In retaliation to the bombing of the consulate and the killing of seven Revolutionary Guard leaders, Iran responded with 300 drones and missiles. In the end, only seven missiles fell on two Israeli bases, causing some minor material damage. They killed a Palestinian girl and a cat.
THE mountain was in labor but it gave birth to a mouse. This applies to Iran’s response to Israel’s bombing of Tehran’s consulate in Damascus. This happened after nearly 45 years of threats to “wipe Israel out of existence” and boasting of Iran’s military capabilities. There is no doubt that the capabilities of the Revolutionary Guard are very limited. It is merely a trumpet and nothing more, just much ado.
When the United States of America killed the commander of the Quds Force Qassim Suleimani with a missile from a drone, Tehran screamed and roared that it would not remain silent, but in the end, it swallowed the strike. In retaliation to the bombing of the consulate and the killing of seven Revolutionary Guard leaders, Iran responded with 300 drones and missiles. In the end, only seven missiles fell on two Israeli bases, causing some minor material damage. They killed a Palestinian girl and a cat. Therefore we beg to ask, where is the divine victory that the Tehran regime had rumbled the world with? The Iranian regime could save the billions it spent on building caricature military capabilities, with which it wanted to cover up the rampant corruption in all its institutions. It could have spent that money on the well-being of its people, about 75 percent of whom live below the poverty line.
On the other hand, the leaders and officials live in the bliss of gardens they built from the people’s livelihood, under the pretext of “serving the sacred project of the revolution,” which was nothing but a coup against the Shah’s regime, replacing it with another generalized one, and even with many shahs. When the current regime adopted “exporting the revolution” in its constitution and raised bright slogans, especially about its neighbors, it began to antagonize all the people of the region.
And when it began its interference in the internal affairs of Lebanon in 1982 via the so-called Hezbollah, it was adding fuel to the fire of hostility toward it in the Arab world and from the East to the West. When the Revolutionary Guard cells and the intelligence services began carrying out their terrorist operations around the world, all the nations of the earth were drawn to antagonize their people. For this reason, Iran became a rogue state whose evil cannot be guaranteed.
There was a possibility of avoiding all the losses incurred in the past decades, if it had adhered to international agreements regarding the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, did not help the Houthis in Yemen against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, did not spark sectarian strife in Bahrain, did not build sectarian gangs in Iraq, and did not intervene in Syria. Instead, it opted for the challenging route, defying the entire world. This path only promised famine, poverty, and conflict, as it was embroiled in a struggle against a system where decision-makers assert their dominance over the people of the earth.
In reality, they are suffocating their people, who revolted against them more than once. They were suppressed with the most severe forms of oppression. Therefore, they are working to export their problems abroad by igniting strife in the region. In the recent operation, Israel was not alone, as proven by the practical response to the shooting down of drones and missiles before they entered Israeli airspace, but the truth must be revealed. Instead of this theatrical strike agreed upon with the United States and Israel leading to an end to the Israeli war on Gaza, it increased the suffering of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. It also extended the life of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which was on the brink of abyss. Indeed, this operation revealed how Tehran serves to help Israel, not to erase it.
By Ahmed Al-Jarallah
Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times
[email protected]
