Iran is waging the forever war. By Tim Black at spiked.

The obstacles to a lasting peace go far deeper than arguments over the terms of the ceasefire and Tehran’s ridiculous wishlist.

Their roots lie in the continued existence of the Islamic Republic itself, which is constitutionally committed to ‘ensuring the continuation of the [Islamic] revolution at home and abroad’. For it is this Islamist mission that has led the Iranian regime to wage a bloody, decades-long shadow war on Israel, using proxy armies and terror groups across the Middle East and beyond.

 

 

After all, this current war didn’t really begin on 28 February this year. It started in earnest on 7 October 2023, when Hamas — an Islamic Republic proxy — invaded what it calls the ‘Zionist entity’ and slaughtered and raped hundreds of Israeli Jews. The joint US-Israeli war in Iran is merely the latest and most explosive phase of a conflict that erupted two-and-a-half years ago. In fact, you could argue that the seeds of this conflict were sown with the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the birth of the Islamic Republic itself. For as long as the Islamic Republic persists, at least in its current form, achieving a lasting resolution to this conflict looks unlikely. …

Iran’s leaders may claim to have inflicted an ‘undeniable, historical and crushing defeat’ on the US and Israel – a claim echoed by the West’s anti-Trump media and degenerate bourgeois left. …

 

 

As it stands, survival is enough for this wretched, parasitic regime. The supreme leader and his Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps remain in power, and their vicious proxy armies, from Hamas and Hezbollah to the Houthis and various Iraqi Shia militias, are still active. For as long as this remains the case, then the Iranian threat to the Middle East’s security persists. The war may be paused, but the Islamist regime that’s driving it is still holding on.

This is one of the grim ironies of the US-Israeli military operation. When it was launched, Trump talked grandly of Iranians’ ‘hour of freedom being at hand’. Yet far from heralding the Iranian people’s liberation, the war has likely supercharged their repression. Reports suggest that the Iranian government has been busily using the cover of war to execute protesters and opponents.

The only hope for a more peaceful future lies with the Iranian people. For all the military power of America and Israel, only the Iranians themselves can take their country back from the Islamist thugs squatting over them.

The war will only end when Iran is liberated from Islam, or Islam conquers the US. Until then, there are only ceasefires.