What I find interesting about Iran’s recent retaliation against Israel is how it disproves what America’s Christian-conservative-right has been telling me for decades.
Soon after the attack of September 11, way back in 2001, before current college graduates were even born, voices on the right began telling me that Iran hates Israel and America; that Iran wants to kill Israelis and Americans; that Iran is just months away from getting a nuke and once they get it they’ll use it; that Iran absolutely will attack Israel and/or America as soon as it’s able and therefore we have to attack Iran first – it’s a matter of survival. For more than a generation, we’ve been assured that Iran, filled with bloodlust, will begin killing Israelis and/or Americans at the first opportunity.
Iran’s retaliatory strike against Israel shows that Iran does have the capability to strike Israel, and no doubt has had it for a long time. In other words, the recent response demonstrates how restrained Iran has been for decades in choosing not to use offensive capabilities that it does possess.
In fact, in all the time that the right has been telling me Iran is out to get us or is about to attack Israel, the only times Iran has done so has been in response to Israel bombing Iran’s embassy in Syria and the US assassinating one of their generals. Even those responses have been very measured, indicating that Iran does not want war but must save face and prove to the world that they are capable of war if pushed into it.
I’m not saying Iran is some kind of warm and fuzzy Islamic state where we can all go sit around a campfire and sing Kumbaya.
What I am saying is that I’m sad for the way the right has listened to fearmongers and let ourselves be whipped into frenzied, paranoid delusions, believing Iran will attack at the first opportunity when the last several decades prove just the opposite.
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