Since the attack on the U.S. airbase Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean with an Iranian missile with a range of 4,000 kilometers, Western European states have also fallen within range of Tehran’s missiles. What is already commonplace for neighboring Arab states and Israel—and at least a real threat for Turkey, Azerbaijan and Cyprus—could also affect Berlin, Zurich, Paris or Rome.
Thanks to Russian satellite imagery and intelligence, the Iranian leadership is well aware of Europe’s lucrative targets.
In light of this international threat, the question arises: How was it possible for a murderous regime of Islamic fanatics to build missiles and enrich uranium for nuclear weapons undisturbed for decades, even though its spokespeople openly declared war on the West and proclaimed their genocidal intentions? Without a doubt, the danger was underestimated in the West. And that is perhaps the first positive effect of this war—that the danger can no longer be denied. The West has been forced to intervene, and has finally brought its technological and military superiority into play.
From a Muslim worldview, it could only be explained as weakness and cowardice that Western countries, despite possessing far more powerful weapons, simultaneously display an almost insurmountable reluctance to use them. “Never again war!” is appealing and understandable, but it is also naive.
When attacked, war is inevitable, unless one has suicidal tendencies. That Europe had not experienced a major war since 1945—that is, for eight decades—was a stroke of luck. These decades have been enough to lull the awareness of danger in European societies and transform their youth into passive fatalists.
But the peacefulness of religiously fanatical, Quran-believing Muslims cannot be achieved through persuasion or, as in raising children, through good example. Now, in the third decade of the 21st century, anyone who is honest and soberly assesses our situation acknowledges that “war”—this monstrosity that must be prevented at all costs—is now a part of our lives.
We in Israel understood this no later than Oct. 7, 2023: that even with the greatest peaceful intentions, one can be attacked by a neighbor and dragged into an unwanted conflagration. The narrative in European media that Israel’s war against Iran was instigated by a far-right Israeli government (or by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deflect attention from his corruption charges) loses all meaning in light of the almost unanimous support of the Israeli population. By Oct. 7, most Israelis had grasped that turning a blind eye and false tolerance in dealing with militant Islam were futile.
Something else makes this war unpopular: It ends the European policy of collaborating with the terrorist regime in Tehran for the sake of economic gain.
In Europe, however, this war is extremely unpopular. Its consequences include rising gasoline prices, an increased risk of terrorism and a potential new wave of refugees.
European media make it unequivocally clear that they do not wish Trump any good for his audacious undertaking, and certainly not Israel, and that they would have much preferred the status quo to any change, even one ultimately favorable to Europe. Something else makes this war unpopular: It ends the previous European policy of collaborating with the terrorist regime in Tehran for the sake of economic gain.
The argument inevitably arises that the United States and Israel violated international law with their attack on Iran. Yet the mullahs’ repeatedly declared intention to annihilate other states had long constituted a casus belli (all the more their attempt on Oct. 7 to implement this intention through their proxies). This regime was astonishingly open about its war-like intentions. For decades, its leaders have built up militias throughout the Middle East to destabilize other countries—not just Israel—by financing the rocket war waged by Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen.
In 2014, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime’s supreme leader, published a strategy paper known as the “Islamic-Iranian Blueprint for Progress,” outlining Iranian policy for the next 50 years. It openly lays out the hegemonic ambitions of a power-hungry Islamic clerical elite, initially in the Middle East and, after its subjugation, globally. The “Blueprint” outlines Khamenei’s vision for Iran not merely as a dominant nation-state, but as the “guardian and guardian of the Muslim world,” as Iranian state media had dubbed the ayatollah, and later as the leader of a “new civilization.”
Iran will be “one of the world’s top five countries in science and technology” in the coming decades, the “Blueprint” promises, and its Islam-based policies will be “the most important pillar of Islamic unity, regional stability, and global justice and peace.” This document was initially not taken seriously by Western political circles (and largely ignored by the media).
Indeed, the text exudes an air of delusion and detachment from reality. At the same time, the Tehran regime was remarkably perceptive of the West’s weaknesses. Western Europe’s inaction and susceptibility to corruption, it calculated, would benefit Iran’s global ambitions.
The mass murder of young protesters revealed the Iranian regime for what it truly is: inhumane, a public danger and unacceptable as a partner.
This regime has relentlessly provoked the West for more than four decades without any significant counter-reaction. Demonstrating cruelty, emphatically misogynistic, Christophobic, antisemitic, hostile to free, creative thought, standard-bearers of global anti-Americanism, filled with paranoid hatred of the State of Israel and Shi’ite thirst for revenge against Sunni Arab states, the mullahs and their Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps first infiltrated the Middle East by equipping Shi’ite minorities and underdog Arab tribes with funds and modern weapons.
In doing so, they destroyed the future of Lebanon, which European partners once envisioned as the “Switzerland of the Middle East,” and which today is nothing more than a territory ravaged by civil war. The hopeless disintegration of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, which makes any independent state formation unthinkable, is also largely attributable to the subversive activities of Iranian imperialism.
The Middle Eastern situation reached a disastrous climax in March 2021 when, due to the inaction of the Biden administration, Iran was able to sign the state treaty with China, which Trump had blocked during his first term with threats of sanctions. This treaty guarantees the mullah regime the enormous sum of $400 billion over the next two decades for the sale of crude oil. Despite the country’s poverty, underdevelopment and dilapidated infrastructure, this money is being used primarily to arm foreign militias, build offensive weapons and enrich uranium.
The mass murder of young protesters in January revealed the Iranian regime for what it truly is: inhumane, a public danger and unacceptable as a partner.
There is little prospect for internal reform of this system, as the absolute control exerted by fundamentalist clerics stifles any alternative thinking. As long as this regime remains in power, there is no hope for peace in the Middle East.
Its overthrow would be a blessing for the entire region, but it remains the responsibility of the Iranian people to bring it about. Even if the U.S.-Israeli joint military action does not lead to the regime’s downfall, the rulers in Tehran, their resources, their military, their armaments and their domestic political clout will be significantly weakened. The overwhelming majority of the population, especially Iranian youth, hates the regime, and experience teaches that rulers despised by the people can only cling to power for a limited time, even with the greatest brutality.
