Iran's Mistakes... How Many Are There!
Some argue that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) knows exactly what it is doing and that its calculations cannot possibly be wrong (!!!). The truth, however, is precisely the opposite. Since 1979, the regime overseen by the IRGC has presided over a country that, at the time, was closer to a European nation in terms of development. This stood in stark contrast to the region, where Gulf states were still primitive and had not yet risen, and Arab countries were deeply backward due to their leftist revolutionary regimes. Iran was then the sixth most powerful military force in the world, possessing the most advanced aircraft, warships, and tanks—numbers exceeding those of a superpower like Britain. This was in addition to widespread popular support within Iran for the return of Imam Khomeini, and Gulf and Arab sympathy for the changes that had taken place. Without American and French support, the Shah would not have been overthrown and the regime replaced.
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Instead of leveraging all those positive assets—progress and strength—to build a system of the Guardian Jurist that could serve as an Islamic and humanistic model by bringing happiness and prosperity to the friendly Iranian people at home, and given that the regime had ample wealth following the rise in oil prices from $3 to $40 per barrel over five years to achieve this goal, it did the exact opposite. It sought to spread peace and harmony with neighbors in the region and the world, positioning Iran—the advanced and developed nation that the Shah had turned into the “Japan of West Asia”—as the engine of development, prosperity, and peace in the region and globally, given its superior status compared to Gulf, Arab, and Turkish states at the time.
Instead, the new regime began on its very first day with rapid, widespread, and shocking operations of repression and executions against its own revolutionary partners. It weakened the Iranian military, which had served as a deterrent to any aggressor, in favor of the IRGC militias. With the occupation of the U.S. Embassy, America ceased supplying spare parts for Iranian weapons, prompting Iran to begin purchasing arms from Israel from its earliest days. An Argentine plane carrying Israeli weapons to revolutionary Iran was shot down. This relationship developed with the “two greatest devils,” the larger one being America and the smaller one Israel, despite Iran not being in a state of self-defense until the Iran-Contra affair exposed it. Iran then activated its project of exporting terrorism and revolution to Gulf states and Iraq, resulting in an assassination attempt on Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz at Al-Mustansiriya University. This provided Saddam with the pretext to invade Iran and launch that devastating war.
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The final point: From the first day of the revolution until today, Iran has never made a single correct decision, as evidenced by 47 years of disasters, setbacks, and misery for the Iranian people. In 1982, it squandered victory over Iraq after Saddam’s army was defeated in Khuzestan and withdrew from Iranian territory, by continuing the war, committing aggression, and invading and occupying Iraqi land for six years (1982–1988), ending in defeat and bitterness. No one asked the Iranian leadership and the IRGC why they did not stop the war six years earlier to harvest victory and reparations.
2. Subsequently, the project of internal crisis, repression, and Iran’s isolation continued due to the terrorist operations it sponsored throughout the 1980s, many of which affected us and the world. Alongside this was the comprehensive destruction of every country that Iran intervened in, such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza—countries that were supposed to be created as strong, united, and flourishing states to become a useful ally for Iran. Meanwhile, Gulf states rose during the past 47 years and joined the ranks of the world’s leading nations. Instead of attempting to benefit from this renaissance and learn from it to bring happiness to its people, Iran is currently, through another erroneous stance, attempting to punish and destroy the achievements of those countries through its unjust aggression against them.
3. Finally, the Gulf Arabs have proven themselves to be more humane, advanced, and committed to serving Islam, Muslims, and the peoples of the region than the revolutionary regime in Tehran. This is a truth as bright as the sun at midday, which only someone blind in both sight and insight can ignore or conceal. Iran needs to import the wise Gulf experience, not the other way around—i.e., not to export its destructive revolution. Furthermore, Iran’s leadership needs those who will speak the truth to it, not those who believe its lies, whether they are followers of political Islam across its various factions or even secular mercenaries. Pure, detached, and genuine national stances are not built with illicit money or private interests.
