Israel is often described by its critic as the great coloniser of the Middle East, the one Jewish state in the world, the oasis in the democratic desert, the country that has no choice but to win all of its wars or cease to exist.
It’s accused of being the aggressive imperialist. But if the events of the last 24 hours also have proved anything, it is that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard is the real coloniser of the Middle East.
It began in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini led the Islamic Revolution. This condemned a nation of great history and promise to an existence of misery and backwardness.
Since then, Iran has ruined the lives of its citizens at home. One of its former presidents, one who died in a helicopter crash, was known as the Butcher of Tehran because he ordered so many mass political executions.
Jacob Rees-Mogg shares his thoughts on Iran’s attack on Israel
GB News
But abroad, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard has become an increasingly expansionist, imperialist and colonising power. Israel’s critics want you to believe this war is Israel versus innocent Palestinians.
But in truth, this is a war between Israel and Iran, between the West and the burgeoning axis of Iran and its allies.
Iran has proxies in nearly every region in the Middle East, in Gaza, in the form of Hamas, in Lebanon, in the form of Hezbollah in Yemen in the form of the Houthis, but also in Iraq and Syria.
What is the common denominator in all of these places? Theocratic fascism for all of its subjects.
On the BBC last night, this was said: “It’s been in this cause for 12 months now of constantly red lines being crossed, mostly by the Israelis.
“Hezbollah and Iran have played it fairly rationally, trying to always try to be very cautious in how they respond, trying to leave off rooms where they could.
“The Netanyahu government has kind of lost the opportunity at every sort of junction to use an off ramp that was given to them.”
That was absolute madness. But never mind. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a regime of religious fanaticism.
It uses proxies to express its extreme millenarian view of Islam. It kills people. It pays its proxies to kill people, to try and kill people who live in Israel.
But why should we in the UK care about Iran or the Middle East? Is it a small country a long way away, as Chamberlain said of Czechoslovakia? Well, in March, a London based Iranian journalist was stabbed outside his home, with the suspects fleeing the United Kingdom immediately afterwards.
It was also the Islamic Republic that put a fatwa on the head of British author Salman Rushdie, which culminated in his near murder in 2022.
Things come back to Britain in addition to instability, having all sorts of risks in the Middle East, where, of course we get a great deal of oil from.
But Iran’s desire to harm extends far beyond Israel. Iran is an enemy of the West, and Israel is fighting this war on our behalf. It is our proxy.
If Iran wins, we cannot be so naive to think that it will end with Israel. We are all in this war together, which is why we must support Israel in its war against the true coloniser of the Middle East, the Islamic Republic of Iran.