Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:he Arab Word is Watching a Different War:

Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position:

1 - The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks.
What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought.

Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies.

2 - The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. But Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world.

3- The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does.

This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice.

The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with.

The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence.

Excellent analysis. (which in no way justifies Israeli conduct but explains how the US left has been thoroughly duped and even willingly led into it through the exploitation of antisemitic tropes.)

This is not analysis. It is propaganda. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the ME would strongly disagree with this sh#t. The problem is Israel.

If you can't define the words shia and sunni without looking, your ignorant opinion isn't interesting.

Dp. I’m a Sunni and I have theological issues with twelver Shiism.

I agree with the PP that the post was propaganda and that Israel is the problem.

DP here and as someone very well aware of the Sunni vs Shia debate in that region, the post was propaganda and completely absolved Israel of causing havoc in the Middle East. Israel is just frustrated it can no longer play the Sunni vs Shia card and that the people in the Middle
East are moving past the theological differences and emphasizing the need for cooperation.

That post didn’t absolve Israel of anything. It just pointed out a basic fact that everyone whose mind is not totally clouded by anti-semitism and/or TikTok foreign affairs influencers understands … that Iran is broadly hated in the ME.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:he Arab Word is Watching a Different War:

Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position:

1 - The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks.
What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought.

Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies.

2 - The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. But Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world.

3- The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does.

This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice.

The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with.

The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence.

Excellent analysis. (which in no way justifies Israeli conduct but explains how the US left has been thoroughly duped and even willingly led into it through the exploitation of antisemitic tropes.)

This is not analysis. It is propaganda. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the ME would strongly disagree with this sh#t. The problem is Israel.

If you can't define the words shia and sunni without looking, your ignorant opinion isn't interesting.

Dp. I’m a Sunni and I have theological issues with twelver Shiism.

I agree with the PP that the post was propaganda and that Israel is the problem.

DP here and as someone very well aware of the Sunni vs Shia debate in that region, the post was propaganda and completely absolved Israel of causing havoc in the Middle East. Israel is just frustrated it can no longer play the Sunni vs Shia card and that the people in the Middle
East are moving past the theological differences and emphasizing the need for cooperation.

That post didn’t absolve Israel of anything. It just pointed out a basic fact that everyone whose mind is not totally clouded by anti-semitism and/or TikTok foreign affairs influencers understands … that Iran is broadly hated in the ME.

So is Israel. At the moment, Iran is a more rational actor (I can't believe I am typing that) who is not in the middle of committing genocide, so why should anyone put the interests of Israel above their own, or that of Iran, for that matter.?

Iran has been the rational actor for years. They only respond to Israel’s and US’s aggression. You know how many proxies both Israel and US arm and let loose on Iran?

Apparently, you two geniuses are able to selectively "forget" the thousands of Iranian citizens who were recently murdered by the regime. Oh, and the three men who were hanged but had committed no crime. But yes - so rational, so moral.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:he Arab Word is Watching a Different War:

Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position:

1 - The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks.
What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought.

Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies.

2 - The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. But Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world.

3- The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does.

This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice.

The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with.

The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence.

Excellent analysis. (which in no way justifies Israeli conduct but explains how the US left has been thoroughly duped and even willingly led into it through the exploitation of antisemitic tropes.)

This is not analysis. It is propaganda. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the ME would strongly disagree with this sh#t. The problem is Israel.

If you can't define the words shia and sunni without looking, your ignorant opinion isn't interesting.

Dp. I’m a Sunni and I have theological issues with twelver Shiism.

I agree with the PP that the post was propaganda and that Israel is the problem.

DP here and as someone very well aware of the Sunni vs Shia debate in that region, the post was propaganda and completely absolved Israel of causing havoc in the Middle East. Israel is just frustrated it can no longer play the Sunni vs Shia card and that the people in the Middle
East are moving past the theological differences and emphasizing the need for cooperation.

That post didn’t absolve Israel of anything. It just pointed out a basic fact that everyone whose mind is not totally clouded by anti-semitism and/or TikTok foreign affairs influencers understands … that Iran is broadly hated in the ME.

So is Israel. At the moment, Iran is a more rational actor (I can't believe I am typing that) who is not in the middle of committing genocide, so why should anyone put the interests of Israel above their own, or that of Iran, for that matter.?

Iran has been the rational actor for years. They only respond to Israel’s and US’s aggression. You know how many proxies both Israel and US arm and let loose on Iran?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:he Arab Word is Watching a Different War:

Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position:

1 - The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks.
What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought.

Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies.

2 - The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. But Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world.

3- The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does.

This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice.

The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with.

The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence.

Excellent analysis. (which in no way justifies Israeli conduct but explains how the US left has been thoroughly duped and even willingly led into it through the exploitation of antisemitic tropes.)

This is not analysis. It is propaganda. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the ME would strongly disagree with this sh#t. The problem is Israel.

If you can't define the words shia and sunni without looking, your ignorant opinion isn't interesting.

Dp. I’m a Sunni and I have theological issues with twelver Shiism.

I agree with the PP that the post was propaganda and that Israel is the problem.

DP here and as someone very well aware of the Sunni vs Shia debate in that region, the post was propaganda and completely absolved Israel of causing havoc in the Middle East. Israel is just frustrated it can no longer play the Sunni vs Shia card and that the people in the Middle
East are moving past the theological differences and emphasizing the need for cooperation.

That post didn’t absolve Israel of anything. It just pointed out a basic fact that everyone whose mind is not totally clouded by anti-semitism and/or TikTok foreign affairs influencers understands … that Iran is broadly hated in the ME.

So is Israel. At the moment, Iran is a more rational actor (I can't believe I am typing that) who is not in the middle of committing genocide, so why should anyone put the interests of Israel above their own, or that of Iran, for that matter.?

Iran has been the rational actor for years. They only respond to Israel’s and US’s aggression. You know how many proxies both Israel and US arm and let loose on Iran?

Apparently, you two geniuses are able to selectively "forget" the thousands of Iranian citizens who were recently murdered by the regime. Oh, and the three men who were hanged but had committed no crime. But yes - so rational, so moral.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:he Arab Word is Watching a Different War:

Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position:

1 - The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks.
What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought.

Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies.

2 - The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. But Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world.

3- The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does.

This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice.

The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with.

The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence.

Excellent analysis. (which in no way justifies Israeli conduct but explains how the US left has been thoroughly duped and even willingly led into it through the exploitation of antisemitic tropes.)

This is not analysis. It is propaganda. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the ME would strongly disagree with this sh#t. The problem is Israel.

If you can't define the words shia and sunni without looking, your ignorant opinion isn't interesting.

Dp. I’m a Sunni and I have theological issues with twelver Shiism.

I agree with the PP that the post was propaganda and that Israel is the problem.

DP here and as someone very well aware of the Sunni vs Shia debate in that region, the post was propaganda and completely absolved Israel of causing havoc in the Middle East. Israel is just frustrated it can no longer play the Sunni vs Shia card and that the people in the Middle
East are moving past the theological differences and emphasizing the need for cooperation.

That post didn’t absolve Israel of anything. It just pointed out a basic fact that everyone whose mind is not totally clouded by anti-semitism and/or TikTok foreign affairs influencers understands … that Iran is broadly hated in the ME.

So is Israel. At the moment, Iran is a more rational actor (I can't believe I am typing that) who is not in the middle of committing genocide, so why should anyone put the interests of Israel above their own, or that of Iran, for that matter.?

Iran has been the rational actor for years. They only respond to Israel’s and US’s aggression. You know how many proxies both Israel and US arm and let loose on Iran?

Apparently, you two geniuses are able to selectively "forget" the thousands of Iranian citizens who were recently murdered by the regime. Oh, and the three men who were hanged but had committed no crime. But yes - so rational, so moral.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:he Arab Word is Watching a Different War:

Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position:

1 - The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks.
What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought.

Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies.

2 - The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. But Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world.

3- The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does.

This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice.

The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with.

The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence.

Excellent analysis. (which in no way justifies Israeli conduct but explains how the US left has been thoroughly duped and even willingly led into it through the exploitation of antisemitic tropes.)

This is not analysis. It is propaganda. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the ME would strongly disagree with this sh#t. The problem is Israel.

The author is an expert on the Middle East, you twit. It's *you* who is constantly spewing your propaganda.

It’s a wish casting for Israel. Seriously no one but the most fanatical pro Zionist would think it is even coherent argument. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the ME.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:he Arab Word is Watching a Different War:

Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position:

1 - The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks.
What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought.

Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies.

2 - The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. But Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world.

3- The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does.

This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice.

The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with.

The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence.

Excellent analysis. (which in no way justifies Israeli conduct but explains how the US left has been thoroughly duped and even willingly led into it through the exploitation of antisemitic tropes.)

This is not analysis. It is propaganda. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the ME would strongly disagree with this sh#t. The problem is Israel.

The author is an expert on the Middle East, you twit. It's *you* who is constantly spewing your propaganda.