Last night, the Israel Defense Forces launched an enormous offensive against the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran. For the last six months, after President Trump came into power, the United States has been engaged in talks with both nations, and others in the region. The major point of contention is Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Israel has every reason to be afraid of Shiite Islamic republic’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. The ayatollahs of Iran (the spiritual heads) as well as government and military leaders have openly, belligerently, violently and without any hesitation or reservation made it clear that it would use those weapons to “wipe Israel off the map.”
Iran began its quest for nuclear arms over 30 years ago. During the Obama years, Iran became enough of a danger for the United States and other western nation to begin diplomatic talks with their leadership. Enough development had taken place where the diplomatic goal was no longer to deny Iran nuclear weaponry, but rather to delay it. Israel (with good reason) would not go with that idea. In 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a trip to the United States to address for the second time a joint session of Congress. In that famous speech, he outlined in detail why Israel opposed that a diplomatic treaty that the Obama administration was about to make with Iran’s government. The deal would all but guarantee that Iran would have a bomb within ten years. It has been 9 years since that speech.
Unbelievably, during the Obama Presidency, hundreds of billions of dollars in cash was given to the Iranian regime in the hope that they would belatedly keep their end of the bargain while promising not to attack Israel. But that position was a position of weakness on the part of the United States, and it did not work. Economic sanctions against Iran were loosened. The regime would be able to engage in large scale oil exploration and selling for “non-military purposes.” Iran used the increased money flow not only to develop its nuclear program but also to destabilize region by supporting terrorist proxy groups in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and possibly others in North and Central Africa. Why? On a political level, it may be (and many leaders in the Sunni Muslim world agree) that Iran has aspiration of an empire.
On a religious level, it was just a continuation of the bitter feud between the Sunni majority (represented in countries who are American allies and the nations who signed the Abraham Accords, and also Saudi Arabia) and the Shiites (Iran, Iraq and the countries just named where the terror proxies are in control).
Iran’s Shiites leadership carries a demonic hatred of Israel, the United States, the secular west, and the Sunnis. From 1979 till the present day, the mantra of the Ayatollah controlled Iran is “Death to Israel! Death to America! Death to the little Satan! Death to the Great Satan!” The ayatollah-controlled Iran ushered into the modern world the specter of a nation aspiring to create the perfect Islamic state bent on world revolution. And it shows the world what uncontrolled hate looks like. Iran carries out the death penalty more than other nation in the world, except the People’s Republic of China. The Evin Prison in Tehran is notorious for its torture and treatment of prisoners and has been since 1979. A nation whose human rights violations have been reported by Amnesty International, Voice of the Martyr, and dozens of the Christian and secular agencies.
It should be appalling to everyone that such a nation that is constantly shouting “Death to Israel! Death to America” would ever be allowed to have nuclear power! Why did the Shiite regime pursue nuclear technology so stubbornly? The answer is not the security of the people of Iran, but rather the security of its illegitimate, corrupt, murderous, Shiite clerics and leadership. It’s the same reason for nuclear power in Pakistan (which is a terror sponsor with a stronger enemy nation at its border-i.e. India) and North Korea with its despotic dictator. The presence of nuclear power and weapons keeps everyone who is a threat at bay while allowing these rogue regimes to maintain their ties to terrorism and other selfish agendas and mayhem.
There were hundreds of peace overtures to Iran. None were taken. Increasingly in the last 20 years, Iran became an even greater threat, especially after the toppling of Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq. As of today, Iran controls Iraq-something that military planners during the War on Terror did not plan for or miscalculated. The city of Karbala in Iraq is the spiritual capital of Shia Islam and a majority of the country are Shiite Muslims.
Since the takeover of Iran by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1979, he became in essence the leader of Shiism and his successor(s) in Iran have also taken that proverbial mantle and leadership since in his death. “World Revolution” was the dominant theme, terrorism was the modus operendi when conventional means of war were impossible.
From the 1980s onwards, Iran developed a more ‘centralized’ means to ‘do terrorism’. During the twenty-year War on Terror, the Shiite wing of Islamic terror was just as active as the Sunni Al Qaida syndicate. Except the Iranians were much more cunning. The Shiite terror proxies in Iraq during the War on Terror came under the late Qasem Soleimani-the man known as the “Shadow Commander” of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp-who was assassinated by U.S. Special forces in 2020. They wreaked bloody carnage in Iraq during the War on Terror and were successful in ultimately defeating any ideas that the Americans had with their aims in regime change.
Till now, Iran used terrorism as its main offensive weapon. But they also developed their conventional military as well. In addition to missiles they are also rumored to have a significant naval presence in the Persian Gulf and a subsequent threat to the Straits of Hormuz (for decades, it has been a major fear that Iran could shut down the Straits and thereby prompt a massive spike in oil/petroleum prices as this particular route is taken by many oil freighters from all around the world).
Against all international Nuclear Test Ban Treaties and arms control talks in the past, Iran’s government made its pursuit while at the same time engaged in terrorism throughout the Middle East, and especially against the nation of Israel. Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, these and other terrorist groups received weapons, tactical support, and strategic advice and directives from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. No one with half a mind believed their excuse that their desire for nuclear power was only for efficient energy or research purposes. Uranium enrichment was far above anything normal for just mere alternative energy use. That was the detail that the world should have paid attention to but purposely did not. G7 nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency who demanded restraint from Israel, admitted that Iran was violating the rules that they had agreed to with regards to nuclear research. But no one was doing anything to stop Iran. Rather the chants and threats against Israel only got worse.
After the October 7, 2023, Hamas led attack on Israel, and the revelation that Iran was lending background support, Israel was not going to be patient and wait for the global community to act or pat themselves on the back for making a statement or proposing economic sanctions again. Despite seeing firsthand evidence and live footage of the atrocities in from October 7, many parts of the western world had protests AGAINST Israel, not in support of its offensive against dreadful terrorism.
Chants rose everywhere: “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” “This was bad, but Israel deserved it.” If this was the reaction from the peoples and governments of nations such as France, Great Britian, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and from college campuses and from some government circles in the United States who would care if something more dreadful happened to Israel?
The world has not really changed very much since the days of World War 2 when the genocide of the Jews was taking place in Europe, and virtually no one cared. As Prime Minster Netanyahu said, Israel is no longer helpless but rather will be master of its own fate, “When we say ‘Never Again. We mean NEVER AGAIN!”
Yesterday, Israel began OPERATION: RISING LION. The attack to obliterate from Iran and from any negotiating table on which they sit, the specter of nuclear weapons. The whole world should say “Thank you.”
Does it take reminders of Hiroshima, Nagasaki to bring the people of the world to their senses? Do we need to have another history lesson about the Cuban Missile Crises and the revelation that the world was only one decision away from a nuclear exchange, not by President Kennedy or General Secretary Khruschev, but by the captain of a Soviet ballistic missile submarine named Vasily Arkhipov who decided not to fire his nuclear missiles. (Arkhipov’s story is powerful. He was the chief of staff on the USSR Ballistic Missile Submarine B-59. The decision makers were the Captain, the Political Officer, and the Chief of Staff. All three had to agree on firing the missiles. Arkhipov, despite great pressure did not do so, and according to many pundits, saved the world from a nuclear holocaust.)
Do we need to visit the city of Chernobyl (currently in the nation of Ukraine) to see the consequences of things going wrong with nuclear technology and corrupt leaders? Or are the nations of the world so seduced by evil that the thought of a belligerent Shiite Iran firing nuclear missiles at Israel seems…appealing? (This last thought should not be written off. It is in fact quite plausible after seeing the UN’s involvement in the October 7 attacks. Many of the tunnels that were found had equipment marked with the seal of the UN. The response of the Secretary General and other UN connected agencies has been revealing and appalling. Almost certainly, the UN purposely sponsored Hamas and their terror schemes in Gaza.)
A few days ago, I watched Christopher Nolan’s 2023 movie Oppenheimer-the biopic about Dr. J Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the first Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer and several of the scientists expressed their regret after creating the massive weapon in which the destruction of mankind has multiplied exponentially. The movie captures well the meeting that Dr. Oppenheimer had with President Harry Truman in the Oval Office after World War 2 was over. A bewildered scientist tells the President, “Mr. President, I feel I have blood on my hands!” Truman responded, “Do you think anyone cares who made the bomb (paraphrasing)? They cared that I dropped it.” A statement, no one should ever forget. Israel has not. America must not. And as for the rest of the world…I hope they do not learn that lesson the hard way.
Among all of the Islamic nations in the Middle East, none is more intriguing than Iran. In terms of its people, they are not Arabs, but rather consider themselves Europeans, and prefer the terms Persian rather than Iranian. Culturally, it is the land of the ancient Medo-Persian Empire, and to this day it is a source of pride for most of the people there. (That empire spanned from India to parts of Greece, and south to Egypt at one point.) Shia Islam is not the only religion of the country. Zoroastrianism was founded in this nation, and inspite or repression, there is still a large population of its adherents in the country.
As I close this article, I am thinking of a classmate from my days as an undergraduate student at the University of North Texas. Her name was Yasman Hodjat. She and I were in the same major (Radio, Television, and Film) and became friends in my last semesters at UNT. She was the first Iranian that I’ve ever met. Yasman had interned at MTV (which far exceeded an job experience that I had regarding my major), and the way she looked and carried herself was almost 180 degrees different from one would expect in Shiite Iran. While she looked like the “rocker girl” from MTV, should possessed an off the charts intellect and charm. She was fluent in Farsi, Arabic, and English (her first language). At the time, I had begun to volunteer at UNT’s campus news station, and one of my first jobs was to report on the visit and lecture that was to be given by the de jure Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi-the second Iranian that I have ever met.
The lecture was at the Lyceum auditorium, and it was packed out both with students as well as hundreds of Iranian/Persian expatriates. And that was where I ran into Yasman. When I inquired why she was there, she told me of her background. Her family had migrated to the United States after the 1979 revolution that led to the take over of that nation by the Ayatollah Khomeni. Her family shared the plight of the White Russians who fled Russia after the take over by Lenin and his Bolsheviks. They were loyalists, but they lived in a kind of perpetual grief over a nation with a great culture that was lost to one of base inhumanity. I told her that I was going to get a chance to meet the Shah along with the rest of the Press that was there for the event.
Behind her MTV persona, she was very astitute regarding the politics and social situations of present-day Iran as well as her opinion of the Shah (she knew the Shah’s family and thought his brother was a better public speaker). During the Shah’s speech, a man got up and began to shout at him. Yasman explained that he shouted the Islamic shahada first in Arabic and then in Farsi began to curse and berate the Shah in Farsi. The Shah did not react or respond in kind but rather continued his speech to the end. I was impressed.
After my interview with the Shah, Yasman and I talked further about the Iranian diaspora in this nation and other parts of Europe. It struck me at how large the Iranian/Persian population is in the United States and Canada. Their culture is one that is seemingly a hybrid. Iranians are European and yet, something about this culture reminds me of the Byzantine Empire that came out of the Roman Empire. They meld very well with American culture and yet hundreds of Iranians were at UNT in native dress to meet and support the Shah. I told Yasman that remnants of the old Persian Empire were even in parts of North India. The Parsis.
As we talked, our conversation turned to the Bible. That was inevitable. Iran/Persia is one of the oldest areas of the world in terms of human civilization and it is one of the countries that borders the foot of the Biblical Mount Ararat.
This land was part of the story of the Bible from the book of Genesis. Much of the ruins of the ancient Persian Empire of the Bible-in the books of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther-are designated and waiting to be fully excavated and investigated. Daniel, Esther, and Mordecai are buried in Iran and the one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, after Israel, is still in this country. A Jewish community which traces its lineage also way to the Jewish diaspora that went into Babylonian Captivity after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah by King Nebuchadnezzar 2.
In closing, I must mention two things about my interactions with Yasman and the de jure Shah. I met Yasman in my last semester at UNT. Before we parted, I gave her a gift, a beautiful Bible. In the flyleaf, I wrote a long not sharing a little of my testimony and that some day she would come to know Jesus Christ as her Savior and that I hope her future would be a blessed one.
Before I parted from the Shah, I asked him if he should ever become leader of that nation again would he give freedom to the Christian population there to preach and worship in that country. A country with the worst kind of Christian persecution in the present day. He readily assented along with telling me about all the various groups over there who need that same freedom, including among the Shiites. I told him that I would pray for it.
That was 25 years ago.
I have not seen Yasman or the Shah of Iran since, but I dedicate this article to them. As this conflict begins, I cannot help thinking of them. Israel’s war may be to just wipe out Iran’s nuclear capabilities will it result in regime change? It could though I understand the sentiments of everyone who want to keep American soldiers out of such a fight. Nothing is impossible for the Lord and I pray that His will be done.
The Keeper of Israel will not sleep.