Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Iran: A Crisis of Modesty | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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The current Iranian leadership suffers from a chronic ailment—the belief that Iran is a superpower, and that successful military exercises means that Iran is capable of winning a real war against opponents with more capabilities, efficiency and technological advancement!

The problem with the current Iranian leadership is that it neither wants to learn from history nor heed to the significance of geography.

An example of this can be taken out of the pages of Iran’s history books when the late Shah of Iran thought that his awkward policy towards the Gulf States, particularly his insistence that Bahrain was part of Iran, thus allocating unoccupied seats representing Bahrain in the Iranian parliament, and threatening of the smaller Gulf States could improve his position. This resulted in the Shah loosing the support of his neighbors after loosing that of his people, and the rest of the story is known to all.

Another example is when the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran. Instead of attempting to solve the unemployment and poverty problems of its people, the new revolutionaries decided instead to “export the revolution”, and in the process ended up stirring negative sentiments amongst its neighbors.

After all, a revolution is not a commodity to import but rather the creation of a new regime that sets an example to others. What the revolutionaries did in Tehran was a disaster rather than an example.

This resulted in individuals like Saddam Hussein taking it upon himself to be the defender against the so-called “Persian Magi “; the results of which were tragic for all.

Now the Iranian administration is repeating itself, but in amore provocative manner. For Iran is actively involved in Lebanon, a fact that they do not deny. They are the real motivators of war and chaos through the “clean money” (Iran’s funding of Hezbollah) that they appropriated from their poor.

They are also involved in both Iraqi and Palestinian affairs. They are involved in acts of violence in Yemen and are nauseatingly active in Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and other nations while at home their unemployment and poverty problems worsen and their oil revenues are channeled into the development of nuclear weapons technology and the building of its military arsenal.

The Iranian people do not deserve this juvenile policy and the region does not deserve these frivolous policies. The gulf peoples on both the Iranian and Arabian sides need peace, stability and the exchange of commodities rather than the exchange of missiles, prisoners and injured people, which they’ve done for many years.

Iran needs a stop at reason and logic. The clamor of hollow words will not solve Iran’s problems, and the illusions of the possible success of these policies have to come to an end for the sake of the interest of the region and the interest of the Iranian people who have paid dearly for these adventures and wars for so many years.

Some modesty is required as well as the realization of Iran’s real capabilities. “God favors those who know their self worth”; this is what we need to keep in mind always!