Iran is defined by its history

Iran's history is deep and rich and the present is an extension of that.

Iran can trace its history back to Neanderthals in the Paleolithic era 100,000 years ago. It was overrun by the Assyrians and Greeks, then reinstated under the Parthian and Sasanian empires. Muslims invaded in 633 and took over by 651, leading to a distinctly Persionised Arab rule. Islam eventually took over Iran, ruling in various dynasties until invaded by the Mongols in the 13^th century, though still remained a dominate part of Iranian life. Iran contributed much to Islamic culture during this time.

Eventually, the Mongol empire dissolved and despite issues with the Ottoman empire and Russians, Iran hosted a series of Shah-ruled dynasties until the 20^th century, culminating in a fairly hands-off rule by Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. In 1951, under Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq, the parliament voted to nationalise the oil industry, despite protests and pressure from the British-owned oil company and an economic blockage by its government. They had also introduced social security and other social and economic measures that benefitted the population.

In 1953, a CIA and MI6 backed coup removed Mosaddeq and allowed the brutal autocratic rule by Shah Pahlavi, who went on to crush all opposition, except the powerful theocrats. While the Shah introduced modernisation reforms, and support for Western-based values and governments, they did not really help improve the lot of the population and stirred resistance from the theocracy, eventually leading to the Islamic revolution in 1979.

So, high culture and Islam dominate Iranian history, and despite Western attempts to exploit it, that history reasserted itself, though in a much more theocratic way under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Israel is the lynchpin for legitimisation of both the US and Iranian stances.

Since the revolution, the uniting force has been the hatred of the exploitative nature of the West, particularly the US who have gone on to use Iran as the bogeyman figurehead of Islam as being repressive and an enemy of Western values. A definite super-antagonistic rivalry both nations have gained support among their populations and allies from. However, Israel has played a dominant role in further fomenting the rivalry by being the remaining Middle East beachhead of the West, and thus represented all that is wrong about the West to the Iranian government.

In turn, Israel sees Iran as an existential threat, and thus uses its highly trusted and propagandised status with the US and European nations to encourage regime change in Iran, culminating in the bombings by the US and Israel in 2025 and 2026, which were illegal under international law, but semi-supported by many nations who also wanted regime change but felt restricted by the illegality.

The ill-thought-out bombings in 2026 have given Iran, having learned the US and Israel war plan and how far they would go, a way to bog them down while they thought they were winning. The US and Israeli weapons are very expensive, while Iran has considerable manufacturing expertise in drones and other low-cost but effective weapons. The Russian-Ukrainian war has shown the the US does not not have the manufacturing speed to support long conflicts, so Iran is now playing a flushout game by forcing multiple defensive uses of such expensive weapons across the US's Middle East bases.

Iran, while appearing weaker, has adapted.

Iran learned from the 2025 bombings that it needed to decentralise its government and military so that it could resist future offenses and keep the government alive and stable, though also by violent crackdowns on internal resistance. While the US is expecting a revolt by factions within Iran, its bombing of civilian targets has fomented a sort of defensive unity in the population which sees such actions as a palpable existential threat, which it is certainly meant to be from the Israeli perspective.

Iran is far too large to occupy, so the use of ground troops by the US would be far too little. For all its failures in recent wars, the US still has not leant to appreciate how the populations in invaded countries can asymmetrically resist a far superior force. Like the US, Iran has been fighting proxy wars elsewhere for decades, but it seems only Iran has gained the understanding of the power of native peoples who are fighting for their own existence rather than working under a puppet government installed by a now runaway hegemonic power.

The next few weeks or months will tell how it all plays out, but it looks like Iran's regime will not be toppled, but the US and Israel will have exhausted much of their remote military capability, possibly making them rather impotent if they keep pushing Iran to be even more defensive. Iran has a significant cyber capability and many cells around the world that it could activate to create real chaos in the Western world. That it has not to this time shows that while it grandstanded to its own population, it was not really interested in wanting to be hegemonic for its own sake.

Recent US actions are not having their desired effects.

The offensive against Iran is coming upon a US-created confrontation in the West with its delusions of unity and military might. Populations in the West have seen how their governments were willing to turn a blind eye to blatant genocide in Gaza, and now seeing how those same governments are still supporting internationally illegal military operations that hurt populations but do not quash their oppressive governments. The cruel irony is that the US is claiming it is trying to bring some democracy to Iran, while itself becoming a theocracy that torments it own people.

The other irony is that by trying to suppress Iran's nuclear capability, alongside the US's overt bullying of nations except nuclear-armed ones, nations like Iran now see that the possibility of having nuclear weapons is not enough deterrent from overt delegitimisation: only actually having such weapons is. That makes the world less safe, all to pretend to be strong but fracturing the world more. The US was hoping for more superpower influence, but is now breeding a world where they are losing their influence even more.