I have never had any high regard for the ruling clerics in Iran. The Iranian people certainly deserve better leadership. But the US-Israeli attack on Iran, which began on 28 February, was deeply unjust! The attack killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his daughter, son-in-in-law, daughter-in-law, a grandchild, and several senior military and political figures.
Two months ago the US kidnapped Venezuela's President Nicholas Maduro!
Neither country is officially at war with the US. These are absolutely acts of lawlessness! We are dealing with an international monster, yet few leaders dare to speak out against this pervert!
Back to Iran.
The majority of the Iranians are Persian. The Persians are a great civilization; they deserve far more respect and sympathy.
Few civilizations possess a historical legacy as deep and influential as that of Persia, today known as Iran.
For more than two millennia before the upheavals of the twentieth century, Persia stood as one of the great centres of political power, culture, and intellectual achievement in the world. (The Parsis in India are descendants of Zoroastrians who fled Persia after the Islamic conquest in the 7th-10th centuries. Ratan Tata is a Parsi.)
The rise of Persia as a major imperial power began in the sixth century BCE under Cyrus the Great, who founded the vast Achaemenid Empire. At its height, this empire stretched from the Indus River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, encompassing many peoples, languages, and religions.
The Persians pioneered a sophisticated system of governance that allowed local traditions and faiths to flourish while maintaining imperial unity. Cyrus himself gained lasting fame for his policy of tolerance, symbolized in the Cyrus Cylinder, often regarded as one of the earliest declarations of human rights.
Later rulers such as Darius I strengthened the empire through administrative brilliance. He organized the realm into provinces called satrapies, built roads linking distant regions, and established a reliable postal system that astonished the ancient world. The great ceremonial capital of Persepolis stood as a symbol of imperial grandeur and artistic achievement.
Although the Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE, Persian civilization endured and revived under later dynasties.
The Sassanian Empire (224–651 CE) restored Persian political strength and became one of the two superpowers of the late ancient world, rivalling the Byzantine Empire. Persian art, architecture, and administrative practices profoundly influenced neighbouring cultures.
Following the Arab conquest in the seventh century, Persia adopted Islam, yet it retained a distinctive cultural identity. Persian language, literature, and scholarship flourished throughout the Islamic world. The poetry of figures such as Rumi and Hafez became enduring treasures of world literature.
In the early modern period, Persia once again emerged as a major regional power under the Safavid Empire (1501–1736). The Safavids established Shia Islam as the state religion, shaping Iran’s religious identity to this day. Their capital, Isfahan, became one of the most magnificent cities of the early modern world, famed for its grand squares, mosques, and gardens.
Enter the Western Powers…
During World War I, the then Persia was officially neutral but effectively occupied by foreign powers - Russia dominated the north, and Britain controlled the south because of oil interests. The ruling Qajar dynasty was weak and unable to resist foreign interference. The country was politically unstable and economically fragile.
In 1921, a military officer, Reza Shah, seized power in a coup. He overthrew the Qajar dynasty in 1925 and founded the Pahlavi dynasty. Reza Shah pursued aggressive modernization. He built railways, schools, and a modern army, reduced the influence of tribal leaders and clerics, and adopted secular reforms inspired by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey. However, his rule became authoritarian.
During World War II, Britain, and the Soviet Union invaded Iran in 1941 because they feared Reza Shah might lean toward Germany. He was forced to abdicate and his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, became the new Shah.
Iran became strategically important as an Allied supply corridor to the Soviet Union.
In 1951, nationalist politician Mohammad Mossadegh became prime minister.
He
nationalized the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and became extremely
popular inside Iran.
Britain and the United States began to fear their loss of oil interests and possible Soviet influence during the Cold War.
In 1953 the CIA and MI6 helped overthrow Mossadegh and restore the Shah’s power. This event deeply shaped Iranian distrust of the West.
The Shah ruled as an all-powerful monarch. However, he did introduce the White Revolution (1963), the programmes of which included land reform, women’s suffrage, rapid industrialization, and expansion of education. The country experienced strong economic growth from oil revenues.
However, the Shah became closely aligned with the US. Wealth inequality grew. Traditional religious groups felt threatened. His secret police SAVAK began to suppress opposition.
By the mid-1970s, Iran effectively became a one-party state. The Shah lived ostentatiously and lavishly and displayed extreme royal luxury, when many people were still poor. Members of the royal family and court accumulated enormous wealth through state contracts, monopolies, and privileged access to oil revenues. (The Pahlavi Foundation controlled vast assets, blending charity with business holdings. Critics believed it functioned partly as a financial network benefiting the monarchy.)
However, the modernization was top-down and politically repressive, which produced resentment. SAVAK was tasked with arresting thousands of political opponents, torturing dissidents, maintaining extensive surveillance networks, and suppressing newspapers and political parties.
A major religious critic of the Shah was Ruhollah Khomeini who opposed the Shah’s authoritarian rule and Western influence. After protests in 1963, Khomeini was arrested and then exiled (first to Iraq, later France). From exile, he continued to inspire opposition through speeches and recordings.
Due to economic difficulties, political repression, religious opposition and anger at Western influence, mass protests erupted in 1978.
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Jaleh Square in Tehran on Friday, 8 September to protest against the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after the government had declared martial law in Tehran and several other cities a day before. Iranian soldiers opened fire with rifles and machine guns. Hundreds or even thousands are said to be killed. Even the lower estimates were shocking enough to transform the political situation.
Black Friday became a turning point in the Iranian Revolution. After
this event, the Shah’s regime rapidly lost control. Within five months, he fled
Iran.
In February 1979, Khomeini returned from exile and Iran became an Islamic republic. A referendum was actually held, and it approved the creation of the Islamic Republic. A constitution created the position of Supreme Leader, held by Khomeini. The state became a Shiite Islamic theocracy combining religious authority with republican institutions.
Ironically, it was the West that initially supported Iran’s nuclear programme which began under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1957, Iran signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with the US under President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace programme. Western companies from Germany, France, and the US helped build nuclear facilities. Iran had planned to build over twenty nuclear power plants to generate electricity.
Everything changed after the Iranian Revolution, when Khomeini established an Islamic Republic. Western countries cancelled nuclear cooperation and many nuclear projects in Iran were halted or abandoned. However, Iran resumed the nuclear program in the 1990s with help from Russia and other partners.
Western opposition intensified after secret facilities are revealed by an Iranian opposition group. These discoveries alarmed Western governments, who suspected Iran might be pursuing nuclear weapons. From that point onward, the International Atomic Energy Agency launched investigations and Western countries pushed for sanctions and restrictions.
The first major international action came with United Nations Security Council passed a resolution in 2006 which demanded Iran halt uranium enrichment or face sanctions. Years of negotiations eventually produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed by Iran and six world powers. The agreement limited Iran’s uranium enrichment, allowed international inspections, and lifted many sanctions.
But in 2018, the US under Trump, withdrew from the agreement and re-imposed sanctions.
We all know who the instigator is.
Israel has long regarded a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat. It contends that Iran supports armed groups hostile to Israel such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Israeli leaders – from Benjamin Netanyahu to earlier prime ministers – have consistently lobbied the United States and Europe to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The Iranians are a highly intelligent people. Making nuclear bombs is no sweat to them. I dare say many are pro-West by nature. (They generally consider themselves as White equivalents!) If the Americans have been fair to them, they will certainly tilt towards the US.
But we know the Zionist ambitions. They want a weak and divided Middle East. They would want to seize as much land as possible there and, unfortunately, the Palestinians in general, and the Hamas in particular, are silly enough to create an opportunity for the Israelis to bomb Gaza to the ground. (Some 72,000 thousand were killed and another 170,000 wounded. And now the perverse Trump is talking about a Peace Board and the development of a riviera there.)
But no matter how adverse we are towards Iran’s clerics, we cannot help feeling how unjust Trump and Netanyahu have been in striking Iran when they were still holding talks in Oman.
One thing is clear, though, the Iranians are unlike the Iraqis and Libyans who in the wake of their invasions by the West swarmed out to celebrate and wave the Stars and Stripes. (Some Iranians would perhaps like to, but the actions of the US and Israel have certainly put paid to that inclination.) Instead, they are digging in, even though I see that their Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is no Wang Yi. Araghchi is tentative in demeanours and tends to speak with little gravitas to the press.
I do not propose to write about the war even though much of the Western and pro-West media are self-censoring themselves to deliver only the glorious achievements of Trump and Hegseth in their destruction of Iran. Friends and readers certainly have the opportunity to learn from alternative sources how determined are the Iranian forces in inflicting pains on the US, Israel and its allies in the Gulf. (However, I do see that there are also many false claims and much fake news from some of these overzealous alternative sources.) But suffice for me just to highlight a few observations to support my use of the word “unjust" to describe the US and Israeli actions.
 |
| Trump's De facto War Cabinet |
1. Trump’s Spiritual Guidance
Trump has
always been an outlier; obviously, he does not believe in conventions. It is common
knowledge that he had a Faith Office in the White House. Established in 2025,
the office has two key figures – Senior advisor Paula White-Cain and her deputy
Jennifer S. Korn.
Three times-married, Paula White-Cain is an American televangelist, pastor, author, and political religious adviser who has been closely associated with Donald Trump for many years.
She was born in 1966 and often describes a difficult childhood marked by poverty and family problems, and says she became a born-again Christian shortly after high school. She married preacher Randy White, and together they founded Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Florida in 1991. The church grew rapidly and at one point had around 20,000 members, making it one of the largest churches in the U.S. She later became a television evangelist, author, and motivational speaker, building a national audience through Christian TV networks.
White
is widely associated with prosperity theology—the belief that faith and
generous donations to a ministry will bring material blessings and financial
prosperity from God. This teaching is controversial and heavily criticized by
many mainstream Christian theologians.
White
became a spiritual adviser to Donald Trump years before his presidency and
helped mobilize evangelical support for him in the 2016 election.
She
lives lavishly – a $2.6 million, 8,000-sq-ft mansion in Tampa, multi-million dollar properties everywhere (including a unit in Trump Tower), access to a private jet connected with her ministry and high
salaries and benefits linked to church finances.
From these, you can judge for yourself the level of Trump"s spiritual wisdom.
On 4 March, the Iranian frigate Dena was torpedoed by a US submarine in the Ocean near Sri Lanka. The frigate was not operating near Iran at the time. It was sailing through international waters on its way back after participating in an international naval exercise hosted by India in the Bay of Bengal. It is said that about 180 crew members were on board, 87 sailors confirmed dead, and 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lankan Navy.
- The ship was in international waters far
from Iran.
- It was returning from a multinational
naval event, not actively engaged in combat at the time.
The International Fleet Review 2026 was hosted by the Indian Navy in February 2026. Besides Iran, a wide range of countries joined the exercise and fleet review. Among those that sent ships, aircraft, or delegations were United States. Russia, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Seychelles. (Overall, more than 70 countries took part in the broader events, with about 19 foreign warships participating directly in the sea activities.) The IFR is essentially a ceremonial gathering of naval ships from many countries, hosted by one nation to showcase naval cooperation, diplomacy, and maritime capability. It allows navies to build trust and relationships. Admirals, officers, and sailors meet, exchange visits, and strengthen cooperation.
Countries that might not normally operate together get opportunities to interact, which can help in disaster relief cooperation, anti-piracy coordination, and search-and-rescue collaboration. An International Fleet Review is the naval equivalent of a diplomatic summit — but with warships instead of conference rooms.
Instead, the Iranian frigate was sunk by another participating country’s submarine after the event. How cruel and immoral Trump can be!
It is most unfortunate that the Indian government was not decent enough to offer protection to the vessel of a participating nation.
3. Strike on Iranian school
The school building was partitioned off from the military compound in 2016 and bore clear hallmarks of a civilian educational facility, including a sports field and children’s murals.
War Secretary Hegseth had the cheek to insist that US forces "never target civilian targets." The act is a clear violation of international humanitarian law.
The Minab incident is not the first atrocity committed by the US against Iran. In 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War, the US Navy cruiser USS Vincennes downed civilian airliner Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 people on board. Washington later expressed "deep regret" and paid compensation but has never formally apologized for the incident.
All because of Trump and Netanyahu!
Another lesson from history: you cannot count on clerics to rule your country. They will destroy it.
If the Ayatollahs were clever, they should have taken a leaf out of Kim Jong Un’s playbook. Western logic has no place for weaklings.
And if the Iranians had not been so skeptical of China's technological prowess, they would have armed themselves like the Pakistanis. And the equation will be different today. Too late!
Trump boasts that on a scale of 10, he is scoring 15 in the way he is conducting the war. But I believe that, deep inside, The TACO is actually panicking. He is riding a tiger and does not know how to dismount. Trump may find that Netanyahu becomes his political undoing this time.
I wonder what he is going to talk about with Xi Jinping when they meet at the end of the month.
End
