Hope for Iran?
[Hat tip: commenter “sdferr.”]
Netanyahu has a message for the long-suffering people of Iran:
The vast majority of Iranians know their regime doesn’t care a whit about them. If it did care, if it cared about you, it would stop wasting billions of dollars on futile wars across the Middle East. It would start improving your lives. Imagine if all the vast money the regime wasted on nuclear weapons and foreign wars were invested in your children’s education, in improving your health care, in building your nation’s infrastructure, water, sewage, all the other things that you need. Imagine that.”
“When Iran is finally free — and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think – everything will be different,” he promises. “Our two ancient peoples, the Jewish people and the Persian people, will finally be at peace. Our two countries, Israel and Iran, will be at peace.
“When that day comes, the terror network that the regime built in five continents will be bankrupt, dismantled. Iran will thrive as never before. Global investment. Massive tourism. Brilliant technological innovation based on the tremendous talents that exists inside Iran. Doesn’t that sound better than endless poverty, repression and war?”
Concludes Netanyahu: “Don’t let a small group of fanatic theocrats crush your hopes and your dreams. You deserve better. Your children deserve better. The entire world deserves better. I know you don’t support the rapists and murderers of Hamas and Hezbollah, but your leaders do. You deserve more. The people of Iran should know – Israel stands with you. May we together know a future of prosperity and peace.”
Just about everyone knows that the majority of Iran’s people don’t want the theocracy that has ruled the country with an iron fist for over forty years. So far, they have been powerless to overthrow that regime. Perhaps Netanyahu is getting way ahead of himself with this vision of a Middle East at peace, but at this point it’s at least a possible consequence of the twistings and turnings that have led us from October 7, 2023 to this moment.
The death of Narallah and the attacks on the Hezbollah hierarchy are not direct hits on the Iranian mullahs, but they have to feel more vulnerable at this point. Hezbollah was – and perhaps still is – their strongest and most well-equipped proxy. It had extended Iran’s reach very far: to South America, to Syria, to Iraq, and of course most of all to Lebanon, Iran’s colonial crown jewel. Now Israel has reduced the power of that outpost of horror, at least temporarily, with stunning speed and remarkable ingenuity of a type that has astounded the world and was not predicted by anyone, as far as I know. Exploding pagers and walkie-talkies? Even screenwriters hadn’t come up with anything like that – but Israel did.
After a year of such heartache and horror, it’s a welcome moment of hope. Netanyahu seems to be positioning himself as a contender for the job of “leader of the free world” – after all, at the moment, there’s a vacancy. The “free world” has been shrinking lately, but his vision is that it can expand and that Iran can be part of it.
Signs of weakness are a dictator’s worst nightmare, and wars are often catalysts for change. Netanyahu is playing on this and planting a powerful notion. Any large scale action by Iran may ultimately end in an internal uprising.
May God free Persia from Islamist bondage.
It was Carter who caused the problem by installing Khomeini and withdrawing support of the Shah
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_with_Ruhollah_Khomeini
The Iranian regime has long appeared to be strong, largely on account of its margin of wealth in oil and gas, its zeal for revolution well developed in its proxy armies carefully arrayed, and its great good fortune in Barack Obama who boosted these Ayatollah fiends at his every opportunity.
Truth is, however, this has been a carefully cultivated illusion; a bluff which is now being exposed day after relentless day. The Islamic republic is weak when shorn of its deterrent force in Hezbollah. Without the threat of precision missiles to rain on Israeli society and civil infrastructure, Iran cannot guard itself. And the Israeli titan knows this. He knows he can crush this weakened enemy from afar and, Providence willing, the subjected Iranian peoples will finish the job, freeing themselves with only a modicum of helps from without.
Netanyahu is a prudent man, a prudent governor by calling and necessity. I don’t think he has miscalculated. I think he is planning still, and speaking in this way is very much a part of the plan.
Bibi is assuming the leadership of what’s left of the free world. Biden has abdicated for the most part.
A couple from Persia (They refuse to call it Iran) lives not far away from us. They are proud of their heritage – at one point Persia was a great nation – and hate the theocrat’s. I hope there are many more Persians like them in Iran. However, breaking free from a theocracy is perhaps the hardest change of all. After all, the theocrats claim to represent Allah and his wishes.
It occurs to me that Bibi’s speech may be a subtle warning to the Mullahs that their lives are now in danger. It could also be a message to those opposed to the Mullahs to get ready for a change.
Things are moving very fast now thanks to the audacity and ingenuity of the Israelis.
I’ll believe the government of Iran is weak only when it falls. I’ll believe Iranians aren’t anti-Israel when they stop making war on Israel. I’ve read countless articles about how ordinary Iranians detest their government and aren’t antisemites. I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then . . .
Djinns comin’ home to roost…
“Ahmadinejad: ‘Head of anti-Mossad unit – was a Mossad agent’;
“In an interview with Turkish CNN, former president of Iran claims that a unit established to fight Mossad agents inside Iran was headed by a Mossad agent.—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/396984
+ Related:
“Iran’s Newest Proxy: Sudan”—
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20982/iran-newest-proxy-sudan
Lebanese Prime Minister says he is willing to deploy forces south of the Litani River to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Bit late, isn’t it? Does he have a military capable of pushing Hezbollah out? (via Ben Shapiro)
https://x.com/AviMayer/status/1840773676888699289
“ Lebanese Prime Minister says he is willing to
deploy forces south of the Litani River to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701.say whatever it is he thinks the world wants to hear.”There. Fixed it.
(Or perhaps even more likely, “whatever it is that ‘Biden’ told him to say…”)
Of course, the Israelis just might also be wondering exactly how reliable the Lebanese PM is—let alone the Lebanese Armed Forces…
(Um, that was a rhetorical “wondering”—they don’t call them LAF for nothing…)
From the Melanie Phillips link, that Barry Meislin supplied in a previous thread:
What documentation is there for Nasrallah saying that? It sounds plausible. It would be a GREAT quote to throw in the faces of the Israelphobes, but I would want better documentation before I did so. Thus far, the only “documentation” I have found is an X posting, which is not exactly great documentation.
I tried Advanced Google Search on MEMRI, to no avail.
We have to be very careful about our documentation.
https://x.com/realMaalouf/status/1837607041080480176
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/a-seismic-moment
It’s only eighteen years too late. Israel could say that its incursions into Lebanon have the goal of enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1701. 🙂
My take on IDF land incursions into Lebanon is that IDF should concentrate on destroying tunnels and arsenals. Unfortunately for those who have a missile in their basements, houses will also be destroyed. It appears to me that Israel has a pretty good idea of where the missiles are stored.
I had a dinner yesterday with Jewish friends in celebration of Rosh Hoshana, a little off date because of the need to have it on the weekend. They have relatives in Israel, including a nephew who has been with IDF in Gaza. Delicious Moroccan and Israeli food. A friend had a kippah with Donald Trump MAGA on it. 🙂
Gringo, Islamist radicals do not hesitate to say that all people must be subjugated to Islam. This is a widespread teaching based in the Qur’an and other foundational texts of Islam. It is Muslims who do NOT advocate this who are not following their prophet closely. May their numbers increase.
“They refuse to call it Iran”
Why? It seems to be the name of the place.
Guarded Domains of Iran 1501-1925
Imperial State of Iran 1925-1979
Islamic Republic of Iran 1979-
Wikipedia
“ The exonym Persia was the official name of Iran in the Western world before March 1935, but the Iranian peoples inside their country since the time of Zoroaster (probably circa 1000 BC), or even before, have called their country Arya, Iran, Iranshahr, Iranzamin (Land of Iran), Ary?n?m (the equivalent of Iran in the proto-Iranian language) or its equivalents. The term Arya has been used by the Iranian people, as well as by the rulers and emperors of Iran, from the time of the Avesta. Evidently from the time of the Sassanids (226–651 CE) Iranians have called it Iran, meaning the “Land of the Aryans” and Iranshahr. In Middle Persian sources, the name Arya and Iran is used for the pre-Sassanid Iranian empires as well as the Sassanid empire. As an example, the use of the name “Iran” for Achaemenids in the Middle Persian book of Arda Viraf refers to the invasion of Iran by Alexander the Great in 330 BC.[20] The Proto-Iranian term for Iran is reconstructed as *Ary?n?m (the genitive plural of the word *Arya); the Avestan equivalent is Airyanem (as in Airyanem Vaejah). The internal preference for “Iran” was noted in some Western reference books (e.g. the Harmsworth Encyclopaedia, circa 1907, entry for Iran: “The name is now the official designation of Persia.”) but for international purposes, Persia was the norm.”