Iran's criminal exploitation of the Arabs: When will it stop? - opinion

It's as if there is an unnamed drug possessed by Iran and used in the Middle East, which helps to rob minds, twist facts, and distort collective awareness in many Arab countries. By this, I mean the complete disregard and blindness to Iranian crimes and destruction in several countries in the region, as if these places were lush oases instead of ruins haunted by owls, where Islamic terrorist groups from the "Axis of Resistance" — a coalition of armed militias that includes the Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and various armed groups in Iraq and Syria — are controlling decisions, resources, and the future. These groups serve as a frontline defense for Iran.

They leave no homeland intact until it becomes a lifeless corpse. Strangely, this happens while the Iranian Supreme Leader and his men make statements that revive the dead and turn matters upside down, even if there were a modicum of logic, responsibility, and self-consistency. This calls for turning to sociologists to analyze this highly bizarre phenomenon, which deserves serious study.

For Iran, Sunni Arab states as a whole are merely fuel to stoke the poisonous plots in the region. The sole purpose of these plots is to serve the interests of the mullah regime, which considers Sunni Muslims to be the fiercest enemies of the Shiite Republic. Their only utility is their easy exploitation in achieving dreams and ambitions of reviving the bygone Persian Empire, but this time with an Islamic flavor based on a sectarian, divisive project.

To be specific, I will speak through facts, and I will limit myself to mentioning three examples that confirm what I am referring to.

The first incident:

On June 3, 2024, during a speech commemorating the 35th anniversary of Khomeini's death, Khamenei stated that the region needed the October 7 attack, adding that it came at the right time for the region, according to his words. He also said that "the Palestinians confronted the Israeli enemy and cornered them, so they couldn't escape," and that "the ongoing destructive war on Gaza made the Palestinian cause the world's top priority." Thus ended the Supreme Leader's speech.

And why not? After all, for Iran, everything that followed the terrorism of October 7 is just another bargaining chip, as long as the blood being spilled isn't Persian. In an official statement, the Palestinian National Authority responded, saying that "our people are the first to be affected by the Israeli war and pay the price for its continuation." Instead of rallying Arabs around this response, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was attacked in the harshest terms, while Khamenei's words were celebrated.

The second incident:

In June, specifically on June 13, 2024, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani, during a joint press conference with the Iraqi National Security Adviser, said: "America's disagreements with Iran are over the share they allocated to us. We did not accept that, and we are striving to obtain our share in the region." Despite the danger and catastrophic nature of these statements, which clearly reveal Iran's malicious objectives, the Arab reality in the so-called "axis of resistance" completely ignored them as if the Iranian official hadn't even spoken.

The third incident:

On August 26, 2024, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei summed up the Sunni-Shiite conflict and revealed Iran's true view of Sunni Muslims around the world when he tweeted a highly significant statement: "I am at peace with those who are at peace with you, and I am at war with those who are at war with you until the Day of Judgment. The battle between the Husseini front and the Yazidi front continues and will never end." This statement was treated in the same way as Ali Bagheri's, with the primary reaction in the "fortresses of hatred and hostility toward Israel" being silence akin to the silence of graves.

I was deeply astonished by those who have constantly filled our heads day and night with talk of an Iranian response after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. I was invited to several successive programs on an Israeli channel, as well as on Arabic-language radio, where my message was clear: "There will be no response as long as the blood is Sunni and not Shiite for Iran." And indeed, what I predicted came true.

A simple, neutral overview of the primary enemy of the Arabs—if we compare Iran and Israel—will reveal that Iran is the sole and exclusive enemy of the Sunni Arabs. A quick glance at the countries whose destruction is their most prominent characteristic (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon), as well as Gaza before the current events and Jordan, which is highly likely to join at any moment, shows that the countries that have signed peace agreements with Israel have seen nothing but good from the Jewish state. I urge researchers to review the positive outcomes of Israel's cooperation with "Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, the UAE, and Morocco" in various fields.

The reality we see in the aforementioned countries confirms that the adrenaline-fueled rhetoric of hatred toward Israel, directed at the masses and broadcast around the clock in all forms of media since the terrorism of October 7, has caused people's glands to swell and blinded their minds and eyes to what is as clear as the sun. Therefore, the Arab collective enjoyment of Iran's criminal exploitation requires the urgent summoning of sociologists—such as Ibn Khaldun, Auguste Comte, or Shmuel Eisenstadt—from their graves, in hopes that they might provide us with a satisfying answer!?