That was my immediate reaction to last week’s news that the US and Israel had attacked Iran. And almost immediately the streets of that country and the world erupted with the cheering of Iranians dancing by the thousands to the tune of their long-awaited liberation from decades of torment.
Trump haters, meanwhile, filled the airwaves with a tune of their own: that the action violates US and/or international law and should be denounced and disallowed. I will leave that question to the legal scholars. For me, however, attacking Iran marked the belated fulfillment of a wondrous promise made last year: that the world might finally be liberated from a potentially lethal threat of historic proportion.
I’m speaking, of course, of the late Ayatollah Khamenei and his demented regime: the globe’s major exporter of terrorism, aspiring nuclear antagonists who’ve consistently promised to eradicate Western civilization, and radical authoritarians who’ve murdered thousands of their own countrymen and foreigners abroad.
“God help Israel and its allies achieve their goal of completely and permanently disarming Iran,” I wrote last June after Israel—quickly joined by the US—bombed that country’s nuclear facilities.
Seven months later, following Iran’s repeated vows to rebuild its destructive capabilities, the message evolved. “There is definitely new light at the end of this exceedingly long tunnel,” I wrote in January following President Trump’s vow to intercede after Khamenei’s henchmen slaughtered thousands of protestors. “I’m praying that the oppressed people of Iran—as well as the rest of us—can get to it soon.”
Well, folks, it seems like we might be getting to it now. With Khamenei and scores of his closest boosters finally gone, Iran is lashing out in what looks like fatal desperation reigning missiles down, not just on Israel and US bases in the Middle East, but on the civilians of otherwise neutral, and even potentially friendly, countries. The tragedy: besides American military personnel, many innocents in many countries have been slaughtered. The good news: some of those countries are joining the fight.
“…it’s a mistake to say that Trump got America into a war,” New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote following the initial attack, citing a litany of Iranian provocations over the years including seizing the US Embassy in 1979, murdering hundreds of US service members in 1983, providing roadside bombs that killed thousands during the Iraq War, and attempting to assassinate several US officials including Trump. “What [Trump] did,” Stephens concluded, “was respond to a war that Iran has been waging against the United States since 1979.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Hennessy quickly chimed in. “I welcome [the attacks],” he wrote. “The mullahs who run Iran are murderous thugs. They kill women for showing their hair. They throw people in jail for dancing. They execute homosexuals. Death to America is their official foreign policy…The world is a better place without them.”
Added the newspaper’s editorial board: “Our main concern is that Mr. Trump may stop too soon.”
Still unknown, of course, is what happens if he doesn’t. Will the brutal Islamic regime finally fall? And will whatever replaces it be any better? Trump has wisely suggested that the ultimate outcome be decided by Iranians. Many of whom have called for the return of the former Shah of Iran’s son, Reza Pahlavi, who has positioned himself as a transitional figure who would lead the country towards justice, peace, and democracy. To me that sounds like a good idea.
The reality, of course, is that we still have a possibly long and potentially treacherous way to go. Anybody who truly cares for the wellbeing of humanity, however, should be glad that the journey has begun. And that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter day-by-day.
Iran’s ideology is “very evil,” Trump declared in a recent press conference, and “something had to be done.”
I, for one, am glad that something finally is.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book is Dark Skies: Tales of Turbulence in Paradise. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
