I enjoy your posts but have real difficulty with this one. Please don’t take anything below other than being in the spirit of honest inquiry and debate.
In the entire section titled “Anti-Semitism” you actually quote and link to sources which all refer to Iran being anti-Zionist. Conflating the two is very dangerous. There are plenty of anti-Zionist Jews and we shouldn’t allow threats of being called anti-Semitic to stifle legitimate debate about the actions of Israel (not least because it also threatens recognition of true anti-Semitism).
You go on further to say “But the biggest reason is probably religious. Jews are not Muslim, and they displaced Muslims in Palestine”. The displacement of Muslims in Palestine was due to Zionist ideology which may use religion as one of its justifications but is not the religion itself.
Being anti-Zionist is Iran’s publicly stated position and is very much a “core political belief”. Khameni himself has said “The disappearance of Israel does not mean the disappearance of the Jewish people, because we have nothing against [Jews]”. South Africa is also anti-Zionist.
The section on whether Iran is developing a nuclear weapon conflates having enough material for a weapon with the motive and ability to actually make a weapon. At points you talk about them separately, at others you talk about them together.
There appears to be consensus that Iran was weeks away from being able to enrich sufficient uranium for a weapon. There is no consensus on a) if Iran was actively seeking to make a weapon and b) how long it would take them if they were.
Netanyahu claims Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon and could make one “within months, and certainly less than a year”.
US intelligence assessments are that Iran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon and if they were it would take them up to three years to make one (according to the latest CNN report from four sources).
The IAEA Director General has said “we did not have any proof of [Iran making] a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon.”
You describe this as not disagreeing “by much” but it is a fundamental disagreement about the threat Iran represents and therefore whether an attack was justified and if the true motivates are as stated by Israel.
Particularly when you contrast this with the obvious alternative of continued negotiations with Iran which have successfully halted Iran’s progress towards a nuclear weapon in the past (until Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 despite Iran’s continued compliance with it).
You are right. I replaced anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.
I do think. these are very intermingled in the region, especially Iran. The same is true in Palestine. It's hard to explain otherwise while the share of Mizrahim has gone down in all Muslim countries by 98-100% since 1948.
If those who had displaced Palestinians had been Muslim, no other Muslim would have bat an eye. In general, Muslims in the region have little concern about Muslims killing other Muslims, as illustrated by wars in Sudan, Syria, or Yemen. So I stand by the point that anti-Zionism has a religious root.
I heard a lot of the same comments about anti-Semitism vs anti-Zionism when covering Palestinians. After talking with many of them, and watching dozens of interviews, the same pattern emerged: They start by saying they're anti-Zionist, and that they have nothing against Jews, but when push comes to shove, true beliefs emerge: The standard position is that they want the elimination of Israel *and* Jews living under Sharia Law in a Muslim state—which is much more oppressive than the status of Arab Muslims in Israel today.
I hear you on the nuclear weapons. The reason why sometimes I amalgamate the arguments is because that's what the facts say.
I don't think the official position of US intelligence reports is sustainable. You can't claim Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon when it has 400kg of highly enriched uranium, and sites with thousands of centrifuges producing more, increasing the total amount by over 50% in 6 months, while at the same time Iran is making highly-enriched metallic uranium, only useful for bombs. Yes, you can claim Iran *doesn't have ALL the ingredients*, but that's different from "they're not trying to get a bomb". It's like putting a line on the ground 100 feet away from somebody, saying "don't cross this line", and the person rushes to the line, staying a few inches away from it. It doesn't matter whether they want to cross the line or whether they have. It matters that, at that point, they can cross the line whenever they want.
The same is valid for the IAEA. You can't focus on the info that is there. You must focus on the info that isn't there. Of course the IAEA doesn't have evidence that Iran is actively pursuing the bomb! Because *inspectors have been banned*! What is the point of banning them if your program is safe?
These nuances are the crux of the problem so thx for engaging productively!
You would expect that within anti-Zionism there are anti-Semites, in the same way that within anti-immigration political parties there are racists. That is why it is especially important to delineate the two.
How far Iran is from crossing your hypothetical line is precisely what matters. That is where there is fundamental disagreement between Israel and the US / IAEA. The closer Iran is to the line, the greater force you can potentially justify.
You have reached the conclusion that you agree with Israel and Iran is actively developing a nuclear weapon and could have one “within months, and certainly less than a year”. This statement comes from the same lips of the man who said Iran was “three to five years” from a nuclear weapon in 1992 and has many motivations to exaggerate the threat.
Incidentally, Netanyahu also said “there is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons” before the Iraq war.
IAEA inspectors have not been banned. They do not have the level of co-operation they would like but that is a natural consequence of the JCPOA being torn up and sanctions being applied. The Director General of the IAEA could have said “we are not able to determine if Iran is making a nuclear weapon”. That is not what he said at a time when his words are chosen very carefully.
Sorry, but did you forget Iran's multiple attacks on diaspora Jews (the AMIA Jewish community bombing in Argentina), it's promotion of antisemitism, such as through a conference encouraging it?
There is no difference between antisemitism and antizionism, neither in Iran, nor around the world.
Interested in your opinion about the comments regarding Iran enriching uranium at 60% when ~5% is what is needed for nuclear power and the development of metal which has the purpose of comprising nuclear bombs. These two seem to be a problem.
Iran began enriching uranium up to 60% in response to an attack on their Natanz facility and the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
That was in April 2021. Everyone agrees it would only take weeks to enrich up to weapons-grade 90% but Iran has not taken that step for over 4 years now.
The purpose (along with uranium metal) is to provide leverage in negotiations and create strategic ambiguity (i.e. lift sanctions and return to the JCPOA and we will go back to enriching only to ~4%).
“The disappearance of Israel does not mean the disappearance of the Jewish people, because we have nothing against [Jews]”. How many Jews are there in Iran?
Regarding the pre-revolutionary times, other factors at play with significant impact and deserves to be mentioned:
One other major cause behind the Shah´s downfall came with the founding of the Rastakhiz party in 1975 and its existence until the dissolution in 1978. Party membership became compulsory for almost any position in society and was financed by hefty 'dues' (i.e. taxes). This was a development which radicalized a lot of the apolitical population, apart from the economical downturn itself.
To dispell discontent and grow its financial base Rastakhiz began to direct a campaign against urban merchants/bazaaris under the pretext of profiteering and to finance modern development. Add to this the price controls you mention which also cut into their profitability.
Khomeini had been in exile since 1963 as one of several exiled figures, there were other groups such as communists (which lacked a large popular following inside Iran apart from some intelligentsia circles).
But the campaign against the bazaaris (they sold all sorts of goods and groceries to common people, supermarkets were unheard of, thus had a very direct contact with the population at large) made many of them angry with the Shah and the modernization ideology he and his regime represented. Instead many of them began to support traditional values and found common ground with the clerics/mullahs who had always felt to be a target of the modernization ideology.
Ironically there was a bit of a modernization twist in the plot here: the bazaaris began to sell cassette tapes with recorded speeches from Khomeini which were played on tape recordes in mosques and homes. This is what made Khomeini a household name in the late 1970's as many Iranians were still analphabets but every Iranian could buy and/or listen to his speeches at some place. It was with this technology he became known all over Iran unlike other exile members such as communists who could find no other such common ground with the people at large.
Small corrections. The elections scheduled for next year are parliamentary elections, the winner of which generally puts together a legislative coalition, which then ratifies the formation of the government. The presidency in Israel is a largely symbolic post. Netanyahu is Prime Minister, not President.
This is a really clear and effective analysis — thank you! As I read I felt like I was seeing chess pieces arranging on a board. *not to suggest that this is a “game,” just saying, you made something overwhelmingly complex feel comprehensible
This was very helpful and easy to understand, allowing me to learn about the background of Iranian anti-Israel sentiment without having to read a bunch of biased sources and add in my bias, too.
It has long been Netanyahu's goal to destroy Iran's nuclear program militarily with the help of the United States. A famous picture shows him warning the UN General Assembly in 2012 that Iran was only months away from having its own nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has rejected diplomatic solutions, including the 2015 nuclear agreement, which called for strict controls. In my opinion, the nuclear agreement has protected Israel better than military strikes without regime change in Iran. And I consider regime change very unlikely. While 80% are in favor, 1 million (Revolutionary Guards, Basij, army, intelligence services) support the regime.
Joe Cirincione: For the past 25 years, there's been a debate about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program. Iran claims it's peaceful, just for the manufacturing of nuclear fuel. The problem is that the same machines that can enrich uranium to low levels, for fuel rods, can enrich it to high levels for weapons. So you have to ask the question, "Do you trust Iran?" Clearly, we do not. So, how do you solve this?
Benjamin Netanyahu has always been a proponent of military action because he saw that as the only solution to the nuclear program. He also believes it would be a way to eliminate the Iranian regime, which he considers an existential threat to Israel. Not just the nuclear program, but the Iranian regime itself.
In 2014, the United States solved the problem. We reached an interim agreement that then, in 2015, became a permanent agreement that permitted Iran to do limited enrichment, but blocked all its paths to a bomb. It did this by severely limiting the amount of enrichment they could do by creating the most intrusive inspection regime ever negotiated. I've been working on nonproliferation my entire career. I have never seen an agreement as strong as the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It solved the problem. It stopped Iran's path to a bomb. It stopped a new war in the Middle East.
In 2018, Donald Trump pulled out of that agreement despite the entreaties of all major allies - with the exception of Israel - and the advice of the military intelligence leaders in the United States, who argued that the deal was working and there was no reason to pull out. So that brings us to the present moment. Netanyahu - who was an opponent of the deal, who was one of the people who convinced Trump to pull out - and President Trump are now trying to fix a problem they created.
The claim that the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful flies in the face of evidence. There's no reason to enrich uranium past 5% for nuclear energy. Iran has 9-10 bombs worth of uranium enriched well past that level.
In 2014, the US didn't solve the problem. He postponed it for 10 years. 11 years have passed. And the safeguards that he put—the IAEA's inspections—were now eliminated (that's the point about IAEA's censorship in the article).
I don't disagree with your point that pulling off of that treaty in 2018 was a bad idea. I think that was stupid at the time, especially because there was no alternative to that. And yet here we are.
That's an illogical statement. How can Israel at the same time have the intelligence to take out the military leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its top nuclear scientists, and hit Iranian surface to air batteries, and take out so many of their ballistic missile mobile launchers, yet NOT have the correct intelligence that Iran is rushing to a nuclear weapon?
An excellent article with a decidedly pro-Israeli stance. That may be due to bias but it may also be that the facts simply lead to these conclusions (which is what I'm inclined to believe). I'm not informed enough about geopolitics or you to know for sure, but I will say that it seems like an oversight to exclude Netanyahu's personal, legal, and political motives for escalating conflicts—the more distraction, the less accountability. Also, his actions should always be considered in light of his obvious authoritarian tendencies.
Yes, I think I mention Netanyahu’s elections upcoming, but that’s not all. He has a track record of accusing Iran of seeking the bomb.
Biases are impossible to eliminate, but I try hard. I believe I don’t quote Israeli sources in a single debatable fact. If I do, please LMK and I’ll correct it.
I’m also happy to debate with an informed, constructive person that might defend the Iranian government’s side. If you know anybody, please nominate them or let them know I’m open.
Tomas - you are a fair person - don’t listen to the haters. There are not enough moderate and fair minded people in this modern time. I think it is hard for people to understand that fundamental (not moderate) Islam, believes (from the Hadith ) that Israel needs to be killed/eliminated for the messiah to come.
That doesn’t mean that Netanyahu is doing a good job. Gaza is a human tragedy and the new food distribution is a mess, even with the good intentions of having Hamas not be involved in aid. And Netanyahu is more right wing than many Israelis (although there are those that are even more right wing than he is and do genuinely want the Palestinians gone/dead).
I appreciate your thorough analysis. Perhaps Shi'ism and Iran's leaders claiming to be descendants of Muhammad plays a role too compared to Sunni dominant countries, but I don't know too much about it
Why do you constantly insist on using the lazy trope of anti-semitism to explain middle eastern nations' hatred of Israel, as if it couldn't be explained by their actions alone?
Anti-semitism is clearly one of many arguments in the article. You choose to only look at that one, which suggests a bias.
The short is that what Muslims have done to Muslims is much worse than what Israelis have done, which was buy land in the region of Palestine, try to make their own country there, and defend themselves every time they were attacked. A Muslim that cares about what other Muslims suffer from would be irate about what has happened in Sudan or Syria, or would be very angry with China and what it does to the Uyghurs. I see no such proportional anger.
The author's bias in favour of a genocidal, belligerent regime that has robbed and killed for over 75 years is regrettable. Such views will not only be harshly judged by history, they are also already despised by the majority in the world, as witnessed by numerous UN resolutions.
The genocidal regime is Iran. They literally have a countdown clock to the destruction of Israel, and constantly use eliminationist rhetoric about killing every single Israeli. And or course they fund, train, and support Hamas, Hezbollah, and Assad.
Perhaps "history" will say that Netanyahu destroyed the Ayatollahs' neo-Achaemenid theocratic shadow empire* and his legal problems and general scumminess will be a footnote if they're remembered at all. Meanwhile the Gaza ceasefire movement will be remembered as a bunch of dupes of a horseshoe alliance of Maoists and Islamists.
It all depends on who's writing it.
*Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad (although I wouldn't give him credit for that), and Iran's nuclear capabilities.
"Buy land in the region of Palestine" makes it sound like this was an arms-length transaction with willing parties. Let's be clear: while land purchases were an element of early Jewish settlement in Palestine, the actual establishment of Israel as a state was based on international political decisions, UN resolutions, and the outcomes of armed conflict rather than purely on land ownership through purchase.
I am going back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Then as Jews started occupying large swaths of land, Muslims started organizing violence against them in the 1920s, and Jews started arming themselves too. That was the origin.
It's important to note that Jews had purchased only about 6% of the land in Palestine but were granted 55% by UN decree and eventually wound up with 78% through wars and other actions. I think that summary explains the hostility towards Israel very clearly.
It's a contrived thought experiment but I like to consider how Americans would react if 55% of the U.S. was meted out to China by foreign powers without our consent and then China ended up with 78% of all of our land. We would surely consider them hostile invaders, particularly if they occupied our most sacred grounds (although what that would be in the U.S. is almost comical to consider—New York City or L.A. perhaps?)
It's important to note that the Arabs owned very little of that land themselves too. You had the British empire, before that the Ottoman empire, and Arab rulers didn't own or run any of it since the crusades. The entire concept of "Arab land" is loaded.
It's not too complicated to understand that had the Arabs agreed to the UN partition plan there would have been a Palestine declared in the UN in November 1947, same as Jewish Israel. The problem is that the Arabs opted for a genocide and ethnic cleansing through war, including an invasion of Jewish Israel by Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Having lost the war, the real "catastrophe" in the eyes of Arabs was the failure to murder, expel, ethnically cleanse enough Jews.
The concept of "American land" is loaded, too—and certainly "Jewish land." In fact, the entire concept of land ownership is a social fiction. Regardless, the land "ownership" numbers and my thought experiment are relevant considerations.
While political control changed hands between empires, this doesn't negate the continuous presence of Arab and Palestinian communities who lived, farmed, and maintained cultural ties to the land for centuries. Also, individual and communal land ownership did exist under Ottoman rule through various legal frameworks.
Arab rejection wasn't solely about eliminating Jews but also about the perceived injustice of losing majority control over territory where they were the demographic majority. The plan was imposed by international powers without meaningful consultation with the existing population.
Arab states had multiple motivations beyond "genocide," including preventing the displacement of Palestinian populations and opposing what they saw as colonial settlement.
In other words, it's always more nuanced and problematic than most people make it seem. Any argument that frames the matter as substantively one-sided has already failed the bar of critical thinking.
Where anywhere is it written that these must be mutually exclusive? Isn't it possible that anti-Semitism plays (at least some) role in Iran-Israel interactions, AND that Israel does not have a squeaky-clean history? Sheesh it's almost like we haven't all been following an amazingly nuanced, well-balanced accounting of all the shades of grey that are human affairs en masse.... #Uncharted
1. Stop Trump from copying Obama’s playbook by making a new deal with Iran. Netanyahu wanted Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) killed precisely for this reason, he always needs a war ready to ignite whenever he's politically cornered.
2. Provide Netanyahu cover to move faster in the West Bank and Gaza, while international media is fully focused on Iran.
3. Anything to stay in power, ensuring he avoids trial in Israeli courts for the corruption and scandals surrounding him.
TL;DR
For a few years, Iran’s nuclear program was under the tightest control it’s ever seen. The world had visibility and breathing room. That ended in 2018. What followed was an arms race, shadow war, and, finally, the direct confrontation we see today.
I appreciate the deep dive into history here, but I think we’re missing something important by focusing so much on the distant past. What really accelerated this crisis was what happened after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), namely, how Trump & Netanyahu with the neocons tore it up, basically letting Obama’s diplomatic progress get reversed overnight. I hope we don’t gloss over the modern context or let old narratives distract us from what just happened.
Great to see you add the - The Missing Chapter: The JCPOA (“Iran Nuclear Deal”)
The question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions didn’t go unchecked by the world. In fact, there was an entire era, barely a decade ago, when the US, Europe, Russia, and China tried to freeze Iran’s progress through diplomacy, not just threats. Netanyahu did not want that!
What Happened Next?
After Trump’s withdrawal, Iran gradually unraveled its own commitments:
* Began enriching uranium past the 3.67% limit.
* Increased its stockpile and resumed work on advanced centrifuges.
* Restricted IAEA access in retaliation for continued US sanctions.
* Netanyahu got what he wanted, and today Israel is less safe because of it.
"The current Iranian government hates Israel and the US because this hatred defines their legitimacy."
This sounds to me like Oprah Winfrey school of Geopolitics Pop Psi. And unfortunately, as this is a fundamental premise of this article, everything that comes after is bollocks.
This is blatant propaganda. It is well known that Israel has nuclear weapons. even wikipedia acknowledges this. "Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads,[2][5][6][7][8][9][19] and the country is believed to possess a nuclear triad of delivery options..."
To demonise and blatantly lie about that Iran has 'the bomb' or is 3 weeks away as Nuttyahoo's been crapping on about for decades is "a complete betrayal of the US intelligence community and an insult to Tulsi Gabbard. In March 2025, when Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, briefed Congress that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, she presented the consensus judgment of the analysts from the CIA, the DIA, the NSA, Department of State Intelligence and Research, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. If the CIA did not agree with the briefing presented by Tulsi, Ratcliffe should have issued a written dissent. Tulsi then would have been obliged to inform the Congress that there was no agreement within the intelligence community about Iran and its progress on building a nuke. That did not happen."
I enjoy your posts but have real difficulty with this one. Please don’t take anything below other than being in the spirit of honest inquiry and debate.
In the entire section titled “Anti-Semitism” you actually quote and link to sources which all refer to Iran being anti-Zionist. Conflating the two is very dangerous. There are plenty of anti-Zionist Jews and we shouldn’t allow threats of being called anti-Semitic to stifle legitimate debate about the actions of Israel (not least because it also threatens recognition of true anti-Semitism).
You go on further to say “But the biggest reason is probably religious. Jews are not Muslim, and they displaced Muslims in Palestine”. The displacement of Muslims in Palestine was due to Zionist ideology which may use religion as one of its justifications but is not the religion itself.
Being anti-Zionist is Iran’s publicly stated position and is very much a “core political belief”. Khameni himself has said “The disappearance of Israel does not mean the disappearance of the Jewish people, because we have nothing against [Jews]”. South Africa is also anti-Zionist.
The section on whether Iran is developing a nuclear weapon conflates having enough material for a weapon with the motive and ability to actually make a weapon. At points you talk about them separately, at others you talk about them together.
There appears to be consensus that Iran was weeks away from being able to enrich sufficient uranium for a weapon. There is no consensus on a) if Iran was actively seeking to make a weapon and b) how long it would take them if they were.
Netanyahu claims Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon and could make one “within months, and certainly less than a year”.
US intelligence assessments are that Iran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon and if they were it would take them up to three years to make one (according to the latest CNN report from four sources).
The IAEA Director General has said “we did not have any proof of [Iran making] a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon.”
You describe this as not disagreeing “by much” but it is a fundamental disagreement about the threat Iran represents and therefore whether an attack was justified and if the true motivates are as stated by Israel.
Particularly when you contrast this with the obvious alternative of continued negotiations with Iran which have successfully halted Iran’s progress towards a nuclear weapon in the past (until Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 despite Iran’s continued compliance with it).
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
You are right. I replaced anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.
I do think. these are very intermingled in the region, especially Iran. The same is true in Palestine. It's hard to explain otherwise while the share of Mizrahim has gone down in all Muslim countries by 98-100% since 1948.
If those who had displaced Palestinians had been Muslim, no other Muslim would have bat an eye. In general, Muslims in the region have little concern about Muslims killing other Muslims, as illustrated by wars in Sudan, Syria, or Yemen. So I stand by the point that anti-Zionism has a religious root.
I heard a lot of the same comments about anti-Semitism vs anti-Zionism when covering Palestinians. After talking with many of them, and watching dozens of interviews, the same pattern emerged: They start by saying they're anti-Zionist, and that they have nothing against Jews, but when push comes to shove, true beliefs emerge: The standard position is that they want the elimination of Israel *and* Jews living under Sharia Law in a Muslim state—which is much more oppressive than the status of Arab Muslims in Israel today.
I hear you on the nuclear weapons. The reason why sometimes I amalgamate the arguments is because that's what the facts say.
I don't think the official position of US intelligence reports is sustainable. You can't claim Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon when it has 400kg of highly enriched uranium, and sites with thousands of centrifuges producing more, increasing the total amount by over 50% in 6 months, while at the same time Iran is making highly-enriched metallic uranium, only useful for bombs. Yes, you can claim Iran *doesn't have ALL the ingredients*, but that's different from "they're not trying to get a bomb". It's like putting a line on the ground 100 feet away from somebody, saying "don't cross this line", and the person rushes to the line, staying a few inches away from it. It doesn't matter whether they want to cross the line or whether they have. It matters that, at that point, they can cross the line whenever they want.
The same is valid for the IAEA. You can't focus on the info that is there. You must focus on the info that isn't there. Of course the IAEA doesn't have evidence that Iran is actively pursuing the bomb! Because *inspectors have been banned*! What is the point of banning them if your program is safe?
These nuances are the crux of the problem so thx for engaging productively!
Thank you - appreciate the constructive reply.
You would expect that within anti-Zionism there are anti-Semites, in the same way that within anti-immigration political parties there are racists. That is why it is especially important to delineate the two.
How far Iran is from crossing your hypothetical line is precisely what matters. That is where there is fundamental disagreement between Israel and the US / IAEA. The closer Iran is to the line, the greater force you can potentially justify.
You have reached the conclusion that you agree with Israel and Iran is actively developing a nuclear weapon and could have one “within months, and certainly less than a year”. This statement comes from the same lips of the man who said Iran was “three to five years” from a nuclear weapon in 1992 and has many motivations to exaggerate the threat.
Incidentally, Netanyahu also said “there is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons” before the Iraq war.
IAEA inspectors have not been banned. They do not have the level of co-operation they would like but that is a natural consequence of the JCPOA being torn up and sanctions being applied. The Director General of the IAEA could have said “we are not able to determine if Iran is making a nuclear weapon”. That is not what he said at a time when his words are chosen very carefully.
Sorry, but did you forget Iran's multiple attacks on diaspora Jews (the AMIA Jewish community bombing in Argentina), it's promotion of antisemitism, such as through a conference encouraging it?
There is no difference between antisemitism and antizionism, neither in Iran, nor around the world.
Interested in your opinion about the comments regarding Iran enriching uranium at 60% when ~5% is what is needed for nuclear power and the development of metal which has the purpose of comprising nuclear bombs. These two seem to be a problem.
Iran began enriching uranium up to 60% in response to an attack on their Natanz facility and the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
That was in April 2021. Everyone agrees it would only take weeks to enrich up to weapons-grade 90% but Iran has not taken that step for over 4 years now.
The purpose (along with uranium metal) is to provide leverage in negotiations and create strategic ambiguity (i.e. lift sanctions and return to the JCPOA and we will go back to enriching only to ~4%).
Yes, and that leverage, to make it more explicit, is that *Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon*
About like showing a cop you have leverage because you have a gun. Might be a bad idea.
Assuming Israel carried out the attack on the facility and scientist. What did they say was their justification for that attack at that time?
They don't want a government whose official positioned is that Israel must be annihilated to have nuclear weapons?
“The disappearance of Israel does not mean the disappearance of the Jewish people, because we have nothing against [Jews]”. How many Jews are there in Iran?
Thousands.
Another great pair of articles, adding the geographic perspective so often missing in most analyses!
Regarding the pre-revolutionary times, other factors at play with significant impact and deserves to be mentioned:
One other major cause behind the Shah´s downfall came with the founding of the Rastakhiz party in 1975 and its existence until the dissolution in 1978. Party membership became compulsory for almost any position in society and was financed by hefty 'dues' (i.e. taxes). This was a development which radicalized a lot of the apolitical population, apart from the economical downturn itself.
To dispell discontent and grow its financial base Rastakhiz began to direct a campaign against urban merchants/bazaaris under the pretext of profiteering and to finance modern development. Add to this the price controls you mention which also cut into their profitability.
Khomeini had been in exile since 1963 as one of several exiled figures, there were other groups such as communists (which lacked a large popular following inside Iran apart from some intelligentsia circles).
But the campaign against the bazaaris (they sold all sorts of goods and groceries to common people, supermarkets were unheard of, thus had a very direct contact with the population at large) made many of them angry with the Shah and the modernization ideology he and his regime represented. Instead many of them began to support traditional values and found common ground with the clerics/mullahs who had always felt to be a target of the modernization ideology.
Ironically there was a bit of a modernization twist in the plot here: the bazaaris began to sell cassette tapes with recorded speeches from Khomeini which were played on tape recordes in mosques and homes. This is what made Khomeini a household name in the late 1970's as many Iranians were still analphabets but every Iranian could buy and/or listen to his speeches at some place. It was with this technology he became known all over Iran unlike other exile members such as communists who could find no other such common ground with the people at large.
Super interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Small corrections. The elections scheduled for next year are parliamentary elections, the winner of which generally puts together a legislative coalition, which then ratifies the formation of the government. The presidency in Israel is a largely symbolic post. Netanyahu is Prime Minister, not President.
Yes you’re right. I’ll correct that as soon as I get to a computer.
This is a really clear and effective analysis — thank you! As I read I felt like I was seeing chess pieces arranging on a board. *not to suggest that this is a “game,” just saying, you made something overwhelmingly complex feel comprehensible
This was very helpful and easy to understand, allowing me to learn about the background of Iranian anti-Israel sentiment without having to read a bunch of biased sources and add in my bias, too.
Spot on analysis.
It has long been Netanyahu's goal to destroy Iran's nuclear program militarily with the help of the United States. A famous picture shows him warning the UN General Assembly in 2012 that Iran was only months away from having its own nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has rejected diplomatic solutions, including the 2015 nuclear agreement, which called for strict controls. In my opinion, the nuclear agreement has protected Israel better than military strikes without regime change in Iran. And I consider regime change very unlikely. While 80% are in favor, 1 million (Revolutionary Guards, Basij, army, intelligence services) support the regime.
Yes Netanyahu is not a trustworthy source here, which is why I don’t quote him for any hard fact.
I doubt the Iranian support. Do you have trustworthy sources?
Joe Cirincione: For the past 25 years, there's been a debate about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program. Iran claims it's peaceful, just for the manufacturing of nuclear fuel. The problem is that the same machines that can enrich uranium to low levels, for fuel rods, can enrich it to high levels for weapons. So you have to ask the question, "Do you trust Iran?" Clearly, we do not. So, how do you solve this?
Benjamin Netanyahu has always been a proponent of military action because he saw that as the only solution to the nuclear program. He also believes it would be a way to eliminate the Iranian regime, which he considers an existential threat to Israel. Not just the nuclear program, but the Iranian regime itself.
In 2014, the United States solved the problem. We reached an interim agreement that then, in 2015, became a permanent agreement that permitted Iran to do limited enrichment, but blocked all its paths to a bomb. It did this by severely limiting the amount of enrichment they could do by creating the most intrusive inspection regime ever negotiated. I've been working on nonproliferation my entire career. I have never seen an agreement as strong as the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It solved the problem. It stopped Iran's path to a bomb. It stopped a new war in the Middle East.
In 2018, Donald Trump pulled out of that agreement despite the entreaties of all major allies - with the exception of Israel - and the advice of the military intelligence leaders in the United States, who argued that the deal was working and there was no reason to pull out. So that brings us to the present moment. Netanyahu - who was an opponent of the deal, who was one of the people who convinced Trump to pull out - and President Trump are now trying to fix a problem they created.
The claim that the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful flies in the face of evidence. There's no reason to enrich uranium past 5% for nuclear energy. Iran has 9-10 bombs worth of uranium enriched well past that level.
In 2014, the US didn't solve the problem. He postponed it for 10 years. 11 years have passed. And the safeguards that he put—the IAEA's inspections—were now eliminated (that's the point about IAEA's censorship in the article).
I don't disagree with your point that pulling off of that treaty in 2018 was a bad idea. I think that was stupid at the time, especially because there was no alternative to that. And yet here we are.
That's an illogical statement. How can Israel at the same time have the intelligence to take out the military leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its top nuclear scientists, and hit Iranian surface to air batteries, and take out so many of their ballistic missile mobile launchers, yet NOT have the correct intelligence that Iran is rushing to a nuclear weapon?
Occam's Razor begs to differ.
An excellent article with a decidedly pro-Israeli stance. That may be due to bias but it may also be that the facts simply lead to these conclusions (which is what I'm inclined to believe). I'm not informed enough about geopolitics or you to know for sure, but I will say that it seems like an oversight to exclude Netanyahu's personal, legal, and political motives for escalating conflicts—the more distraction, the less accountability. Also, his actions should always be considered in light of his obvious authoritarian tendencies.
Yes, I think I mention Netanyahu’s elections upcoming, but that’s not all. He has a track record of accusing Iran of seeking the bomb.
Biases are impossible to eliminate, but I try hard. I believe I don’t quote Israeli sources in a single debatable fact. If I do, please LMK and I’ll correct it.
I’m also happy to debate with an informed, constructive person that might defend the Iranian government’s side. If you know anybody, please nominate them or let them know I’m open.
Tomas - you are a fair person - don’t listen to the haters. There are not enough moderate and fair minded people in this modern time. I think it is hard for people to understand that fundamental (not moderate) Islam, believes (from the Hadith ) that Israel needs to be killed/eliminated for the messiah to come.
That doesn’t mean that Netanyahu is doing a good job. Gaza is a human tragedy and the new food distribution is a mess, even with the good intentions of having Hamas not be involved in aid. And Netanyahu is more right wing than many Israelis (although there are those that are even more right wing than he is and do genuinely want the Palestinians gone/dead).
Thank you for your well-supported analysis. People aligned with the current Iranian regime will not like it.
I appreciate your thorough analysis. Perhaps Shi'ism and Iran's leaders claiming to be descendants of Muhammad plays a role too compared to Sunni dominant countries, but I don't know too much about it
Why do you constantly insist on using the lazy trope of anti-semitism to explain middle eastern nations' hatred of Israel, as if it couldn't be explained by their actions alone?
I've looked into this
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/will-israel-be-at-war
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/who-can-claim-palestine
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/do-arab-states-support-palestine
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/the-gaza-trap
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/west-bank
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/the-problem-of-west-bank-settlements
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/the-struggle-for-the-soul-of-israel
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/the-struggle-for-the-soul-of-israel
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/israel-palestine-2-state-solution
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/how-to-solve-the-israel-palestine-conflict
Anti-semitism is clearly one of many arguments in the article. You choose to only look at that one, which suggests a bias.
The short is that what Muslims have done to Muslims is much worse than what Israelis have done, which was buy land in the region of Palestine, try to make their own country there, and defend themselves every time they were attacked. A Muslim that cares about what other Muslims suffer from would be irate about what has happened in Sudan or Syria, or would be very angry with China and what it does to the Uyghurs. I see no such proportional anger.
The author's bias in favour of a genocidal, belligerent regime that has robbed and killed for over 75 years is regrettable. Such views will not only be harshly judged by history, they are also already despised by the majority in the world, as witnessed by numerous UN resolutions.
The genocidal regime is Iran. They literally have a countdown clock to the destruction of Israel, and constantly use eliminationist rhetoric about killing every single Israeli. And or course they fund, train, and support Hamas, Hezbollah, and Assad.
But please, continue to cope and seethe.
So "history" is God now? Is "history" the judge?
Perhaps "history" will say that Netanyahu destroyed the Ayatollahs' neo-Achaemenid theocratic shadow empire* and his legal problems and general scumminess will be a footnote if they're remembered at all. Meanwhile the Gaza ceasefire movement will be remembered as a bunch of dupes of a horseshoe alliance of Maoists and Islamists.
It all depends on who's writing it.
*Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad (although I wouldn't give him credit for that), and Iran's nuclear capabilities.
"Buy land in the region of Palestine" makes it sound like this was an arms-length transaction with willing parties. Let's be clear: while land purchases were an element of early Jewish settlement in Palestine, the actual establishment of Israel as a state was based on international political decisions, UN resolutions, and the outcomes of armed conflict rather than purely on land ownership through purchase.
Correct.
I am going back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Then as Jews started occupying large swaths of land, Muslims started organizing violence against them in the 1920s, and Jews started arming themselves too. That was the origin.
It's important to note that Jews had purchased only about 6% of the land in Palestine but were granted 55% by UN decree and eventually wound up with 78% through wars and other actions. I think that summary explains the hostility towards Israel very clearly.
It's a contrived thought experiment but I like to consider how Americans would react if 55% of the U.S. was meted out to China by foreign powers without our consent and then China ended up with 78% of all of our land. We would surely consider them hostile invaders, particularly if they occupied our most sacred grounds (although what that would be in the U.S. is almost comical to consider—New York City or L.A. perhaps?)
It's important to note that the Arabs owned very little of that land themselves too. You had the British empire, before that the Ottoman empire, and Arab rulers didn't own or run any of it since the crusades. The entire concept of "Arab land" is loaded.
It's not too complicated to understand that had the Arabs agreed to the UN partition plan there would have been a Palestine declared in the UN in November 1947, same as Jewish Israel. The problem is that the Arabs opted for a genocide and ethnic cleansing through war, including an invasion of Jewish Israel by Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Having lost the war, the real "catastrophe" in the eyes of Arabs was the failure to murder, expel, ethnically cleanse enough Jews.
The concept of "American land" is loaded, too—and certainly "Jewish land." In fact, the entire concept of land ownership is a social fiction. Regardless, the land "ownership" numbers and my thought experiment are relevant considerations.
While political control changed hands between empires, this doesn't negate the continuous presence of Arab and Palestinian communities who lived, farmed, and maintained cultural ties to the land for centuries. Also, individual and communal land ownership did exist under Ottoman rule through various legal frameworks.
Arab rejection wasn't solely about eliminating Jews but also about the perceived injustice of losing majority control over territory where they were the demographic majority. The plan was imposed by international powers without meaningful consultation with the existing population.
Arab states had multiple motivations beyond "genocide," including preventing the displacement of Palestinian populations and opposing what they saw as colonial settlement.
In other words, it's always more nuanced and problematic than most people make it seem. Any argument that frames the matter as substantively one-sided has already failed the bar of critical thinking.
Where anywhere is it written that these must be mutually exclusive? Isn't it possible that anti-Semitism plays (at least some) role in Iran-Israel interactions, AND that Israel does not have a squeaky-clean history? Sheesh it's almost like we haven't all been following an amazingly nuanced, well-balanced accounting of all the shades of grey that are human affairs en masse.... #Uncharted
So why now?
1. Stop Trump from copying Obama’s playbook by making a new deal with Iran. Netanyahu wanted Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) killed precisely for this reason, he always needs a war ready to ignite whenever he's politically cornered.
2. Provide Netanyahu cover to move faster in the West Bank and Gaza, while international media is fully focused on Iran.
3. Anything to stay in power, ensuring he avoids trial in Israeli courts for the corruption and scandals surrounding him.
TL;DR
For a few years, Iran’s nuclear program was under the tightest control it’s ever seen. The world had visibility and breathing room. That ended in 2018. What followed was an arms race, shadow war, and, finally, the direct confrontation we see today.
I appreciate the deep dive into history here, but I think we’re missing something important by focusing so much on the distant past. What really accelerated this crisis was what happened after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), namely, how Trump & Netanyahu with the neocons tore it up, basically letting Obama’s diplomatic progress get reversed overnight. I hope we don’t gloss over the modern context or let old narratives distract us from what just happened.
Great to see you add the - The Missing Chapter: The JCPOA (“Iran Nuclear Deal”)
The question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions didn’t go unchecked by the world. In fact, there was an entire era, barely a decade ago, when the US, Europe, Russia, and China tried to freeze Iran’s progress through diplomacy, not just threats. Netanyahu did not want that!
What Happened Next?
After Trump’s withdrawal, Iran gradually unraveled its own commitments:
* Began enriching uranium past the 3.67% limit.
* Increased its stockpile and resumed work on advanced centrifuges.
* Restricted IAEA access in retaliation for continued US sanctions.
* Netanyahu got what he wanted, and today Israel is less safe because of it.
"The current Iranian government hates Israel and the US because this hatred defines their legitimacy."
This sounds to me like Oprah Winfrey school of Geopolitics Pop Psi. And unfortunately, as this is a fundamental premise of this article, everything that comes after is bollocks.
This is blatant propaganda. It is well known that Israel has nuclear weapons. even wikipedia acknowledges this. "Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads,[2][5][6][7][8][9][19] and the country is believed to possess a nuclear triad of delivery options..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel
To demonise and blatantly lie about that Iran has 'the bomb' or is 3 weeks away as Nuttyahoo's been crapping on about for decades is "a complete betrayal of the US intelligence community and an insult to Tulsi Gabbard. In March 2025, when Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, briefed Congress that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, she presented the consensus judgment of the analysts from the CIA, the DIA, the NSA, Department of State Intelligence and Research, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. If the CIA did not agree with the briefing presented by Tulsi, Ratcliffe should have issued a written dissent. Tulsi then would have been obliged to inform the Congress that there was no agreement within the intelligence community about Iran and its progress on building a nuke. That did not happen."
https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/p/world-war-iii-update?