injustice of war. It is within their DNA to resist injustice.
The truth is that there are no winners in war. Iranians and Americans will suffer. War can never be romanticised. Its outcomes are orphans, mass graveyards, widows, disability, tears, poverty, instability, insecurity, suffering, anguish, trauma, mental illness, hatred, vengeance, destruction, rubble and ruins. For this reason, any human being with a conscience should take a stand against an unlawful and Islamophobic war on Iran. The people of the world are saying ‘No to war’. But will the powers that be heed the democratic clarion call?
Iqbal Suleiman is a social justice lawyer, former head of the law clinic for Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria, and Research Associate at Media Review Network.
