It is hard not to get a feeling of deja vu when one writes about the Muslim world. Nearly every geopolitical event of note involves a spectacular military defeat or failed state collapsing in on itself. Israel’s attack on Iran earlier this summer is no different. It is yet another episode that vividly illustrates the military dominance Western powers have had over Muslim states for centuries.
On June 12th, Israel launched an unprovoked surprise attack against Iran. It has attacked Iran many times over the years but the scale and magnitude of this latest round of violence was far greater than any of those previous assaults or acts of sabotage. Over a period of twelve days, its forces launched hundreds of strikes on military, nuclear, energy, educational, residential and media sites across the country, causing widespread damage and mayhem. America joined in at the last minute too, using its stealth bombers to destroy three nuclear facilities. At least 639 Iranians were murdered, among them women, children, and several high ranking Iranian military officers and scientists. Many of these officials were killed alongside their families while sleeping in the dead of night. Israeli leaders and their partners in America argued their violence was necessary to eliminate the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As usual, they made no sense.
For starters, Iran was not trying to build nuclear weapons. It has been on the threshold of weaponizing its uranium stockpile for years but has intentionally refrained from doing so in the hopes of negotiating a settlement with the US and its Western allies. In fact, it was preparing for a sixth round of negotiations to do exactly that when it was attacked. Perhaps most galling of all, America unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA treaty Iran signed to give up its nuclear pursuits in 2015 and American intelligence officials recently issued a report indicating Iran was not trying to build nuclear weapons. Attacking Iran under the pretense of preventing it from building weapons it was not trying to build is a ridiculous and illogical argument.
Even if Iran managed to build nuclear weapons, which it has every right to do, it would never use one against Israel because Israel has its own stockpile of nuclear bombs. Under the logic of mutually assured destruction or MAD, that makes using nuclear weapons against it an act of suicide and an impossibility.
These attacks had nothing to do with ensuring Israel’s survival or protecting it from Iran. They were the culmination of Israel’s campaign to make sure no one within the Muslim world challenges its apartheid regime or tries to stop its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The only aim was to punctuate Israel’s rampages through Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria by critically weakening the only Muslim state willing to openly help the Palestinian and Lebanese people defend themselves. In doing so, Israel hoped to establish its hegemony over the entire Middle East while deliberately trying to destabilize large chunks of it at the same time. “Regime change” is, after all, merely an Orwellian term that in the post-Iraq context calls for fomenting civil war and chaos by destroying Iran’s government and leaving nothing to replace it.
Much like their allies in the Pentagon, Israel’s military leaders simultaneously proved their tactical brilliance and strategic incompetence. They have all but guaranteed Iran will acquire nuclear weapons while unleashing a chain of events that could very easily come back to haunt them in the same way their invasion of Lebanon gave rise to Hezbollah and their attempts to fracture the Palestinians gave rise to Hamas. War always shifts societies to the right, creating space for extremists and hardliners to thrive. Israel’s unjust war against Iran will be no different. The only difference, given Iran’s much larger size and resources, will be the amount of blowback.
Israel’s leaders also showed, once again, that they are messianic radicals who represent an existential threat to the entire Muslim world. Though the Western media has done its best to ignore or downplay them, the evidence of apartheid Israel’s brutality and crimes is overwhelming. During its never ending assault on Gaza, Israel’s military has intentionally murdered tens of thousands of women and children by indiscriminately attacking densely populated civilian areas. Its forces frequently use thousand pound bombs to attack apartment buildings and residential neighborhoods. Its snipers and drones routinely murder children trying to flee to safety or search for food. There are also credible reports regarding the systemic use of Palestinians as human shields by Israeli forces. Most damning of all, the Israeli government has implemented a blockade that has led to widespread shortages of food, medicine, and the basic necessities of life.
Eliminating a few Iranian generals cannot mask these crimes. If anything, the latest assault against Iran is more proof Israel is a violent apartheid state with no interest in peace. Even if Israel managed to destroy the entire Axis of Resistance and topple the Iranian government, which were highly doubtful propositions, the conditions for war between it and the wider Muslim world would remain. Israel would still be a violent apartheid state ruled by baby killing sociopaths engaged in the violent repression of the Palestinians who believe sowing chaos and destruction throughout the Muslim world makes them safer. It is only a matter of time before their crimes lead to more violence.
As such, we must critically examine why Iran fared so poorly against Israel’s assaults and what the entire Muslim world can learn from yet another stinging defeat of a Muslim state at the hands of the Western powers.
To be fair, it is far too early to accurately gauge the true impact of these events and Iran’s ability to regroup. Adding to the difficulty is the fog of war and how information, even in the supposedly “free world” is so tightly controlled by governments. This makes accurately assessing the damage much harder. For example, Iranian missiles appear to have struck Israel’s military headquarters, however, aside from a brief report by Fox News, Western media outlets ignored this extremely important story. Nevertheless, most reports suggest Iran suffered significant damage while inflicting a minimal amount in return. The loss of so many high ranking military officers, by itself, represents a critical blow that justifies labeling it the loser. At a minimum, these developments show Iran’s strategy of establishing deterrence failed miserably.
According to an essay published in Foreign Affairs, Iran “lost” because “its “hardliners overplayed their hand” when “they unleashed their proxies at Israeli targets” in the aftermath of its attack on Gaza. There is a lot wrong with this piece that we do not have time to explore in detail. It epitomizes the sort of biased and superficial analysis Western media outlets have always used to whitewash and normalize apartheid Israel’s crimes and mostly functions to remind us that propaganda comes in all shapes and sizes.
Rather than discuss how Israel’s intentional targeting of civilians compelled both Hezbollah and the Houthis to get involved or how its apartheid policies and refusal to negotiate a lasting peace with the Palestinians made war inevitable, it predictably and quite erroneously paints Iran as the aggressor. However, it does adequately explain that Iran’s inability to effectively attack Israel or defend itself emboldened Israel’s leaders to escalate their violence. Iran lost, in other words, because of its weak military capabilities, particularly those related to its air forces, air defenses, and counter intelligence abilities.
A comprehensive discussion of the historical, political, economic, social, and geographic factors that have conspired to prevent Iran from building a modern military force capable of defending its territory would take a book. As such, we will limit ourselves to the most relevant points.
As a preliminary matter, there is a plausible argument to be made that Iran lost because it hesitated and/or never fully committed to the fight. It became obvious within the first few weeks of Israel’s assault on Gaza that this war was going to be genocidally different than its previous rampages through the territory and would inevitably spread beyond Gaza. Rather than waiting and hoping for Israel’s leaders to satiate their bloodlust, they should have realized the danger they were in and launched a preemptive attack coordinated with regional allies while they were still at full strength. That may have been their only chance at overwhelming and neutralizing Israel’s air defenses during the early stages of the conflict. Which, in turn, might have been the only way to deter it from further violence. Instead, Iran’s leaders showed restraint and advised their allies to do the same. This merely allowed Israel to pick them off one by one, at a time of its choosing. This is certainly a plausible argument but not a very good one considering Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and the trigger happy extremists who control it.
Iran’s leaders were forced to show restraint, as they have had to many times before, because they knew they did not have weapons powerful enough to deter Israel should they fully expose its vulnerabilities. As such, their biggest mistake was not building a credible nuclear deterrent. North Korea shows Western nations will ostracize and sanction those nations that defy their attempts to monopolize the most destructive military technologies but they will not attack them.
The need for such weapons should have been clear after America’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the toppling of Libya’s government. Despite these warning signs, Iran’s leaders did not act with urgency to ensure they were properly armed. Instead, they sanguinely ignored the lessons gleaned from America’s violence against the Muslim world these past 35 years or the past 500 years of world history which shows Western nations only understand the language of violence. In the modern age, speaking this language requires nuclear weapons supported by technologically advanced conventional forces.
Iran’s reluctance to build nuclear weapons was somewhat understandable given the diplomatic and economic repercussions but its military planners inexplicably neglected their conventional forces too. They opted for a defensive posture centered around a robust air defense network full of the sort of targets Israel’s air force specializes in destroying. But they failed to build or acquire the advanced fighters needed to protect them. Instead, they built an arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones, many of which were distributed to its network of regional allies. Iran’s leaders hoped their asymmetric capabilities would dissuade Israel and America from attacking them. Clearly, their hope was misplaced.
Yet another critical factor handicapping Iran’s war fighting capabilities relates to its inability to build strong alliances with other states. Militias, even ones as powerful as Hezbollah, cannot generate the resources and power of a state. As the constant flow of munitions and money from its American and European allies show, Israel is part of a powerful alliance of Western states that work together by supplying each other with military hardware, ammunition, and intelligence.
Aside from Libya, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Sudan every single Arab state is ruled by dictators who rely on Western arms to sustain their regimes. As a result, most of the Arab world is ruled by men who are too weak to stand up to Israel or its American backers. Several even quietly helped Israel. Jordan actually shot down Iranian missiles and drones under the pretense of protecting its air space while allowing Israeli missiles, drones, and jets unfettered access to this same air space.
Before Assad’s fall, Syria was the only Arab state allied to Iran but after years of civil war, it did not even meet the definition of a state since it did not control all its territory. It served as a necessary logistical hub but was more of a liability than an asset in projecting force since Syria’s military under Assad was incompetent and he was a duplicitous and unreliable ally. The means used to prop up his government backfired in the same way brutality and repression always backfire, eventually leaving both Iran and Hezbollah more isolated.
Iran has managed to develop strong alliances with Russia and China but they are not the sort of alliances that would induce either country to overtly intervene on its behalf. As a result of its lack of close allies, Iran was forced to weather the storm alone, much like Iraq before it.
In sum, the proximate causes of Iran’s defeat relate to its inability to build or acquire the advanced weapons needed to protect itself or build strong alliances with powerful states willing to help it. Now that a ceasefire has been put in place, Iran must start to rebuild by taking the short and long term steps needed to make sure its enemies never attack it again.
Its leaders must begin by enacting deep rooted reforms to liberalize and democratize their political and legal systems. Not as some PR gimmick to appease Western audiences but with the understanding that their survival depends on it. Iran has been ruled by its clerics, otherwise known as Ayatollahs, since they overthrew the Shah and subordinated their military elite in 1979. Religion and politics is one of the most toxic combinations known to man. The two should never mix. When they come into contact, they corrupt each other in ways that are exceptionally difficult to reverse. Clerics belong in a mosque or seminary, not a command center.
The structure of Iran’s government makes it inherently weak in a variety of ways that primarily boil down to three things. The oppression of women. The lack of democracy. The lack of freedom of expression. These are the real reasons Iran lost just as they are the reason so many parts of the Muslim world are unstable and prone to conquest. When these toxic ingredients mix, it becomes much harder to build industrialized economies of the sort needed to field competent militaries or form enduring partnerships based on trade and mutual interests with other states.
China and Russia both prove authoritarian states are capable of building modern militaries, particularly if the state invests heavily in education and industrialization. But an often overlooked aspect of their modernization efforts was the degree to which women were liberated and empowered. Iran may be able to contrive an authoritarian political system that still allows for military modernization but it will never do so without first freeing Iranian women.
There have been countless studies that prove what common sense already tells us – there is a strong correlation between gender inequality and underdevelopment. Iran’s leaders have improved educational access for many Iranian women; however, they have also spent decades repressing and marginalizing them in a variety of ways that have limited their ability to contribute to Iran’s socio-economic development and, by inference, its ability to protect itself.
As the author argued several years ago, the repression meted out to Iran’s people, especially its women, and the denial of their democratic and human rights by their own government have forced Iran to fight its enemies with “one armed tied behind its back.” The destruction visited upon it this past June demonstrates the folly of this approach and the urgent need for reforms.
Once it has taken the long overdue steps to strengthen itself internally, Iran will need to build stronger alliances with other states. Lacking suitable partners in the Arab world, it must expand and strengthen its existing alliances with China and Russia by enhancing military cooperation to rebuild and plug the gaps in its defenses.
Iran must also work with Turkey and Pakistan to build the sort of strategic partnership that can give it the power to protect itself over the long run. The need for a Muslim security organization similar to NATO between these three nations has been clear for many years. Combined, they represent the spine of the Muslim world and, if properly connected, would possess the power to stabilize much of it. To integrate properly, they must first bind themselves via joint infrastructure and free trade agreements designed to spur the sort of economic cooperation that can form the foundation for a long lasting alliance comparable to the EU. This foundation could then form the basis for a military alliance.
The idea that Turkey and Pakistan could create an alliance with Iran may seem implausible and there are certainly significant barriers standing in the way. But the inescapable truth is that all three desperately need each other. Joining together is the only way to protect themselves from the unhinged war mongers who rule Israel and America and their policy of weakening and destabilizing any Muslim state they view as a threat. Egypt was the first domino to fall. Then came Iraq, then Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan. Iran appears to have narrowly escaped a similar fate, but only for now.
Given the sheer number of Muslim nations Israel and America have attacked, destabilized, or subjugated over the years, the pattern and the malign intentions guiding it are painfully obvious to see. Neither will ever stop attacking the Muslim world until Muslim nations develop the strength to stop them.
Learning to protect each other will play an important part in building this strength. It is not just a matter of pan-Islamic sentiments but self-interest and preservation. Due to the many ways Israel’s and America’s destructive activities can hurt them, it is in the interest of both Pakistan and Turkey to actively oppose them.
Turkey’s recent involvement in Syria has set it on a collision course with Israel. It is therefore only a matter of time before Israel turns on Turkey too. The current trajectory of Turkey’s relationship with the West as evidenced by the degree to which it is constantly demonized in Western publications and the sanctions that limit weapons and technology transfers suggest its Western allies will do little to help it when that day comes. Many of Turkey’s people have recently begun thinking along similar lines. The Turkish government even vowed to build a fully independent defense industry to ensure it has the means to protect itself. Building an alliance with Iran and Pakistan represents one of the most important steps towards ensuring it can do so effectively.
Israel and America have also been selling advanced weapons to India for years. Many of them, such as the Israeli made Heron drone, were used against Pakistan during India’s Operation Sindoor. Whether its leaders want to admit it or not, by virtue of their arms sales to India’s fanatical rulers, America and Israel are Pakistan’s enemies.
Rather than confront the reality of its prolific weapons sales to India and what this says about its long term designs for the Subcontinent, Pakistan’s rulers are hoping for a “strategic reset” with America. Unless this reset involves halting arms shipments to India and ending its attempts to destabilize Iran, it will not satisfy Pakistan’s long term security needs in the way that forming a military alliance with Iran and Turkey would.
The centrifugal forces Israel hopes to unleash in Iran have the potential to flood both countries with refugees while inflaming or reigniting separatists movements in each. As Tucker Carlson pointed out so brilliantly, Iran has a population of roughly 92 million people. That’s more than three times Iraq’s population and almost five times Afghanistan’s when they were invaded. The potential chaos that will ensue if Israel ever manages to destroy Iran’s government will make the anarchy that followed these invasions look like a walk in the park. Which is saying something considering America’s invasion of Afghanistan set off a civil war in Pakistan that killed 80,000 people and has yet to fully resolve itself.
If Pakistan and Turkey are to have any chance at peaceful and prosperous futures, they will need to make sure Iran’s government remains capable of holding the country together. By protecting Iran, they are protecting themselves.
Despite the glaring need and obvious benefits, these countries have not come together because, to varying degrees, Pakistan and Turkey feature the same sort of inherently weak authoritarian political and social systems that govern Iran. Their political economies are dominated by military elites and patronage networks that are incapable of building strong partnerships with each other. EU style integration requires politically influential business and industrial elites and well-run courts and administrative agencies, not generals with vast business interests.
Of the three, Turkey has the most inclusive and open political and social systems. It is the only democracy in the Middle East but still retains serious authoritarian features that de-incentivize investment and technological innovation. Despite its authoritarian characteristics, Turkey has built a strong industrial base that has translated to an increasingly independent and advanced military industrial complex. However, it still struggles to build its most sophisticated equipment like the engines and microchips that power its famous drones. Turkey still imports 20% of its military hardware from Western arms suppliers, which severely limits its geopolitical freedom of action and ability to enter into alliances that might upset its western partners.
Pakistan has been ruled by its generals, either directly or via a hybrid system, for most of its history. Its courts and law enforcement agencies are awful and its government is authoritarian and non-responsive to the needs of its people, particularly when it comes to providing decent public education and reliable energy. Pakistan has built a powerful military but its socio-economic and industrial foundations are rotten and in need of serious investment and reform. Rather than implement the necessary changes, its elite prefer the comfort of neo-colonial relationships and the ease of taking cheap money from their Arab benefactors and international banking institutions.
Iran and the entire Muslim world must respond to the last two years of Israeli and American outrages by finally admitting their way of doing things is not working. They must embrace democracy, gender equality, the rule of law and freedom of expression if they ever wish to end the cycle of violence that has consumed their societies for so long. Until they do, the pattern will continue unabated. The attack against Iran is but the latest iteration of this pattern and highlights the desperate need for serious and meaningful change, not just in Tehran but across the entire Muslim world.
