If Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was hoping for a honeymoon period after his inauguration last week, he must be sadly disappointed. Less than 12 hours after Pezeshkian was sworn in, an explosion, reportedly caused by a remotely controlled bomb, shook an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound in central Tehran. The target: Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, an honoured guest at the inauguration, and one of the Middle East’s most wanted. The bomb under the bed killed Haniyeh instantly. Honeymoon over.
The Haniyeh assassination, attributed to Israel and not denied in Jerusalem, has scrambled all those hopes. Pezeshkian finds himself in the eye of an international storm that analysts warn could lead to all-out war, engulfing the Middle East.
Infuriated by an audacious attack that humiliated him, his country and its elite armed forces, Khamenei – Iran’s ultimate authority – is said to have ordered preparations for direct military retaliation against Israel. Avenging Haniyeh’s death was “our duty”, Khamenei said. Pezeshkian had no choice but to meekly go along. Now the world waits to see what Iran will do. So much for a fresh start.
Iran’s next step may be decisive in determining whether the Middle East plunges into chaos. Its pivotal position should come as no surprise. Its gradual emergence as the region’s pre-eminent power has accelerated in the wake of 7 October. Iran’s anti-Israeli, anti-American “axis of resistance”, embracing militant Islamist groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and ever more openly backed by China and Russia, is now a big force challenging the established western-led order.
You get downvoted out of emotional reaction but you’re right. It’s silly how many young people think this is all new or even fixable. You could eliminate every Jewish person from the middle east and Gaza and the people left will just start killing each other instead. It’s always been tribal in the middle east and it hasn’t changed in 2024. One tribe gains power and oppresses the rest, rinse and repeat.
Based on what? The Muslims, [Palestinian] Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Polytheistic Nomads, and the Druze living in Southern Lebanon seemed to be in peace a few decades ago.
This tacit racism and ahistorical bigotry gets upvoted. Just awful. Western meddling and Zionism is the cause.
It’s called human nature. Especially when tribalism and religion are involved. I’m native Latino and we are the same. We find division among each other and segregate into our little groups even when we’re in another country. And the more you segregate, the more you find little divisions among your shrinking group. My native blood alone made me a target when I was young. We’re all guilty of this, but some places have evolved tribalism into nationalism, whereas some global regions are still a series of small communities who have their own ways. No matter what borders you put around them. People fight. It’s sad that pointing out a simple human fact and a historical fact as well, gets you called a racist by some white kid in mum’s basement who is renting with his gut instead of brain
The only way to truly stop it is to level all of the holy sights. Even then, they might fight over the dirt.