The ayatollahs’ grand deception, when history contradicts the dictator

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump's demand for unconditional surrender, adding that those who know the history of the Iranian people know that they will not surrender.

However, this attempt of the dictator to appropriate the rich history of the Iranian people clashes with the fact that the Islamic Republic has only been in power for a few decades, an insignificant chapter in a millennia-long history. Moreover, the historical relationship between Persians and Jews is an example of how, at other times, they have coexisted peacefully.

From the rise of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC to the present day, the territory now occupied by Iran has been home to notable empires. Under kings such as Cyrus the Great and Darius I, Persia not only forged a military empire, but also developed a sophisticated administration, culture and a system of laws tolerant by the standards of the time. The regime of the ayatollahs, established in 1979, represents only a dark fraction in the framework of a very rich history.

Iran, Israel and the Jews in history

The Edict of Cyrus the Great, issued around 538 B.C., allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II. This edict not only granted freedom to the Jews, but also included financial and logistical support for the rebuilding of the Temple. Cyrus authorized the return of the sacred tools and allowed the Jews to reestablish their worship. During the Persian Empire, many Jews chose to remain in Persia, where they formed thriving communities. Throughout the Parthian and Sassanid empires, Jewish communities continued to flourish in Persia, with important centers of Talmudic study.

This recent confrontation between Israel and Iran is not a historical constant. In recent history, from the 1950s to the late 1970s, the two states maintained cordial relations. Iran was one of the first countries in the Middle East to recognize Israel and the bond strengthened until the advent of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, in which the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, was overthrown.

"History is longer than the ayatollahs, deeper and wiser than their vile doctrine."

Professor Meir Litvak, director of Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies, argues that Iran was a pivotal player in the Iranian strategy of the Iranian state. Iran was a key player in Israel's Periphery Alliance strategy pursued by Ben-Gurion to circumvent Arab hostility toward the young country. During this period, Iran was Israel's oil supplier. Also, Israeli security and infrastructure companies were involved in projects inside Iran during that period. At the time, both nations looked warily at Nasser's Egypt and their secret services were actively collaborating. The advancing alliance between the Soviet Union and nationalist regimes in the region threatened stability that would soon be a memory.

The fall of the Shah implied an abrupt rupture of ties between the two countries. Diplomatic relations and all collaboration were severed, upending the geopolitical map of the Middle East. The current animosity is a recent political phenomenon, sustained by the ideology of the Ayatollahs' regime, Iran's history goes far beyond its theocratic present.

This review of the Iranian regime's alliances and discord is important to understand how it has ruthlessly used and betrayed its partners to remain in power. The current support of the international left for the dictatorship of the ayatollahs and the terrorist groups sponsored by that government also has a long and cruel history that woke progressivism ignores or, worse, rewards.

Terror and deception

Since Khomeini returned to Iran from exile, real power resides with the ayatollahs, who have defied expectations by remaining at the helm for so long. The left that raised him up believed that he would retreat to the holy city of Qom to leave the government in their hands and did not want to take notice that, from the outside, Khomeini had already expressed his plan for a government ruled by divine law and supervised by the clergy.

Thousands of people were executed in the first years of the revolution, among them the leftist leaders who were his useful idiots (as always), which made Iran one of the countries with the highest number of executions worldwide. Khomeini went so far as to invalidate the Quran if necessary for the interests of the regime. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps became the main tool of oppression because of his distrust of the Shah's Army, and was transformed into a paramilitary force that extended its influence to all aspects of society.

In a report, writer Chahla Chafiq, who actively participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and went into exile in 1982, argues that the Iranian left was used by Ayatollah Khomeini. Prior to the revolution, there were various leftist groups in Iran, including the pro-Soviet Tudeh party; they had in common their anti-Western stance. These groups supported Khomeini when he returned from exile, identifying with his "Great Satan" discourse as a form of anti-imperialism.

Chafiq explains that the left believed that Khomeini was a transitional step towards a socialist state but that the opposite happened, Khomeini used the left as a tool to overthrow the Shah and, once the goal was achieved, made it the number one enemy of the new regime. This blindness had lethal consequences, as the left saw its agenda on gender issues and human rights discarded, without denouncing the betrayal of its ally. When women took to the streets to protest against the imposition of the veil, many leftist groups, in the country and around the world, even attacked them considering that they were putting the revolution at risk, which allowed the Islamist regime to establish its oppressive system without opposition. Khomeini was not only more authoritarian than the Shah, but he established the "morality police," with Islamist surveillance extended to all areas of private life, which allowed the regime to remain in power for more than four decades.

In an opinion article, Iranian filmmaker Shoja Azari argues that the Iranian Revolution was leveraged on the myopia of the left influenced by Soviet and Maoist slogans of anti-imperialist struggle. This diagnosis was a strategic error, as the triumphant Islamic Republic dedicated itself to crushing the left and its opposition. The regime banned all political parties and carried out violent repressions. By 1984, the left had ceased to exist in the country.

Today, the Iranian theocracy invokes Persian history while murdering dissidents, erasing minorities, torturing and oppressing its own people. But history is longer than the ayatollahs, deeper and wiser than their vile doctrine. Persia was not born with Khamenei, nor will it die with him. And when this dark regime finally falls, the region's most opprobrious chapter in modern history will be closed.