There are no secrets anymore. Follow comment strings online, and you can easily piece together the truth. You can test hypotheses, verify information, and determine with very high accuracy exactly how specific events played out.

It turns out that senior leadership in the US Department of War (former DOD) had set arbitrary ‘goals’ in the bombing campaign in Iran. The idea was that there would be progressive increases in the number of targets bombed from 2800 to 3800 to 4800, systematically over time, to increase pressure on the government.

Faced with this increase in demand, operatives had to find shortcuts to identify targets. And here is where AI came to play. Palantir’s MAVEN system, combined with (Elon Musk’s) GROK, had been installed to capture dynamic details from satellite images and convert them into detailed maps to identify targets on an ongoing basis.

Here is where it gets tricky: apparently, GROK took information from MAVEN to recommend a military base in Southern Iran as a high-value target. Even though MAVEN had indicated military equipment was employed at the base, GROK correlated this information with an old map of the base (NOT A CURRENT MAP), to recommend targeting a section of the base that had been sold and in use as a primary school for young girls. Under pressure to find large numbers of targets, Air Force operatives literally cut and paste these coordinates, and the rest is history… 168 young girls (and their teachers) were killed in a bombing campaign.

This is where we are now, in modern warfare.

There is something profoundly ironic about the new age we are now entering. Humanity has created perhaps the most sophisticated analytical instrument in its entire history, a technology capable of processing unimaginable quantities of information, discovering relationships that would escape even the brightest human minds, and modeling systems of extraordinary complexity. Artificial intelligence can help scientists discover new medicines, engineers design cleaner energy systems, economists understand markets, and physicians diagnose diseases earlier and more accurately than ever before. It has the potential to become one of civilization’s greatest achievements, expanding human knowledge and improving the quality of life for billions of people. Yet, its primary use – the current business model – involves exploiting high-value military applications first. And the timing of the war with Iran seems to be the first real-life incident where this technology is being rolled out. Not surprisingly, there are serious issues with applying this technology, which is still in its infancy. Ask the families of these young ladies!

The first question we have chosen to ask about this remarkable technology is not how to prevent war, but how to wage it more effectively.

There is, sadly, a familiar pattern in human history. Almost every significant technological breakthrough has eventually been adapted for military purposes. Metallurgy produced stronger swords before it produced better plows. Chemistry gave us explosives and poison gas alongside fertilizers and pharmaceuticals. Nuclear physics delivered both electricity and atomic bombs. Computing transformed commerce and communication while simultaneously creating entirely new domains of cyber warfare. Artificial intelligence now appears destined to follow precisely the same path, becoming another powerful instrument in humanity’s long pursuit of military advantage.

Technology itself, however, bears none of the moral responsibility. Artificial intelligence possesses no instinct for revenge, no prejudice, no nationalism, no religious conviction, and no emotional desire to dominate other people. It harbors neither fear nor hatred and has no ambition beyond accomplishing the objectives assigned to it. In that sense, AI functions as an extraordinary mirror, reflecting not its own values but our own. Whatever purpose we place before it, whether noble or destructive, it pursues with equal diligence because it has no independent moral compass of its own.

If we ask it to analyze satellite imagery, identify military installations, optimize logistics, or improve battlefield decision-making, it will attempt to perform those tasks with remarkable efficiency. Yet if we pose an entirely different set of questions, something equally remarkable begins to emerge. Ask an advanced AI how lasting peace might be established between the United States and Iran, how Israelis and Palestinians might gradually build sufficient trust to coexist peacefully, or what sequence of diplomatic, economic, and security measures could reduce the probability of conflict over the coming generation, and the responses are often thoughtful, balanced, and surprisingly sophisticated. I wish VP Vance would take the time to at least read these outputs. I have.

Rather than offering simplistic slogans or ideological certainties, artificial intelligence typically proposes phased confidence-building measures, reciprocal security guarantees, economic integration, independent verification mechanisms, educational exchanges, infrastructure cooperation, and carefully sequenced diplomatic initiatives designed to reduce fear while increasing mutual dependence. It recognizes, perhaps more readily than many politicians, that enduring peace is rarely achieved through dramatic declarations or absolute victories, but is instead constructed patiently through hundreds of practical decisions that gradually replace distrust with confidence and confrontation with cooperation.

In other words, artificial intelligence is every bit as capable of helping humanity design peace as it is of helping nations prepare for war. The tragedy lies not in the technology itself, but in the priorities we bring to it. Our machines are becoming increasingly intelligent, while our political imagination often appears trapped inside centuries-old assumptions about power, deterrence, and military superiority. We continue to devote extraordinary financial resources, intellectual talent, and political attention to planning future conflicts, while investing comparatively little in systematically exploring how those same conflicts might be prevented altogether.

One cannot help wondering how different the world might become if governments approached artificial intelligence with a fundamentally different objective. Imagine every foreign ministry operating AI systems whose primary purpose was not merely to identify emerging threats, but to identify emerging opportunities for reconciliation. Imagine algorithms continuously analyzing where trade agreements could create mutual dependence strong enough to discourage war, where water-sharing arrangements might reduce regional tensions before they erupted into violence, where constitutional reforms could better protect minority populations, or where carefully designed economic development projects could remove the underlying grievances upon which extremism so often flourishes.

None of these possibilities lies beyond the capabilities of today’s technology. What remains scarce is not computational power but political imagination. The greatest obstacle to peace has seldom been a lack of information; rather, it has been humanity’s persistent tendency to become imprisoned by its own assumptions, historical grievances, and emotional instincts. Leaders often inherit conflicts whose origins stretch back generations, and before long those conflicts begin to appear permanent, inevitable, and incapable of resolution. Artificial intelligence, by contrast, carries none of that historical baggage. It approaches problems without inherited prejudice, without personal pride, and without the emotional investment that so often narrows human judgment. Its value lies not in replacing political leadership but in expanding the range of possibilities that leaders are willing to consider.

Of course, no algorithm can negotiate a treaty, rebuild trust between enemies, or summon the courage required to make difficult political compromises. Peace will always remain a profoundly human achievement because it demands wisdom, empathy, restraint, and moral leadership—qualities that no machine can possess. Yet artificial intelligence can become an extraordinarily valuable adviser, helping decision-makers understand the long-term consequences of their choices, revealing opportunities for cooperation that may otherwise remain hidden, and exposing assumptions that deserve to be challenged before they harden into irreversible policy.

History reminds us repeatedly that today’s adversaries can become tomorrow’s allies. Germany and Japan transformed from bitter enemies into close partners of the United States. Vietnam, once the site of one of America’s most painful wars, now enjoys expanding diplomatic and economic relations with Washington. Such transformations did not occur because technology made them inevitable, but because political leaders eventually chose to ask different questions about the future than they had asked during the years of conflict.

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson artificial intelligence has to offer us. Its true promise does not lie in enabling humanity to fight more efficiently, but in helping humanity think more creatively about how wars might be avoided altogether. If history eventually passes judgment on the age of artificial intelligence, it may care far less about the sophistication of the algorithms we created than about the purposes to which we chose to apply them. Future generations may well look back in astonishment at the fact that the most powerful analytical tool our civilization had ever invented was so often employed to perfect the art of war, when it might instead have been used to perfect the conditions for peace. The machine itself is indifferent. It neither seeks conflict nor desires harmony. It merely responds to the questions we ask. The true measure of our civilization, therefore, will not be found in the intelligence of our machines, but in the wisdom with which we choose to employ them.

I find some of the interactions among different Iranian opposition factions somewhat primitive. There are monarchists, Islamists, Communists, Islamic Marxists (MEK), etc. Each wants to impose their ideology on a nation and lead the opposition to the Mullahs (Islamists). The tragedy of all this is that most of the opposition is trapped in an ancient pre-1979 era and have not transcended to the new global era dominated by new (more intelligent) technologies.  

We are in a new age. We have new capabilities. All the isms and ideologies of the last century really do not apply. We have new opportunities to establish modern governance across the globe (including Iran). And frankly, Iranians should jump on it as the country transitions to a replacement for the current government, i.e., the Mullahs (Islamists). The opposition needs to unite around a new set of paradigms and concepts and completely shift their thinking.

In this blog (or essay), and I proposing a completely new approach.

If I were asked to summarize this entire philosophy in a single question, it would be this: Would you rather be a king five hundred years ago, or poor today?

At first glance, the question seems absurd. Most people instinctively imagine the king living in luxury while the poor person struggles through life with limited means and opportunities. Yet upon reflection, the answer becomes far less obvious. The king may have commanded armies, occupied palaces, and possessed immense authority, but he lived in a world without antibiotics, electricity, refrigeration, sanitation systems, telecommunications, aviation, computers, or the internet. A simple infection could kill him. A toothache could become life-threatening. News traveled at the speed of a horse.

Today, even a person of modest means has access to technologies, medicines, information, and comforts that would have been unimaginable to the most powerful rulers in human history.

This observation reveals something profound. The greatest improvements in human welfare have not come from ideology. They have come from innovation.

Over the past several centuries, humanity has experienced an extraordinary expansion in prosperity, health, longevity, knowledge, mobility, and opportunity. This transformation was not the result of a single political philosophy. It occurred under monarchies, republics, democracies, and empires. It occurred in countries with vastly different cultures, religions, and institutions. The common factor was not ideology. The common factor was the continuous generation and application of new ideas.

For this reason, I have become increasingly skeptical of ideological thinking itself. Throughout history, people have attached themselves to systems of belief with almost religious certainty. Socialism promised equality. Capitalism promised prosperity. Nationalism promised unity. Liberalism promised freedom. Conservatism promised stability. Each contains valuable insights. Each contains serious blind spots. More importantly, each begins with a set of assumptions about how society ought to be organized and then evaluates reality through that lens.

The problem is that reality does not care what we believe.

A bridge either stands or falls. Medicine either cures a disease or it does not. An education system either develops capable citizens, or it does not. An economy either creates prosperity, or it does not.

Outcomes are real. Beliefs are merely theories about how to achieve them.

The central idea behind No Isms is therefore remarkably simple. Rather than organizing society around ideologies, we should organize it around outcomes. Instead of asking whether a policy is capitalist or socialist, conservative or liberal, we should ask whether it works. Instead of defending ideas because they belong to our preferred tribe, we should be willing to evaluate them honestly and modify them when evidence suggests a better approach.

This may sound obvious, but modern politics rarely operates this way. Political parties frequently become more concerned with defending established positions than solving problems. Policies become symbols of identity rather than tools for achieving results. Success is often measured by ideological purity rather than practical effectiveness.

The world, however, is not static. Technologies evolve. Demographics change. New challenges emerge. Conditions that existed fifty years ago may no longer exist today. Solutions that worked in one era may become ineffective in another. Any system that hopes to remain successful must therefore possess the capacity to learn and adapt.

As an engineer, I naturally think about systems. The most successful systems are rarely those that rely upon rigid assumptions. They are systems that incorporate feedback. They measure performance, compare outcomes to objectives, adjust, and continuously improve. Modern aircraft operate this way. Advanced manufacturing systems operate this way. Biological systems operate this way. Increasingly, successful businesses operate this way.

Yet governments often do not.

Many governments still operate as though policies should remain fixed once enacted and institutions should persist indefinitely regardless of performance. Entire political movements can spend decades defending ideas that no longer produce the outcomes they once did.

This seems backwards. Government should be the ultimate adaptive system.

A government’s purpose should not be to preserve ideology. Its purpose should be to measurably improve human lives.

To do this effectively, society must first decide what outcomes matter. While reasonable people will disagree about details, most would likely converge on a surprisingly similar set of objectives. People want prosperity. They want health. They want freedom. They want security. They want opportunities for themselves and their children. They want strong communities. They want meaningful lives.

These outcomes can be measured. Perhaps with some level of imperfection, but far more accurately than in previous generations. Modern data systems, analytics, and artificial intelligence make it increasingly possible to understand which policies produce desirable results and which do not. This creates an opportunity unlike anything humanity has previously possessed. For the first time in history, governments can potentially become evidence-driven institutions capable of learning in near real time.

If outcomes are the destination, innovation is the vehicle that gets us there.

Innovation is often discussed narrowly in terms of science and technology, but this is far too limited. Innovation occurs whenever people discover a better way of doing something. Scientific innovation matters. Technological innovation matters. But so do innovations in education, healthcare, government, business, community organization, culture, and social institutions.

Human progress is ultimately the accumulation of millions of innovations, large and small.

The most prosperous societies are not necessarily those with the greatest natural resources. They are the societies that most effectively unlock human creativity. Resources are finite. Human ingenuity is not.

This insight has important implications for public policy. If innovation is the primary driver of prosperity, then maximizing innovation should become one of society’s highest priorities. Education should be designed to develop capable and creative citizens. Infrastructure should enable economic activity. Regulatory systems should protect society without unnecessarily suppressing experimentation. Immigration systems should attract talented individuals who contribute new ideas. Financial systems should support entrepreneurship and investment.

Most importantly, opportunity should be broadly distributed.

Modern political debates often focus on redistribution after wealth has been created. While safety nets remain essential, the greater opportunity lies in what might be called predistribution of conditions that allow more people to participate in wealth creation and innovation in the first place. A child who receives a quality education, grows up in a safe community, develops strong social networks, and has access to opportunity is far more likely to become an innovator, entrepreneur, skilled worker, artist, scientist, or leader.

Human beings are society’s most valuable asset.

Investing in human capital is, therefore, not merely a social policy. It is an innovation strategy.

Yet prosperity alone is insufficient. One of the weaknesses of many modern societies is the tendency to measure economic success while ignoring social health. Wealth can increase even as trust declines. GDP can rise while loneliness rises faster. Technological sophistication can advance while communities weaken.

Human beings do not live by economics alone.

Strong societies require social capital as well as economic capital. They require friendships, families, community organizations, sports leagues, artistic communities, cultural traditions, volunteer networks, and opportunities for meaningful participation. A society that succeeds economically while failing socially has only achieved partial success.

For this reason, governments should pay far greater attention to measuring and strengthening social capital. Just as we monitor unemployment rates and inflation, we should be interested in trust, civic participation, mental health, community engagement, and social connectedness. These factors profoundly influence the quality of life and long-term societal resilience.

Ultimately, No Isms is neither a political ideology nor an economic theory. It is a framework for thinking about governance in an age of rapid change. It begins with humility. It assumes that no ideology possesses all the answers. It recognizes that reality is complex, that conditions evolve, and that successful societies must continuously learn and adapt.

Its central principle is straightforward: (elected) governments should set themselves up to measure what matters, promote innovation, evaluate outcomes honestly, and adjust policies accordingly. This must be the imperative.

In the end, the purpose of governance is not to validate an ideology. The purpose of governance is to improve human lives. We must be purely outcome-driven. I will explain exactly how to do this shortly in a series of forthcoming writings. But everyone needs to abandon ideologies completely and be totally outcome-driven.

Innovation creates prosperity. Prosperity supports strong communities. Strong communities create better lives. This approach is not an ideology. It is merely an effort to achieve concrete, meaningful, measurable outcomes – without prejudice, pre-judgment, pre-conditions.

We must unite in a simple quest for desired outcomes only.  

Why should Iran limit its leverage to Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, or the usual chessboard of proxy pressure? If the Strait of Hormuz is the real pressure point, then Iran should think bigger. Much bigger. Iran should use its leverage not merely to defend itself, not merely to protect Hezbollah, not merely to bargain over sanctions, but to force the beginning of a comprehensive regional peace with Israel.

The logic is simple. Every few years the region is dragged back into the same cycle: Israeli strikes, Iranian retaliation, Lebanese devastation, Palestinian suffering, Gulf panic, American threats, European lectures, and oil markets pretending to be surprised. Everyone knows the script. Everyone knows the ending. There is no ending. There is only the next round.

Hormuz changes that equation because it reminds the world that Iran is not a small isolated country to be bombed at convenience. It sits on one of the most important arteries of the global economy. If the West and Israel want to treat Iran as permanently attackable, then Iran has every right to make clear that regional war has regional and global consequences.

But the objective should not be chaos. It should be peace.

Iran should say plainly: freedom of navigation, energy stability, and regional prosperity cannot be separated from a serious settlement of the conflicts that keep setting the region on fire. Lebanon cannot be bombed every decade. Gaza cannot be reduced to rubble every few years. Syria cannot remain a battleground forever. Iran cannot be sanctioned, threatened, attacked, and then expected to guarantee calm in the Persian Gulf for everyone else’s benefit.

So yes, Hormuz should be leverage. But it should be leverage for a grand bargain, not a tantrum. The demand should be comprehensive: recognition of regional sovereignty, an end to repeated wars of choice, a credible settlement for Palestinians, security guarantees for Israel and its neighbors, normalization of trade, and the removal of the sanctions architecture that has punished ordinary Iranians for generations.

This is where China becomes essential. China needs Gulf energy. China trades with Iran, the Arabs, and Israel. China does not carry the same colonial baggage as Britain or the same missionary militarism as Washington. If anyone can convene a serious economic-security framework, it is China, with India, Turkey, Russia, Europe, and the Gulf states pulled into the room.

The old American formula has failed. It gave Israel unlimited military cover, gave Arabs private assurances, gave Iran sanctions and threats, and gave Palestinians speeches. That is not a peace process. That is managed instability.

Iran’s strongest move now is not to close the Strait of Hormuz forever. It is to make Hormuz the symbol of a new reality: no prosperity without security, no security without dignity, and no dignity while one country is allowed to bomb the region and another is told to absorb it quietly.

Why stop at Lebanon?

If Iran has leverage, it should use it for something worthy of history: not another ceasefire, not another pause, not another fake negotiation, but a comprehensive peace that finally tells the region the truth.

Either everyone gets security, or nobody really has it.

If there is one lesson Iran should take from the last several years, it is that no missile, no military doctrine, and no foreign policy can substitute for the support of its own people. The first alliance Iran must build is not with another government. It is with the Iranian people themselves.

For decades, ordinary Iranians have borne the cost of geopolitical conflict. They have endured sanctions, inflation, currency crises, shortages, isolation, and uncertainty. They have watched opportunities disappear, industries stagnate, and talented young people leave the country in search of better futures elsewhere. Whatever one thinks of the Islamic Republic, it is impossible to deny that the Iranian people have paid a heavy price.

The government’s highest priority should therefore be neither ideology nor regional politics, but prosperity. Iran possesses immense natural resources, an educated population, a strategic geographic position, and one of the oldest and richest civilizations on earth. There is no reason Iranians should not enjoy a standard of living comparable to that of the most successful countries in Asia.

This requires a change in priorities. Economic growth should come before social engineering. Innovation should come before bureaucracy. Opportunity should come before restriction.

Many of the regulations that unnecessarily intrude into daily life should be reconsidered. Moral policing has become a source of division rather than unity. The state should focus less on controlling how people live and more on creating the conditions under which they can thrive. The strongest societies are not those that constantly police their citizens; they are those that inspire loyalty through competence, opportunity, and rising living standards.

A prosperous Iran would be a stronger Iran. A freer Iran would be a more confident Iran. A government that visibly improves the lives of its citizens would possess a legitimacy that no foreign adversary could easily undermine.

The second lesson is more uncomfortable. Iran should assume that the current ceasefire, whatever form it takes, is temporary.

Wars may end. Rivalries often do not.

Many in Tehran believe that the strategic objective of Israel and influential groups in Washington has not fundamentally changed. They believe that pressure on Iran—through sanctions, isolation, military threats, covert operations, and diplomatic campaigns—will continue regardless of temporary agreements. Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, it would be difficult to argue that relations between Iran and the West are likely to become normal soon.

From the Iranian perspective, the pattern appears centuries old. Persians remember invasions, interventions, occupations, coups, sanctions, and attempts by foreign powers to shape Iran’s destiny. They see a historical continuum stretching from ancient imperial rivalries to modern geopolitical competition.

Others may interpret history differently, but what matters strategically is how nations understand their own experience. Many Iranians have concluded that external pressure is not an exception. It is a permanent feature of their geopolitical environment.

If that assumption is correct, then Iran must think in decades rather than months.

That leads to the question of alliances.

For many years, Iran attempted to balance relationships with Europe, Russia, China, and various regional actors. The results have been mixed. Europe has often proven unwilling or unable to act independently of Washington. Russia has been a useful partner at times but remains primarily focused on its own interests and challenges. Neither relationship provides the foundation for long-term economic transformation.

China is different.

China is now the world’s largest industrial power, one of its largest trading nations, and increasingly one of its most influential geopolitical actors. Unlike many Western countries, China does not frame its relationship with Iran primarily through ideological or political conditions. Beijing’s interest is straightforward: energy, trade, infrastructure, markets, and strategic stability.

Iran offers China exactly what China needs: energy resources, strategic geography, access to the Middle East, and a critical position linking East Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Europe.

China offers Iran something equally valuable: investment, technology, industrial development, export markets, and an economic partner powerful enough to reduce the impact of Western pressure.

This does not mean Iran should become dependent upon China. Dependence merely replaces one vulnerability with another. Rather, Iran should seek a comprehensive strategic partnership that strengthens both countries while preserving Iranian independence.

The relationship should go beyond oil sales. It should include industrial development, transportation infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, ports, railways, aviation, education, and scientific cooperation. Iran should become an indispensable part of the emerging Eurasian economy.

The objective should be simple: make Iran so economically connected, technologically capable, and strategically important that attempts to isolate it become increasingly impractical.

The mullahs have been ‘secret’ partners with the West for many decades only to find themselves at the short end of the stick – when administrations change. It is well known, for example, that Ayatollah Kashani secretly aligned with the CIA to topple Mossadegh in the 1953 coup (that restored the Shah’s administration). The Iran-Contra saga revealed secret alliances and channels between the Reagan administration and the Mullahs. No one should ever forget that Khomeini flew from Paris to Tehran in a French government-chartered Air France 747. It is also well known, for example, that Rafsanjani and Rouhani were British shills inside Iran’s government.

If the war demonstrated nothing else, it fully showed how a change in administration in Washington can fundamentally shift ‘secret’ alliances. Western agents inside Iran were betrayed. Many were killed. Many were outed. An alliance with the West is fundamentally unsustainable. The mullahs need new partners.

Ultimately, however, no foreign partnership can save the Mullahs if they neglect their own citizens. The alliance with China may be important. The alliance with the Iranian people is essential.

The future strength of Iran will not be measured by how many enemies it can threaten or how many wars it can survive. It will be measured by whether young Iranians choose to stay, build businesses, raise families, innovate, and believe that their future lies within their own country. The mullahs should put aside internal repression, moral policing, and oppressive hijab enforcement. Even opponents of the regime should be welcome – provided they do NOT pose any violent challenges to it. They should allow legitimate, non-violent political opposition. The regime has shown its resilience – they should leverage this to bring Iranians back home who disagree with them but can contribute to Iran’s future. The regime can exhibit real confidence.

That is a real strategic challenge.

If Iran can create prosperity at home while building sustainable partnerships abroad, it will emerge stronger than it has been in generations. If it fails to do so, no alliance, however powerful, will compensate for the loss of confidence among its own people.

The next alliance Iran needs is therefore not complicated.

First, with the Iranian people.

Second, with China.

Everything else follows from there.

For nearly half a century, much of the Arab regional strategy rested on a simple assumption: a constrained Iran was in their interests.

Before 1979, Iran under the Shah was the dominant economic and military power of the Persian Gulf. It possessed the region’s most advanced industrial base, the strongest military, and a level of prosperity that many neighboring states could not match. Iranian students studying abroad often projected a confidence born of belonging to a country that appeared destined to become one of the world’s major powers. Their Arab classmates in private schools in Europe and the US envied their Iranian classmates and quietly planned their demise.

The revolution changed everything.

Arab states found themselves benefiting from Iran’s isolation. And, the Iran-Iraq War further exhausted both Tehran and Baghdad while allowing the smaller Gulf monarchies to accumulate enormous wealth. Subsequent decades of sanctions further redirected trade, finance, aviation, shipping, tourism, and investment away from Iran and toward cities such as Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi.

As Iran’s aviation sector struggled under sanctions, Gulf carriers became global giants. As Iranian ports and financial institutions faced restrictions, Gulf logistics and banking centers flourished. Capital, talent, and commerce that might otherwise have flowed through Tehran, Bandar Abbas, or other Iranian hubs instead flowed through the Gulf monarchies.

There is a very powerful argument that these Arab states very quietly supported the regime in Iran, while ensuring that Iran remained contained and sanctioned. They played on both sides. The continuation of the regime in Iran was in their interests – if it remained a pariah. Arab states spent lavishly in Western capitals to support anti-Iranian propaganda. Arab states spent lavishly to amplify Iran’s ‘nuclear’ threat while quietly building their own nuclear plants (which they simultaneously denied to Iran and pretended were a tacit bomb program). Arab states quietly aligned with Israel to propagate this narrative.

For decades, this arrangement appeared remarkably successful. Although the fundamentals would support Iran’s advancement, Arabs prospered (largely at Iran’s expense). Iran has a high-altitude airport located 1,000 km closer to Europe and East Asia. Iran is ‘the’ natural aviation hub in the region. Yet, Dubai and Doha prospered. Iran has a domestic population nearing 100 million, with a large industrial appetite. Also, Iran is a natural regional hub for shipping and transportation, supporting landlocked ‘stans’. Yet, a sanctioned and contained Iran needed Dubai’s port to ‘sanction-bust’ to support its economy. This industrial base would support financial markets, yet Dubai is ‘the’ major regional financial market and banking hub. Not to be forgotten has been how these Arab states financed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran. To add insult to injury, Arab states started naming the Persian Gulf the Arab Gulf – and financed the republishing of maps. Iranians suffered; these Arab states prospered. Iranians were so impoverished that young Iranian women started populating these Arab states as prostitutes to help their families at home.

But Arab prosperity has been a two-edged sword. Arab prosperity changed their strategic realities.

The gleaming skylines of these Arab states are not self-sustaining. They depend upon uninterrupted trade flows, energy exports, imported labor, imported food, imported technology, and above all secure maritime access through the Strait of Hormuz.

That is where an irony emerges.

The more successful these Arab states became, the more dependent they became on the very waterway over which Iran possesses immense influence. Every new port, refinery, industrial zone, financial center, and airline hub increased the strategic importance of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and stable.

A generation of policymakers treated Iran primarily as a threat to be contained. Yet containment never eliminated Iran’s core geographical reality. It never eliminated Iran’s population. It never eliminated Iran’s industrial capabilities, scientific base, missile programs, or strategic position overlooking one of the world’s most important chokepoints.

Recent conflicts have exposed this reality with uncomfortable clarity. Markets reacted immediately to even the possibility of disruption. Insurance rates surged. Shipping routes were reconsidered. Investors suddenly rediscovered something that geography had always made obvious: no lasting Gulf security architecture can exist without accounting for Iran.

This leaves these Arab states facing a difficult dilemma.

The policies that may have helped produce decades of relative advantage also helped preserve the very confrontation that now threatens their prosperity. Every effort to keep Iran weak increased the strategic importance of the one card Iran can never lose—its location.

The result is a paradox. The wealthier and more globally connected these Arab states became, the more vulnerable they became to instability in the Persian Gulf itself. Did they really think they could impoverish Iran forever on false pretexts? Did they really think Iranians would not understand the reality they promoted?

In that sense, the region may have arrived at a moment of strategic reckoning. The old model of sanctions, isolation, and permanent confrontation produced winners for many years. But it also produced a regional order in which everyone’s prosperity ultimately depends on stability with Iran.

And that may be the greatest irony of all: after decades spent trying to reduce Iran’s influence, the success of these Arab states has made Iran more important than ever.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been positively gleeful about the pager operation against Hezbollah. Not only has he spoken about it repeatedly, but he has gone so far as to hand out gold-plated pager memorabilia to world leaders. The operation has become part of his personal mythology: proof, in his telling, of Israeli ingenuity, intelligence superiority, and strategic brilliance.

And to be fair, the operation was ingenious. It was audacious, sophisticated, and devastating. Military academies will study it for decades. Intelligence services around the world undoubtedly admired it.

But there is a problem that has trapped great powers and great leaders throughout history. They become so captivated by tactical victories that they forget to ask the more important question.

What did it achieve?

History is littered with leaders who won battles, campaigns, and spectacular operations only to discover later that they had lost the larger contest. Tactical success and strategic success are not the same thing. They are often not even closely related.

The United States won countless battles in Vietnam. Napoleon won battles across Europe. Germany’s military victories in the early years of the Second World War were breathtaking. None of those victories ultimately mattered because the strategic objectives were never secured.

That is why I find the obsession with the pager operation so interesting.

The pager was a gadget.

The Strait of Hormuz is geography.

The pager was an operation.

Hormuz is leverage.

The pager affected a few thousand people.

Hormuz affects the global economy.

One was an impressive tactical achievement. The other remains one of the most important strategic realities on earth.

The lesson of the last several years is that geography has a way of humiliating technology. Politicians, generals and television commentators can spend years celebrating operations, drones, assassinations and covert actions. Then reality intrudes. Tankers still have to move. Energy still has to flow. Insurance rates still have to be paid. Supply chains still have to function.

A clever operation can make headlines. A strategic chokepoint can make governments panic.

That distinction matters because the true measure of any conflict is not whether you managed to pull off a spectacular operation. The true measure is whether you emerged more secure, more prosperous and in a stronger strategic position than when you started.

That is where the celebration begins to look premature.

Israel’s leadership has spent years telling the world that every escalation would improve Israel’s strategic position. Every assassination would improve deterrence. Every covert operation would increase security. Every confrontation would reduce threats.

And yet the region today appears more unstable, more polarized and more dangerous than it was before.

That does not mean the pager operation was not clever.

It means cleverness alone is not enough.

History has a nasty habit of asking different questions than politicians do. Politicians ask whether an operation succeeded. History asks whether the objective was achieved. Those are not the same thing.

Which brings me to what may be the funniest diplomatic gift exchange in modern history.

Since Netanyahu has established the precedent of handing out gold-plated commemorative trophies celebrating military operations, perhaps Iran should participate. Israel has been busy trying to humiliate Iran’s new leader by calling him gay. This is someone whose son was killed when his father, mother, and wife were killed. This is someone who has three children. More importantly, Iran’s regime (even if not broadly supported inside Iran) has survived, and is now thriving with a ‘deal’ with the US that implicitly placates Israel (and thus Netanyahu). In fact, the regime hit back and killed Netanyahu’s other brother. Netanyahu is very unlikely to survive this loss politically. Netanyahu’s gambit has not only threatened his political future, but substantially undermined Israel’s global position and support. Leaders around the globe are now, for the first time, openly questioning Israel’s national security policies.

Imagine some future Iranian government commissioning a beautiful, gold-plated sculpture of the Strait of Hormuz. Mounted on polished walnut. Tastefully engraved. Suitable for display in any office.

The plaque could read:

“In recognition of the enduring importance of geography.”

Perhaps underneath there could be a second inscription:

“The new Gay Ayatollah would like to open this and control it.”

Then the exchange could take place.

A golden pager for a golden Strait. One celebrating tactical ingenuity. The other celebrates strategic reality.

Journalists would pretend to be shocked. Diplomats would struggle to keep straight faces. Social media would instantly understand the joke.

Because beneath the satire lies a serious point. The world is full of leaders celebrating tactical victories while quietly losing strategic ground.

The golden pager may ultimately become one of the most famous trophies in modern political history. But if history delivers its verdict differently than Netanyahu expects, it may also inspire the perfect companion piece.

A golden Strait of Hormuz – representing Netanyahu’s rear!

A reminder that gadgets come and go, operations come and go, politicians come and go, but geography remains. Iran remains.

One of the more remarkable aspects of American policy toward Iran is that it seems to rest on the belief that ordinary Iranians will eventually reject their government and embrace an alternative leadership favored by Washington. This assumption has survived multiple administrations, countless policy failures, and decades of evidence to the contrary. Yet what makes it particularly curious is that the same people who hold this belief often behave in ways that virtually guarantee that any American-backed alternative will be viewed with suspicion by large segments of the Iranian population.

If one were deliberately attempting to alienate ordinary Iranians, it would be difficult to improve upon the strategy pursued in recent years.

Consider the treatment of Iran’s national soccer team. To many outsiders, Team Melli is simply a sports team. To many Iranians, it is something far more important. It is one of the few institutions that belongs to the entire nation. Political views, religious beliefs, ethnic backgrounds, and social divisions all disappear for ninety minutes when the national team takes the field. The players do not represent a political faction. They represent Iran.

Yet over the years, Iranian players have repeatedly found themselves dragged into political controversies, subjected to scrutiny that athletes from many other countries never experience, and treated less as sportsmen than as symbols of a geopolitical dispute. Most recently, this team was told they had to come and go the same day for games and not allowed to prepare for games inside the U.S. This is abhorrent and completely unprecedented in the World Cup. Whether intentional or not, the message many Iranians receive is that even their athletes cannot escape political hostility. Americans often underestimate how deeply this resonates. When a country’s national team is treated disrespectfully, people do not see it as an insult directed at politicians. They see an insult directed at the nation itself.

The same principle applies to the increasingly common attempts to rename the Persian Gulf. To many Americans this may appear to be a trivial matter, an argument over geography or terminology. To Iranians it is neither. The name Persian Gulf has existed for a millennium (indeed, it appears on the same map that originally named America) or more and is deeply intertwined with Iran’s historical identity. For many Iranians, hearing politicians, commentators, or media organizations deliberately substitute “Arabian Gulf” feels less like a cartographic correction and more like an attempt to erase part of their history. Imagine if foreign governments suddenly decided to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, or the Rocky Mountains for political reasons. Americans would not shrug and move on. They would rightly interpret it as an unnecessary and provocative gesture. The reaction in Iran is no different.

Then there are the threats. Over the past several years, discussions of bombing Iran have become disturbingly casual in American political discourse. Politicians and commentators speak about military strikes as though they are routine policy instruments rather than acts of war with profound consequences for millions of people. References to regime change, destruction of infrastructure, and even the collapse of the Iranian state are made with a frequency that would be considered extraordinary if directed at almost any other nation.

What is striking is not merely that such threats are made, but that those who make them often seem surprised when ordinary Iranians react negatively. Americans would never separate repeated threats against the United States from broader attitudes toward America itself. If foreign leaders routinely discussed bombing American cities or overthrowing the American government, few Americans would interpret those statements as narrowly targeted criticisms of elected officials. They would see them as threats against their country. Iranians are no different.

What follows from all of this is a profound misunderstanding of nationalism. American policymakers often seem to assume that dissatisfaction with a government naturally translates into support for outside pressure against Iran or Iranians. History suggests precisely the opposite. People can be deeply critical of their leaders while fiercely opposing foreign interference. In fact, external pressure often strengthens national solidarity by transforming domestic political disagreements into questions of sovereignty and dignity.

Iran offers a textbook example. Many Iranians may disagree with aspects of their government. They may favor reforms, different policies, or different leaders. But that does not mean they wish to see their country’s future determined in Washington, Tel Aviv, London, or Brussels. Nor does it mean they are inclined to support political figures perceived as aligned with foreign powers that have spent years threatening, sanctioning, and lecturing their country.

This is where the contradictions become impossible to ignore. The same policymakers who speak about supporting the Iranian people often endorse policies that make life more difficult for ordinary Iranians. The same commentators who claim to admire Iranian culture casually discuss military action against Iranian cities. The same political figures who insist they want friendship with the Iranian people show little sensitivity toward symbols that many Iranians consider fundamental to their identity, whether that symbol is the Persian Gulf or the national soccer team.

The result has been a long series of strategic miscalculations. Policymakers repeatedly underestimated Iranian nationalism. They assumed sanctions would produce political surrender. They predicted internal collapse. They imagined that pressure would weaken support for the system rather than reinforce concerns about foreign interference. Again, reality proved more complicated than the theories.

What is perhaps most surprising is that after decades of these mistakes, the underlying assumption remains unchanged. There is still a belief in some quarters that ordinary Iranians will eventually rally behind an American-approved alternative. Yet trust cannot be built through threats. Respect cannot be cultivated through humiliation. Goodwill cannot be generated by attacking national symbols and historical identity. The truth the US has lost credibility with Iranians.

Nations are not persuaded by being insulted. They are not won over by being threatened. They do not become more sympathetic because their athletes are politicized or their history is rewritten. If anything, such actions tend to produce the opposite effect.

The tragedy of American policy toward Iran is not simply that it has often been confrontational. Nations have disagreements, and disagreements are inevitable. The deeper problem is that American policymakers frequently behave as though they can simultaneously threaten a nation and win its affection, disrespect its symbols and gain its trust, undermine its dignity and secure its cooperation.

If the objective was to lose friends and influence in Iran, the strategy has been remarkably successful.

For months now we have been hearing the same refrain. A deal is close. A breakthrough is near. Progress is being made. Negotiators are optimistic. Diplomats are smiling. Reporters are leaking carefully crafted hints that history is about to be made.

If this all sounds familiar, it should.

Iranians have lived through this movie before.

Every few years some American administration discovers diplomacy. Suddenly there are meetings, communiqués, confidence-building measures, back channels, and declarations that a new era is about to begin. Experts emerge from think tanks to explain why this time is different. Markets react. Politicians congratulate themselves. Editorial writers proclaim the triumph of pragmatism.

And then reality arrives.

The proposed fourteen-point framework currently being discussed will undoubtedly be presented as a major achievement. Looking at it superficially, it is easy to see why. There is talk of sanctions relief. Frozen assets will be released. Reconstruction money will flow. There will be negotiations on the nuclear issue. There will be monitoring mechanisms and United Nations endorsements. On paper it looks substantial.

But the more one reads the details, the more one is struck by a simple question: what exactly is Iran receiving here?

Not what headlines say Iran is receiving.

What is Iran actually receiving?

The answer is surprisingly little.

Take the release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets. This is repeatedly presented as a major concession by the United States. Yet it is difficult to understand how returning someone’s money qualifies as generosity. These are not American funds. They are Iranian funds. They belong to Iran. Returning them is not aid. It is not compensation. It is not a gift. It is simply the partial return of property that should never have been withheld in the first place.

Even then, the proposal raises obvious questions. Why only $24 billion? Why not all Iranian assets frozen around the world? Why is there no discussion of interest? If a bank held your money for decades without permission, would it simply hand back the principal and expect gratitude? If a corporation seized your assets and deprived you of their use for years, would a court not require compensation?

Apparently such standards apply to everyone except governments.

The same problem exists throughout the agreement. Almost every provision that is being marketed as a breakthrough turns out, upon inspection, to be either temporary, partial, or conditional.

Sanctions relief is a perfect example.

Much attention is being paid to the suspension of sanctions on oil and petrochemical exports. That sounds impressive until one remembers that modern economies do not run on oil exports alone. They run on finance, technology, transportation, investment, insurance, logistics, and access to global markets.

Can Iranian banks operate normally under this arrangement? Can Iranian companies borrow freely? Can international firms invest without fear of secondary sanctions? Can Iran fully participate in the global economy on the same basis as everyone else?

The answer appears to be no.

What is being offered is not normalization. It is a slightly longer leash.

Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than aviation. Few examples better illustrate the absurdity of the sanctions regime than Iran’s commercial airline industry. For decades Iranian airlines have struggled to obtain aircraft and parts. Deposits have sat frozen. Orders have been delayed. Fleets have aged. Safety has suffered.

Now, even if restrictions disappeared tomorrow, there are waiting lists stretching years into the future.

The damage has already been done.

And yet the proposed agreement seems remarkably unconcerned with that reality. The broader lesson is that sanctions are not merely an inconvenience. They shape the development of an entire society. They influence what industries emerge, what technologies are available, what investments are made, and what opportunities exist for future generations.

That cost is never measured when sanctions are imposed. It is rarely discussed when they are lifted.

Then there is the reconstruction package. We are told that Iran could receive reconstruction assistance worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Again, this sounds impressive. But experienced observers should be forgiven for asking a few practical questions. Who pays? When? Under what legal obligations? What happens if a future administration changes its mind? What happens if Congress refuses funding? What happens if geopolitical priorities shift?

The last decade should have cured everyone of the illusion that political promises and binding guarantees are the same thing.

In fact, that may be the greatest weakness of the entire proposal. The agreement appears to assume that future American governments will behave exactly as present American governments promise they will behave. Recent history suggests otherwise.

Iran is effectively being asked to exchange long-term commitments for assurances that may last only until the next election cycle.

That is not a particularly attractive bargain.

Perhaps the most striking omission, however, is what the agreement does not address. It does not fundamentally change the regional security architecture. American forces remain throughout the region. American bases remain throughout the region. Israel remains locked in strategic confrontation with Iran. The broader geopolitical environment remains largely unchanged.

The agreement reduces tensions without resolving the reasons those tensions exist.

One suspects that many of the negotiators understand this perfectly well. The goal is not peace. The goal is stability. Those are not the same thing.

Peace requires structural solutions. Stability merely postpones crises.

Which brings us to what may be the most important question of all.

Who is this agreement really for?

It is certainly useful for Washington. It reduces tensions, lowers risks, and allows American policymakers to claim success. It is useful for regional governments that prefer predictability over uncertainty. It is useful for energy markets that crave stability.

But is it transformative for Iran?

Does it restore full participation in the global economy?

Does it return all frozen assets?

Does it compensate for decades of lost opportunity?

Does it eliminate the threat of future sanctions?

Does it create enforceable guarantees against future reversals?

Does it address the broader regional security environment?

The answer, at least from the details available so far, appears to be no.

There is another issue, one that many diplomats will dismiss but many ordinary Iranians will immediately understand.

Respect matters.

Nations are not merely collections of economic statistics. They possess memories, identities, grievances, and pride. For decades Iranians have been subjected to sanctions, threats, insults, lectures, and endless discussions about what they are permitted to do and what they are forbidden from doing. Even something as simple as the persistent attempts to rename the Persian Gulf carries symbolic weight far beyond cartography.

People want prosperity.

But they also want dignity.

The best agreements deliver both.

Ultimately, this deal appears designed to preserve the existing order for another generation. Perhaps that is enough for its architects. Perhaps stability is their only objective.

But if the goal is genuine normalization, lasting prosperity, and a durable peace, then the proposal falls short.

Iran does not need permission to prosper. It does not need access to its own money presented as a gift. It does not need partial economic integration marketed as economic freedom.

What it needs is a settlement that treats it like a normal country: full access to its assets, full participation in the global economy, enforceable guarantees, genuine respect for its sovereignty, and a regional security framework that addresses the causes of conflict rather than merely managing their symptoms.

Anything less may generate impressive headlines.

But history has a habit of judging agreements by outcomes rather than press releases.

And if that is the standard, this may ultimately be remembered not as a historic breakthrough, but as another missed opportunity.

Or, to put it less diplomatically, a shit deal.

Ranked From Minor Embarrassment to Strategic Disaster

Military history is filled with mistakes. Some are embarrassing, some are expensive, and some become the defining lessons by which an entire war is remembered. The Iran War produced all three. Yet what makes this conflict remarkable is that many of its most consequential failures were not tactical failures at all. They were failures of understanding. Again and again, American policymakers, military planners, and political leaders appeared to misunderstand the nature of the adversary they were confronting. They misjudged Iran’s leadership, misread its society, underestimated its nationalism, misunderstood its tolerance for pain, and overestimated the ability of military pressure to produce political outcomes.

The ranking below moves from the least consequential mistakes to the most strategically significant. Yet as the list progresses, a pattern emerges: many of the errors appear to have flowed from a common source.

10. The Patriot Missile That Hit Kuwait

The incident was not decisive militarily, but it undermined the perception of technological infallibility. Even advanced systems remain vulnerable to confusion, saturation, and human error.

9. The Indian Tanker Incident

Damage to an Indian-linked vessel created diplomatic friction with a major power whose cooperation was increasingly valuable. It demonstrated how regional wars quickly generate global consequences.

8. The Kurdish Arms Problem

Proxy warfare rarely behaves according to plan. Weapons and resources intended to pressure Tehran frequently failed to reach their intended recipients, routed through Kurdistan, illustrating the limits of outside control.

7. The Girls’ School Strike

The deaths of 168 schoolgirls became one of the defining images of the war. Rather than weakening support for the state, the incident strengthened national solidarity and intensified opposition to foreign intervention.

6. The Billion-Dollar Isfahan Raid

A Rambo-style mission intended to demonstrate overwhelming superiority instead became associated with disputed outcomes and substantial losses. The ill-fated attempt to take Iran’s Uranium stockpile ended up costing several lives and a large host of advanced aircraft that had to be destroyed in the field. It became a symbol of overconfidence.

5. Misjudging How Iran Would Respond

Iran responded across multiple domains simultaneously, employing missiles, drones, cyber operations, maritime disruption, and regional networks in ways that exceeded many expectations. Iran’s response was well thought out and planned. US and Israel consistently misjudged Iran’s military competence.

4. Misjudging When Iran Would Respond

Timing became a weapon. Iran repeatedly chose moments that maximized disruption and surprise, forcing others into a reactive posture. Again, there was a total lack of respect for Iran’s military competence.

3. Believing Regime Change Was Around the Corner

The assumption that pressure would rapidly fracture the Iranian state proved deeply questionable. National sovereignty became a stronger unifying force than many planners anticipated. Israel’s alliance with the US was a hugely polarizing force and helped unite Iranians.

2. The Hormuz Miscalculation

The disruption of the Strait of Hormuz transformed a regional conflict into a global economic problem, exposing the vulnerability of energy markets and supply chains. This pressure ultimately forced the US to effectively capitulate. The consequences were never fully understood. It turned out that beyond oil and gas, global supply chains for Urea, Helium, sulfur, and refined oil products like Benzene and jet fuel (kerosene), to name a few, were badly impacted. It was a total oversight.

1. Turning ‘Unconditional Surrender’ Into Negotiation

The most consequential mistake was the gap between the war’s stated objectives and its eventual outcome. The regime survived, the state survived (and is now thriving, having gotten rid of a lot of dead wood, care of Israel [and the US]), and diplomacy ultimately returned.

The Question of Leadership

Large wars are never the product of a single individual. Yet leadership matters because leaders decide which assumptions to trust, which warnings to ignore, and which risks to accept.

As Secretary of War (Defense), Pete Hegseth will inevitably face scrutiny from those attempting to understand how the conflict unfolded. Critics argue that he approached the war with excessive confidence in the ability of American military power to generate rapid political outcomes and a deep lack of knowledge, and that he totally underestimated Iranian resilience. He lacked respect for Iran and Iranians.

No discussion of leadership would be complete without addressing the role of allies in shaping American decision-making. Critics argue that Washington became overly reliant on Israeli assessments of Iran’s vulnerabilities and the likely consequences of military action. In this view, Benjamin Netanyahu consistently portrayed Iran as weaker, more isolated, and more susceptible to coercion than it ultimately proved to be. Responsibility, however, rests not only with those who offer advice but with those who accept it. President Trump appears to have accepted a number of optimistic assumptions regarding the ease and effectiveness of military pressure on Iran. If those assumptions proved mistaken, historians may conclude that one of the war’s central failures was not military but strategic: the inability of American leaders to distinguish between the interests of an ally and the interests of the United States itself.

More fundamentally, critics contend that portions of the administration’s rhetoric framed the conflict less as a geopolitical contest and more as a moral struggle between good and evil. In that interpretation, the war acquired some of the characteristics of a crusade—not in a literal religious sense, but in the conviction that an adversary must be defeated and transformed rather than understood and managed.

Real Number One

Every war ultimately becomes a test of assumptions. The United States assumed superior military power would translate into political leverage. It assumed economic pressure would weaken national cohesion. It assumed Iranian retaliation would remain manageable and predictable. It assumed disruption of the Strait of Hormuz was unlikely. It assumed sufficient pressure might produce political collapse.

If those assumptions were wrong, then many of the failures described above were not isolated mistakes. They were symptoms of a deeper misunderstanding. The most consequential error may not have been military, economic, or diplomatic. It may have been psychological.

American planners understood Iran’s missiles, geography, oil exports, and military capabilities. What they appeared to understand less well was Iran’s capacity to endure. More than eighty million people carrying thousands of years of civilizational memory and a powerful sense of national identity were unlikely to respond to coercion in the manner many planners anticipated.

Military power can destroy infrastructure, degrade capabilities, and impose costs. What it cannot easily do is reshape national identity or erase historical memory. In the final analysis, that distinction may become the defining lesson of the Iran War, and the reason so many of its individual mistakes ultimately trace back to a single misunderstanding.

In the end, this is a massive embarrassment for the United States.

In the West, discussions about Iran often begin in 1979: the Islamic Revolution, the hostage crisis, chants of “Death to America,” nuclear tensions, and decades of hostility between Tehran and Washington and Tel Aviv. Much of this “Death to America” rhetoric is contrived, financed and perpetuated by forces inside and outside Iran to foment division, distrust and precipitate war; however, for many Iranians, grievances start much earlier.

Iran has literally been chewed up and spat out numerous times by the West for over a century.

Long before the Islamic Republic existed, Iran experienced foreign interference, economic exploitation, wartime occupation, major famines, coups, sanctions, and repeated violations of sovereignty by outside powers. These events became embedded in Iranian historical memory across generations.

This does not justify every action of this Iranian government, nor does it erase the repression many Iranians feel under their own rulers. But understanding Iranian grudges against the West requires understanding the history that produced it.

For many Iranians, anti-Western sentiment is not simply ideology. It is historical accumulation. And added to this legacy, now, is the recent disastrous Israeli-Trump attacks -that besides killing Khamenei, led to the deaths of 167 school girls; serious damage to one of the oldest historic monuments in the capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Golestan Palace – to name a few (and the rise of more hardline elements of the regime). A total utter destructive and political failure to add value! And with this, a continuous barrage of humiliation against Iranians, with threats of permanent destruction of Iranian civilization. Iranians are fully aware that this regime was flown in by the West on a French government-chartered Air France 747! And were secretly in bed with the US for decades, supporting the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Iranians are fully aware of how the west provided and commercially sold billions of dollars of nuclear plants to Iran, and then used a false nuclear pretext to sanction, contain, and impoverish Iranians (to help its Arab allies and Israel prosper at Iran’s expense). But this is all recent, there is a century of pain, abuse and exploitation to a nation that was once America’s strongest, best positioned and staunchest regional ally.  

To help readers understand, here is an incomplete list of major grudges Iranians hold against the West. And, Trump just added to this list.

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1. The Reuter Concession: When Iran Nearly Signed Away Its Economy

One of the earliest grievances dates back to the 19th century.

In 1872, the Qajar monarchy granted British businessman Baron Julius de Reuter an astonishingly broad concession over Iran’s economy. The agreement handed foreign interests extensive control over railways, mines, forests, canals, roads, factories, and other infrastructure projects.

Even some Europeans at the time considered the deal excessive.

To many Iranians, it symbolized a humiliating reality: weak rulers, under financial pressure, surrendering national sovereignty to foreign powers.

Although the concession was eventually cancelled, it left behind a deep suspicion that Western powers did not merely seek commerce with Iran — they sought domination over Iran itself.

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2. World War I: Neutrality Ignored, Famine Unleashed

Iran declared neutrality during World War I.

It did not matter.

British, Russian, Ottoman, and other military forces operated across Iranian territory anyway, turning the country into a geopolitical corridor. Agricultural production collapsed, trade routes were disrupted, disease spread, and governance broke down.

The result was catastrophe.

Iran suffered one of the worst humanitarian crises in its modern history, with famine, displacement, and mass civilian suffering devastating the population. Estimates of deaths vary, but the trauma remained deeply etched into Iranian memory.

For many Iranians, the lesson was clear: great powers spoke of law and sovereignty, but ignored both when strategic interests were involved.

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3. World War II: Occupation Again

History repeated itself during World War II.

Despite declaring neutrality once more, Iran was invaded in 1941 by British and Soviet forces seeking to secure oil supplies and wartime transport routes into the Soviet Union.

The occupation forced Reza Shah from power and placed Iran under foreign military control once again.

Food shortages, inflation, instability, and economic hardship followed.

To many Iranians, the repeated invasions reinforced a painful belief: Iran’s sovereignty existed only when larger powers found it convenient.

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4. The Anglo-Persian Oil Concession

If one grievance became central to modern Iranian nationalism, it was oil.

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company secured highly favorable rights to Iranian oil while Iran itself received only a fraction of the profits generated from its own natural wealth.

The arrangement became symbolic of foreign exploitation:

• Britain accumulated enormous strategic wealth
• Iranian workers often lived in poor conditions
• Iran remained underdeveloped despite vast oil revenues

The anger surrounding oil was not simply economic. It became tied to national dignity.

Many Iranians concluded that Western powers preferred Iran weak, dependent, and controllable.

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5. The 1953 Coup Against Mosaddegh

For many Iranians, this remains the defining betrayal.

Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh sought to nationalize Iranian oil and reclaim control over the country’s resources.

In response, the United States and Britain backed the 1953 Iranian coup d’état, removing Mosaddegh from power and restoring the Shah’s authority.

The message many Iranians took from the coup was devastating:

• democracy was tolerated only when it aligned with Western interests
• national sovereignty could be overridden for oil and geopolitics
• Iran’s political future was subject to foreign manipulation

The coup fundamentally altered Iranian perceptions of the United States and Britain.

Even today, it remains central to Iran’s political consciousness.

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6. Western Support for the Shah

After the coup, the West strongly backed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for decades.

The Shah modernized parts of Iran and pursued ambitious development projects, but his rule also became associated with:

• authoritarian governance
• censorship
• political imprisonment
• torture by SAVAK
• widening inequality
• aggressive cultural westernization

Because the United States became closely associated with the Shah’s regime, many Iranians came to view American influence not as support for freedom, but support for dictatorship.

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7. 1979: The Revolution, Khomeini, and Western Ambiguity

Another lasting grievance concerns the fall of the Shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Khomeini spent his final months of exile in France before returning to Iran aboard an Air France Boeing 747 in February 1979. Western journalists amplified his message globally as the Shah’s government collapsed.

What remains debated is the extent to which Western governments merely miscalculated events, abandoned the Shah when he became politically unsustainable, or actively facilitated the rise of the Islamic Republic as an alternative to nationalist or leftist revolutionary forces.

Many Iranians — especially secular opponents of the Islamic Republic — believe the West helped create the conditions that empowered the very regime it later spent decades condemning.

To them, the contradiction is bitter:

• the West supported the Shah
• then appeared to abandon him
• then spent decades confronting the regime that replaced him

This sequence reinforced a broader Iranian suspicion that foreign powers treat Iran primarily as a strategic chessboard rather than a sovereign nation.

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8. The Iran-Iraq War and Support for Saddam Hussein

The Iran–Iraq War remains one of the deepest traumas in modern Iranian history.

When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, many Iranians believed much of the world sided against them.

Western governments, Gulf monarchies, and others provided Iraq with intelligence, financing, military equipment, and strategic support.

Particularly painful was Iraq’s widespread use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and civilians.

Many Iranians believe the international response remained muted because revolutionary Iran was seen as the greater geopolitical threat.

The war killed hundreds of thousands and permanently shaped Iranian national identity.

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9. Iran Air Flight 655

In 1988, the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 civilians aboard.

The United States said the civilian aircraft was mistaken for a hostile military plane.

Inside Iran, however, the incident became a symbol of impunity:

• civilians died
• no formal apology came
• the ship’s captain later received military recognition

For many Iranians, it reinforced the belief that Iranian lives were treated as expendable within larger geopolitical struggles.

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10. Sanctions and Economic Warfare

Modern sanctions became another major grievance.

The United States and its allies imposed sweeping restrictions on Iran’s:

• banking system
• oil exports
• shipping
• technology access
• financial networks

Supporters argue sanctions pressure the Iranian government and nuclear program.

Critics argue ordinary civilians bear the greatest burden through:

• inflation
• medicine shortages
• currency collapse
• unemployment
• declining living standards

Many Iranians distinguish sharply between opposition to their own government and resentment toward policies they believe collectively punish the population.

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11. The Nuclear Deal and the Collapse of Trust

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action briefly created hope for normalized relations.

Iran accepted extensive nuclear restrictions and inspections in exchange for sanctions relief.

But after the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018 under Donald Trump, many Iranians concluded:

• agreements with the West are temporary
• diplomatic concessions may not survive American political changes
• Iran cannot rely on negotiated guarantees

Even many Iranians critical of their own government viewed the withdrawal as evidence that Western commitments could disappear overnight.

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12. Assassinations, Covert Operations, and Endless Pressure

Iran has also experienced decades of:

• cyberattacks
• sabotage
• assassinations
• covert operations
• proxy wars
• targeted killings

The killing of Qasem Soleimani in 2020 intensified nationalist anger even among some Iranians opposed to the regime itself.

Many Iranians perceive a broader pattern: regardless of who governs Iran, outside powers continue attempting to isolate, weaken, pressure, or destabilize the country.

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13. Cultural Disrespect and National Identity

For many Iranians, the grievances are not purely political.

Iran sees itself as one of the world’s oldest civilizations, with great pride in Persian culture, literature, science, and history.

Actions such as:

• referring to the Persian Gulf as the “Arabian Gulf.”
• broad portrayals of Iran as uniquely irrational or uncivilized
• rhetoric implying collective punishment or regime collapse

are often experienced not simply as political disagreement, but as attacks on national dignity itself.

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Conclusion: History Did Not Begin in 1979

None of this erases the abuses of the Islamic Republic.

None of it eliminates the suffering many Iranians experience under their own government.

But understanding Iranian distrust of the West requires acknowledging that history did not begin with the hostage crisis.

For many Iranians, the grievances stretch across:

• concessions
• occupations
• famines
• coups
• dictatorships
• wars
• sanctions
• broken agreements
• covert conflict

This accumulated memory shapes how millions of Iranians interpret modern events.

And until that history is honestly confronted, distrust between Iran and the West is unlikely to disappear — no matter how many negotiations, sanctions, threats, or temporary agreements come and go.