Iran will not be crushed; Israel-US agenda will fail

Elyas Muhammad Thumbe

The 12-day attacks on Iran by the combined forces of Israel and the United States have proved one thing beyond doubt: That they are the real evil forces in the world and a real threat to peace and stability on our planet.

The Israeli air attacks on Tehran were launched on the dawn of June 13, with absolutely no provocation from the Islamic Republic. Their objectives were to destroy the Iran’s atomic energy programmes as well as to destabilise the country by annihilating its entire leadership. The Israeli missiles attacked Iran’s nuclear power stations at Natanz, Fordaw and Isfahan and targeted some of the top nuclear scientists and military leaders of the Revolutionary Guards of Iran. Since their efforts appeared to have had only limited impact on Iran’s power base, the United States — which had been dillydallying whether to directly attack Iran or not — came on the scene with two rounds of attacks on the nuclear power centers with bunker buster bombs dropped from its stealthy B-2 bombers as well as sent Tomahawk missiles from warships stationed in the region.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US president Donald Trump have also threatened to destabilize Iran with a plan to assassinate Iran’s supreme leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenie, bringing back memories of their similar actions to finish off West Asia’s leaders like Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya. Iran has not taken these threats lightly, and it is reported that the supreme leader has nominated a successor.

Despite the fact that both countries have now agreed to a cessation of hostilities, the crisis still remains. The ambitions of the United States to dominate the resource-rich West Asia through its sidekick Israel is no secret and Israel leadership remains a bunch of war mongers who care little for the safety of their people or stability in the region. They have no interest in abiding by the international agreements or respecting every country’s territorial integrity and strict rules regarding military campaigns. These adventurist policies on the part of the Israeli leadership and the United States will always remain as the greatest threat to world peace.

Despite such dangerous and misconceived adventures, it appears the objectives o f both the aggressors have not been actually materialized in Iran. The Iranian leadership remains strong and does enjoy the confidence and support of their people. The Iranian people have now joined together to face off the aggressors under their leadership despite the widespread political turmoil the country has witnessed in recent times. In fact, the aggression has reinforced Iran’s unity and their determination to hold on to the ideals of the Iranian revolution of 1979. The country and its leadership have proved their capability and willingness to withstand every aggression and retaliate to all such actions from external forces. Their firm resolve to defend themselves has been proved with a series of Iran’s ballistic missiles that rained down on major cities in Israel like Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, causing immense damage to Israel’s image of invincibility with its much-talked about air defence system– called bombastically the Iron Dome– that proved to be totally inadequate and ineffective.

The US president has claimed that their attacks have “totally and completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear power programmes and that they would not be able to revive it in decades. He claimed the damage done through its use of 30,000-pound bunker busters is so extensive and comprehensive, a claim that was rejected by its own intelligence agencies, through a secret report that came out very soon. This report from the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency –leaked to major newspapers like the New York Times– took an assessment of the impact of the attacks on Iran’s nuclear stations. Based on satellite images, the report concluded that the Iranian nuclear programmes might have suffered marginal damage that could delay their enrichment programmes by a few weeks or months, and not by decades as Trump had claimed.

This report was hotly denied by the US administration, including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and the CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who claimed that the leaked report was only a preliminary assessment and not authentic, claiming they have concluded that the damage to Iran’s nuclear programme was immense and its impact would remain for decades.

But this is only a pathetic effort to cover up their miserable miscalculations. First, Iran is not a banana republic which they could easily trample upon as they did in many places in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the past. Iran is a vast country with a spread out nuclear power stations, deep inside the earth. The CIA’s unprincipled and illegal interventions in the political affairs of other countries where regimes they disliked were forcibly destabilized, killing their leaders from Patrice Lumumba in Democratic Republic of Congo to Salvador Allende in Chile are legion and still remain a shameful memory to the international community. But the American imperialism has ultimately failed in their evil designs, as proved by their spectacular defeats in Vietnam in the 1970s, in Iraq in the aftermath of their annexation of the country in 2000, and Afghanistan where they had to escape in a hurry, leaving behind their arms and ammunition as their forces fled to save their skin only a few years ago.

What all these historical developments prove is that in this era of post-colonial world where national self-determination and dignity and equality of human beings in every part of the planet are paramount principles in international relations, the neo colonialist ambitions and naked military aggressions of the global hegemon and their regional cohorts like Israel would not succeed. The West Asian people are bound by an Islamic tradition that follows the teachings of the Prophet who enjoined his followers to keep peace even in the face of provocations. Iran follows this tradition and hence its calculated response to these unprovoked aggression, sending an equal number of missiles to Israel and also a limited response to America, with a powerful attack on the American military bases in Qatar.

The US and Israeli leaders had calculated that there would be no concerned response or condemnation to their aggressive actions in West Asia, as they had preceded it with a barrage of Islamophobic propaganda, describing Islam as an evil force and the Muslims as a threat to Western values and democracy. But such patently false claims are now falling flat because the dark and naked truth of imperialist aggression with an ambition to capture all the natural and economic resources of every country for their own unbounded desire to amass wealth and power is now becoming palpably clear to everyone. They were claiming that they wanted to replace autocracy and theocracy with democracy in West Asia, as they sent their fighter jets and tanks to those distant countries there, but what is the result? They destroyed many wealthy countries, many ancient civilisations triggering a massive refugee crisis. Now the West does not want to take responsibility for the terrible crisis they have brought on the world in their miscalculations and misadventures. They expected their bombs and missiles would solve all problems, but they are bound to realize that violence would only bring further violence and at the end of the day, it would bring their own destruction.