The Iranian Dilemma

Iran and its imperialist stooges are on the run. And I don’t necessarily mean militarily either. Let me give just a small sample of what is going on behind the Iranian curtain:

“As tensions escalate [in Lebanon], a recent poll finds that trust in…Iran-backed group [Hezbollah] is below 10% among non-Shiites” (emphasis mine). 

And, 

“Mossad hired IRGC agents in May to plant explosives that killed Haniyeh – report” (emphasis mine). 

And for good measure, 

“Hamas is losing the backing of ordinary people who are paying the human price of its war” (emphasis mine). 

This is Iran’s Axis of Bloodshed, laid out in all its hypocrisy. The supposed bastions of “popular revolution” are more unpopular than ever. Yet the people suffering under the oppression of Iran and its proxies can probably speak to the tragic irony more eloquently than I ever could.

“I hope that God will destroy you, Hamas, like you destroyed our children,” one woman yelled “in a video captured by NBC News crews in Gaza, her anger palpable, tears streaming down her face.” 

“We have a filthy leadership,” a man declared, “They got used to our bloodshed. May God curse them. They are scum” (emphasis mine). 

Though perhaps another Gazan woman said it best: “Today, Hamas has taken us 70 years back.” 

That is the essence of the Axis of Resistance. Its trail of opportunism and bloodshed stretches across the entire Middle East. And their people can see the truth with their own eyes.

Iran and its satellite states face a hard choice. They don’t want war, but do they really want peace? Wartime brings them embarrassment, suffering, and humiliation, and yet peacetime brings time and space for questions, scrutiny, rebellions, and possible uprisings.

Peacetime would be no boon for the Iranian alliance. The victims of Iran-based oppression have made their views perfectly clear. In Gaza, as of a month ago, a mere fifth of the population supports the attacks of October 7. In Lebanon, 90% or more of non-Shiites do not trust Hezbollah. In Iran, the turnout for its presidential elections was the worst in the Islamic Republic’s history. 

Even with authoritarian states, widespread discontent is hard to contain. Exactly how long does Sinwar think he has before the people of Gaza and even those within Hamas’s political wing give him up? For how long exactly does that blowhard Nasrallah think he can hold onto power after the rockets, drones, and missiles stop flying back-and-forth? 

(Especially after Nasrallah’s backers launched a direct attack against the people they are supposedly “liberating” in the Golan Heights). 

I repeat, Iran and its proxies face an impossible dilemma. They don’t want war, but they don’t want peace. For them, peace is effectively a death sentence, because wars are meant to distract from their failures in governing. After all, isn’t that the reason Iran’s proxies always provoke the wars? Isn’t that why the three H’s main claim to fame is setting the whole Middle East on fire?

If the actual war becomes a political war, Iran and its lackeys will lose. They will lose because they are hypocrites, pretend resistance fighters who cheer on Putin’s imperialist aggressions against Ukraine all while condemning “settler colonialism.” They have no moral standing to lecture anyone about anything. 

Iran and its proxies have a problem that no form of retaliation will ever solve. Put simply, war is bad, but so is peace. And if Israel is smart, she will give them all the peace they didn’t want…but were forced to accept.