The Civilizer's Little Handbook: In a nuclear land, he who has the warhead is king

Do you know the geography of power? It does not require in-depth knowledge of a doctorate, nor detailed study of treaties. This fatalism of superlative cynicism can be explained with cradle simplicity. Some have nuclear bombs, others cannot have them. Some bomb, others are bombed. It all depends on the hand holding the warhead. Those who have them can slap people without fearing a big bite; those who do not have them are subject to the humiliation of punishment, that is, if the punishment does not turn into annihilation.

On the world stage, the performance is absurd. Heroes and villains mix and change clothes and masks, in a grotesque cabaret-like transformation, where the spectacle does not enchant, but rather frightens. This is the show where almost the entire West sides with a State whose Prime Minister has an international arrest warrant from the court created to judge the worst crimes against Humanity. Together, hand in hand with a villain who points the finger at bogeymen, while ordering a genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, the other great partner of the old continent, an ally for decades and in all wars, has already announced several times that it has little interest in European sovereignty. If one day it regurgitates the threat of invading Greenland, the next it says that the EU was invented just to set it up. Is it Stockholm Syndrome or is it an attachment to the nonsense of continuing to pretend that we are all idiots, in the European version of the Americanism “useful idiots”?

The mention of Iran is immediately followed by the Western screech: hands in hair, duly choreographed panic, as if Satan were invading our backyard. European leaders line up in a row, publishing synchronized statements, all cooked in the same way, with a lack of originality that is difficult to explain by coincidences. They throw it in our noses that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, that it would use them to wipe out the “only democracy in the Middle East” and then perhaps the world. But Israel has between 90 and 300 nuclear warheads (depending on who can or dares to count or guess) and does not allow curiosity or any international law to peek into its warehouse. The exception is blatantly refusing to sign treaties and preventing inspections. In short, it does what it wants, because the West only controls those it can. It is true that Iran wants to put an end to the current Israeli ethnostate, which it calls a “Zionist regime” and accuses of occupying territory and relegating the Palestinian population to a subhuman condition. But it is also true that in the past, under President Khatami, the Iranians showed openness to a two-state solution, although they are now advocating a single solution based on a supposedly democratic referendum in which the “native population” — Jewish, Muslim, Christian or of any other religion — could vote. It is not clear what they mean by “native population”, but I suspect that the concept is not exactly inclusive.

Propaganda desperately needs a villain without nuances, in black and white, and Iran serves perfectly. It conveniently erases from reason and memory the fact that on the other side are two nuclear countries that have been saying for decades that a nation does not exist and are doing everything they can to wipe it off the map: Palestine. When they serve us once again the existential threat from Iran — imminent for over 30 years, but never materialized — it is worth remembering that Gaza is being destroyed by bombs, hunger, misery and death, in a daily exercise now with renewed strategic invisibility. As for the vigilantes of the “land of the free”, respect for their own laws ceases to be important when they get in the way. Planes and bombs refuel in Lages and fly discreetly over our heads and over the international law that they themselves helped to draft. Europe insists on applauding, lest the second act bring a bomb of tariffs that, not being enriched with uranium, will easily impoverish our future.

Netanyahu prolongs and chews over wars. He waves warheads that he never confirms or denies, survives amid lawsuits and thousands of corpses, is a “victim” authorized to be the executioner, always under the banner of the “right to defend oneself”. The Israeli leader’s warning about the barbaric threat of the Persians always comes with the urgency of someone expecting an attack tomorrow, even though that “tomorrow” never comes.

And from up high, the world's police, owners of the largest arsenal on the planet and the most absolute alienation from the interests of others. They present themselves as champions of anti-terrorism, as if terrorism were an Eastern invention, when, in the name of Good, the Americans financed the mujahideen, allegedly gave weapons to Bin Laden in Afghanistan, trained anti-Assad rebels who ended up in the ranks of Al-Qaeda in Syria, supported the Contras in Nicaragua, created and financed terrorist militias in Baghdad, experimented with guerrilla laboratories in the Balkans and, more recently, are said to have implicit and indirect agreements with Al-Qaeda in Yemen, in the fight against the Houthis. This is the terrorism of good. If the narrative is convenient, they are “moderate rebels”; when they are no longer useful, the memo is sent to the television stations, saying that they are now agents of terror and preparing the next invasion.

No, Iran is not a regime to introduce to your family, and I am far from wanting to defend it, but we urgently need to critically analyze the obvious Western duality. The country is far from being a humanist paradise, registering serious and widespread human rights violations, particularly in relation to women — although less severe when compared to those of the Saudi ally of the Americans, which keeps filling our tank without causing any itch of immorality. And no, no one enriches uranium to 60% just to light lamps. But only a madman would fail to do so when its main regional adversary displays illegal nuclear warheads, giving it enough of an advantage to practice policies for decades that most international organizations classify as ethnic cleansing, without much interference from its closest neighbors.

Libya, Iraq and Ukraine have given up nuclear weapons or programs and have been invaded and destroyed. China, Russia, Pakistan and North Korea are labeled as enemies, but no one dares to target them directly. Iran signed a nuclear deal with the US in 2015, but Trump tore it up in 2018. Only a very reckless country would not seek to shield itself with a bomb from that moment on, which has shown itself to have a strong deterrent influence, even in the face of the world's great powers. We can call peace rotten, but it is peace nonetheless.

Europe then complains about the immigration that comes to us from those parts, but the truth is that it sows destruction. It bombs, devastates, turns countries into ruins and is surprised when the survivors come knocking on its door.

Anyone who looks at an ancient nation and sees only a nest of 90 million terrorists is either illiterate in history or has deception on their agenda. This is not about defending ayatollahs, but about remembering that we are no longer missionaries, nor judges, much less executioners. A 250-year-old country like the United States can hardly teach civilization to an empire with 2,500 years of history.

International law cannot be used only by those who do not have warheads or powerful allies. We cannot forget Iraq. Today, everyone recognizes the hoax of supposed weapons of mass destruction, but only after hundreds of thousands of people have died, possibly more than a million according to some estimates, and the country has been turned into rubble. It is from this misery, from the most absolute injustice and humiliation, that the terrorism that should concern Europe and the United States springs. Daesh was born of the American invasion, for example. When human justice is deaf, they cling in desperation to divine justice.

Whenever the West intervenes in the Middle East to shape it in its own image, the people end up clinging to God’s will. It is worth remembering Mohammad Mossadegh, the Iranian prime minister democratically elected in parliament in 1951. By nationalizing the country’s main natural resources, of which Iran benefited only 16% – the remaining 84% lined the British pockets – Mossadegh signed his sentence. In 1953, in a coup orchestrated by the newly created CIA and MI6, he was deposed, the Shah returned to power, and resources once again went the way of London. What was a constitutional monarchy was transformed into a dictatorship that persecuted, tortured and killed its opponents. Thus, over decades of injustice and resentment, the seeds of the Islamic revolution of 1979 were planted. This is the legacy of forced education: history, sooner or later, presents the bill.

Democracy cannot be imposed, much less by bullets and bombs. It does not arrive in containers through the Strait of Hormuz. Each people has its own time, culture, history, and way of dreaming about the future. The example certainly does not arise from the nightmare of bombs or from the prejudiced division between barbarians and civilized people.

Without nuclear weapons, which have already proven to be the greatest deterrent, the only sensible path would be to create a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. Iran has already accepted this solution, but Israel, the only nuclear country in the region, refuses to do so. The rest is the rest. Another performance in this theater of horrors that both calls for human rights and hides behind the curtain the genocide taking place in Gaza. Meanwhile, the entire West is preparing to, at any moment, help to plant yet another sea of ​​cemeteries from the Levant to Persia. We point out the monsters that suit us, while we dodge the mirror that would show us how hideous our own face is.

The texts in this section reflect the personal opinions of the authors. They do not represent VISÃO nor do they reflect its editorial position.