Critique of the 'Hidden Opportunity' in Military Attack on Iran

This note examines the various views of political groups and civil society in Iran regarding a potential military attack by Israel on Iran, reflecting only the political opinions of its authors. The consequences of a possible military attack by Israel on Iran have led Iranian political groups and civil society to form different alignments, analyzing it through three completely different concepts: 'Blessing', 'Misery', or 'Opportunity'. Apart from the moral judgments regarding these three concepts, what pertains to political judgment is the reality that promoting these alignments and the competition for power among them, including through media and social networks, constitutes a major part of politics in the twenty-first century. The goal is to seize the hegemonic narrative to dominate a story that can create a social base among the hopeless, tired, and desperate people of Iran, expand its narrative, and mobilize forces around it. In today's world, political power is shaped by the hegemony of the dominant narrative. Therefore, it is not surprising that the prospect of a military attack on Iran has temporarily united various political groups—from federalists and separatists to advocates of territorial integrity—under the narrative of 'the opportunity hidden in military attack'. Part of this paradox results from the fluidity of power in Iran and the massification of politics. Therefore, a necessary condition for understanding the fluidity of power, especially among 'protesters' against the Islamic Republic whose social base has reached 'over 90 percent of society', is to pay attention to the degree of appeal that the 'stickiness' of the 'war opportunity' narrative has been able to challenge, at least in the media space, other competing narratives (i.e., 'the blessing of war' and 'the misery of its consequences'). Riding on the massive wave of public dissatisfaction and the deep failure of elites in providing a sustainable political outlook, we are witnessing the emergence of a contradictory collective that, through various astonishing initiatives in narrative-building, attempts to frame a military attack by a regional nuclear power, backed by a superpower, as an 'opportunity' to weaken the government and politically exploit it to change the balance of power in its favor; unaware that the only common denominator in this contradictory collective is conflicting interests. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that compared to the past, the appeal and 'stickiness' of the 'war opportunity' narrative has manifested itself more successfully in capturing the hearts of part of public opinion. Is Israel's next target the officials of the Islamic Republic themselves? However, if we measure the three concepts of 'blessing', 'misery', or 'opportunity' with the scale of power analysis, what political outlook will these narratives have? 'Blessing of War' The group affiliated with the institution of Wilayat considers the phenomenon of war as a 'blessing' and its outcome as Iran under 'colonial Wilayat'. This is because the institution of Wilayat and the Revolutionary Guards have significant similarities with colonial systems in the structure of the Islamic Republic. As Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson point out in their book 'Why Nations Fail?', these institutions operate like extractive colonial institutions. The most important aspect of similarity lies in three axes: first, both systems act as controlling institutions rather than governing ones. Second, their interests are in conflict with the interests of the local people. Third, and most importantly, both systems see local people not as 'insiders' but as tools to advance their goals. In the final analysis of this spectrum and of course 'reformists', the institution of Wilayat has been able to benefit from the phenomenon of war over the past half-century and, by exporting the 'ideals of the Islamic Revolution' to the region and spending the interests of the Iranian people for the benefit of the 'Islamic Ummah', expand its power influence from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. This group believes that the Islamic Revolution was the 'beginning of a new era' that emerged between the two poles of 'left and right modernity', but with the destruction of the former and the decline of the latter, it continues to advance solely due to 'preservation and adherence' to its 'non-negotiable' slogans. The umbilical cord of Wilayat is connected to the 'eternal defense of the revolutionary system theory'; the political meaning of this theory is the survival of the institution of Wilayat, which, in its opposition to the state (in the sense of statehood), has neither a country nor a nation; but for the satisfaction of the 'Islamic Ummah', through the operation of 'the truthful promise', claims, on behalf of its Chief of Staff, that it has 'heroically' targeted three military bases of a country 75 times smaller than Iran and a people who were previously in World War II 'equivalent to half of them perished in the Holocaust', with the largest missile attack on a country in history, and in the event of any response from Israel, it will destroy the 'economic, industrial, and vital bases' of this regional power with nuclear weapons. The 'blessing of war' for this group is that even at the cost of the destruction of Iran, it ensures the survival of the revolutionary system theory among the 'Islamic Ummah'. An Ummah that, according to Ali Khamenei, is being formed, and according to Mohammad Mahdi Mirbagheri, a member of the Assembly of Experts, if 'half of the world is killed in this path, it is worth it'; a doctrine that Yahya Sinwar, the main agent of the destruction of Gaza, believed in. Of course, in their view, the outcome of this chaos is also one of the signs of emergence, which will ultimately be the blessing of war. Additionally, one of the uses of 'the promise of emergence' is to boost morale to justify material destruction, killings, and defeats. 'Misery of War' Political forces that perceive the consequences of Israel's military action as the beginning of a disastrous war for Iran often do not provide a strategic solution for reviving Israel's deterrence, other than condemning this country; a country that, in the 'ring of fire' of the proxies of Wilayat, is simultaneously seeking to secure the national security of Jews on at least six fronts and logically must defend itself. Netanyahu's approach to containing the Islamic Republic and its resistance axis, as he mentioned in his recent speech at the United Nations, is characterized by 'intense anger' and 'uncontainable' measures. A year ago, a week before Hamas's attack on southern Israel, Netanyahu warned in his speech at the United Nations that Iran must face 'a credible nuclear threat'; a message that was received in Tehran. Those who assess war with Israel as misery see the survival of Iran's material and spiritual infrastructures at risk; a survival that has faced a process of destruction for half a century with the declaration of war by the Wilayat against the government, the nation, the country, and its resources. The 'misery of war' narrative also has a patriotic dimension. The fact that Hamas postponed a broader plan for an attack on Israel in the fall of 2022 had a major reason: the impact of the most extensive street protests in the fall of 1401, which brought the regime's legitimacy to its lowest irreversible point with the 'Women, Life, Freedom' movement. The nationwide protests over Mahsa-Jina Amini led Hamas to lack the necessary condition of 'certainty of the Islamic Republic's cooperation' for the massacre of thousands of Jews. This postponement in advancing strategic depth may indicate the close relationship between the freedom-seeking struggle of the Iranian people against the Islamic government and the national security of the Jews. Similarly, if the war of Hamas is transferred from Gaza to Iranian territory, even if limited to airstrikes, the priorities will change for the time being, imposing security on livelihood, let alone continuing a century of the Iranian people's freedom-seeking movement. The reason for the war being a blessing for Ummah-oriented figures like Ruhollah Khomeini to Yahya Sinwar and now Ali Khamenei is the delay of national movements. 'Opportunity of War' We believe that the only hidden opportunity in a military attack on the Islamic Republic, which has effectively taken Iran hostage, could be a civil war and the disintegration of Iran. Assuming that the destruction of missile settlements, the demolition of IRGC military centers alongside cyberattacks on government institutions, and the assassination of regime officials are the only objectives of Israel's attack, let us imagine that these attacks, unlike the bombardment of Gaza and Lebanon, do not incur any human cost for the people of Iran and the national and vital infrastructures of the country. In this case, and assuming that the opportunity of war is not seen as a motivation for an incursion into Iranian territory by the Taliban in the east and Iraqi militias in the west, only those factions that possess the necessary discursive, military, and organizational capabilities to ensure relative security and fill the power vacuum can politically exploit the 'war opportunity'. Two groups in this spectrum possess such minimums: the military and the separatists. The result of competition between them will lead to nothing but chaos and potential civil war, and in Samuel Huntington's words, 'the democratization of violence'. Another aspect of this 'war opportunity' should be evaluated from paragraph 46 of the unprecedented statement of the European Union and the Gulf Arab states, which condemns Iran for 'occupying the three islands' and 'violating the sovereignty' of the UAE, providing a legal argument for reclaiming these islands through military attack; an act that will undoubtedly occur in the context of internal chaos. A spectrum of supporters of the 'war opportunity' narrative argues that Netanyahu's 'wisdom', who promised to consider the Iranian regime as the enemy and not the Iranian people, will likely lead to a national uprising against the regime as a result of Israel's military attack. This spectrum may be able to ride the waves of public protests in combination with a sense of collective despair, but it is unable to provide a reasoned and rational response to key questions. It has no answer as to why the assassination of Qassem Soleimani did not lead to a national uprising against the regime? Why, as shown by Israel's operations to contain the regime's strategic capabilities over the past decade, did targeting nuclear facilities, military bases, and assassinating key regime officials not lead to that national uprising? And why did the destruction of leaders and military infrastructures of 'terrorist organizations' loyal to Wilayat not lead to a national uprising in Lebanon against Hezbollah? Therefore, we believe that a military attack could be a golden opportunity for anarchy and even the potential disintegration of Iran. If the main goal of Iranian political actors who have no role or influence in the decision-making of Netanyahu's war room is to dominate public perception and seize the dominant narrative for a peaceful transition to liberal democracy, rather than engaging in verbal gymnastics with the 'war opportunity' narrative, the key to this evolutionary process lies in the relationship that revealed the voice of Iranian freedom-seeking and the national security of the Jews in the face of the institution of Wilayat, and that is the opposition to the cycle of violence and focusing on the evolution of the social and cultural movement of Jina. This can only be achieved by elevating the depth of the cultural revolution of the Jina movement to the level of power production in a practical political revolution. It is evident that if we consider dominating public perception as a necessary condition, a sufficient condition for the success of freedom over tyranny is a campaign for 'national reconciliation' of all opposing forces from republicans to monarchists.