Iran.....Quo vadis?

 Silence in this space about the heinous war in the Middle East should not be read as indifference, or fecklessness, in that there is no legitimate side to support.

Rather, the issue is so complicated, so long-enduring, so hate-filled and so intractable as to be seemingly beyond the intellectual, emotional and psychological scope of this consciousness and conscience.

I hate war, wherever it is being fought; I hate trying to sort out the ‘who-struck-first’ and ‘who-retaliated’….because in most of the cases I have read about, such glib discernments are just that, glib, incomplete, and necessarily flawed.

What is clear, from this desk, is that Netanyahu and Trump (and who else?) have made some kind of pact in their mutual political, historic and narcissistic interests.

Clearly, there was no immediate threat of nuclear weapons being deployed by Iran. Clearly, there has been from the beginning, a level of hatred, contempt and fear between the Iranian government and the government of Israel that exceeds all attempts to reconcile, or even to bring about silence in the skies, on the streets and in the military and nuclear arsenals, on both sides.

The sponsorships of both Hezbollah and Hamas, as proxy war-arms-legs-brains-and-bombs for Iran is a fact both of history and Middle East instability. Attempting to keep their hands ‘clean’ by having others do their military, terrorist and unscrupulous dirty work is, like the façade of nuclear weapons in Israel, a charade.

The question of the elimination of Islamist fundamentalism remains unanswered, from the perspective of many in the West.

 From voiceofIndia.me, In  piece entitled ‘Islam is a religion of violence by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, November 18, 2025, we read:

In the 14 years since the attacks of 9/11 brought Islamic terrorism to the forefront of American and Western awareness and then-President George W. Bush launched the ‘Global War on Terror,’ the violent strain on Islam appears to have metastasized. With tracts of  Syria and Iraq in the hands of the self-styled Islam state, Libya and Somalia engulfed in anarchy, Yemen being torn apart by civil war, the Taliban region of Afghanistan, and Boko Hara, terrorizing Nigeria, policymakers are farther away from eliminating the threat of  violent Islam than they were when they began the effort. In fact, Western countries are increasingly witnessing domestic attacks such as the murder of British military drummer Lee Rigby and the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013,  the shootings at Parliament Hill in Canada in 2014, the attacks at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and at a Jewish supermarket in Paris this past January, and most recently the terrorist attack in Chattanooga Tennessee, on a military recruiting center and Naval compound.

But does this violent extremism stem from Islams sacred texts? Or is it the product of circumstances, which has twisted and contorted Islam’s foundations?

To answer this, it’s worth first drawing the important distinction between Islam as a set of ideas and Muslims as adherents. The socio-economic, political and cultural circumstances of Muslims are varied across the globe, but I believe that we can distinguish three different groups of Muslims in the world today based on how they envision and practice their faith.

The first group is the most problematic—the fundamentalists who envision a regime based no Sharia, Islamic religious law. They argue for an Islam largely or completely unchanged from its original seventh-century version and take it as a requirement of their faith that they impose it on everyone else. I call them ‘Medina Muslims,’ in that they see the forcible imposition of Sharia as their religious duty, following the example of the Prophet Mohammed when he was based on Medina. They exploit their fellow Muslims’ respect for Sharia law as a divine code that takes precedence over civil laws. It is only after they have had this foundation that they are able to persuade their recruits to engage in jihad.

The second group-and the clear majority throughout the Muslim world—consists of Muslims who are loyal to the core creed and worship devoutly but are not inclined to practice violence or even intolerance towards non-Muslims. I call this group the ‘Mecca Muslims.’ The fundamental problem is that the majority of otherwise peaceful and law-abiding Muslims are unwilling to acknowledge, much less to repudiate, the theological warrant for intolerance and violence embedded in their own religious texts.

More recently, and corresponding with the rise of Islamic terrorism, a third group is emerging within Islam –Muslim reformers or, as I call them, ‘Modifying Muslims’- who promote the separation of religion from politics and other reforms. Although some are apostates, the majority of dissidents are believers,  among them clerics who have come to realize that their religion must change is tis followers are not to be condemned to an interminable cycle of political violence.

Ms Hirsi Ali, while denoting three Islams, and effectively calling for the modernization of Islam, does not, in the piece referenced above, answer the question about what Iran might do as it is once again under severe assault from both the U.S and Israel.

In The Guardian, Ali Vaez, project director and senior adviser to the president at the International Crisis Group, on March 5, 2026, in a piece entitled, ‘The US and Israel are waging war on an Iran they think they know. The reality is very different,’ writes:

Survival is the regime’s narrowest—and most reliable—definition of victory. Last year’s 12-day war inflicted serious damage on Iranian capabilities, yet Tehran framed the outcome as a success because it endured. A famous fresco in Isfahan depicting the 16^th century battle of Chaldiran, fought  between the Turkish-Ottoman and Persian-Safavid empires, offers the template: in the painting, the Persians appear triumphant, having shattered their Turkish adversary. The historic record says otherwise: Chaldiran was a decisive Ottoman victory. It is not an attempt to erase defeat so much as to reframe it—less a tale of loss than an ode to endurance, to heroic resistance against an enemy that outnumbered and outgunned them. Defeat can be recast into proof of valour, and endurance can be sold as triumph.

Unable to match US and Israeli military power symmetrically, Iran has adopted a strategy designed to stretch the conflict in time and space. Its drones and missiles have struck not only Israel but also US bases and commercial infrastructure across the Gulf. The strikes are often limited—sometimes a handful of drones rather than waves—but their intent is cumulative. Tehran is not only seeking damage, it is seeking friction: forcing adversaries to defend multiple fronts, testing the resilience of regional politics and gradually raising the economic and psychological cost of staying the course.

This measured tempo reflects another calculation; Iranian planners likely understand that their missile and drone production facilities are prime targets and may not survive prolonged bombardment. Thus, the imperative becomes to avoid a spectacular but exhausting burn of weapons stocks. Preserve a residual capability; pace the fight; keep escalation options in reserve. In a long war, restraint can be a form of preparation for the next phase. The conflict, then, is a contest between opposing timelines. Iran is betting on endurance. The US and Israel are betting on overwhelming force-an aerial surge meant to collapse Isan’s capabilities before attrition, market anxiety and regional blowbacks take hold.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not simply a military institution. It is an economic empire, a political actor and an ideological pillar. Targeting its headquarters and security organs may complicate repression; it may even create opening for future protest. But dismantling an institution so embedded in the state’s architecture-through airpower alone- has rarely succeeded as a theory of change.

What may emerge as a most dangerous feature of the Iranian response to this latest barrage of missiles, drones and bombs on their territory is something called the Fatwa.

From euronews.com in a piece entitled, Germany warned of Iranian sleeper cells after Tehran’s fatwa on West, by Zara Riffler,  March 3, 2026:

Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi issued a fatwa on 1 March calling for holy war against the US and Israel following Khamenei’s death in joint US-Israeli strikes Saturday. The fatwa declared that all Muslims were obligated to avenge the ‘blood of the martyr’ and identified the US and Israel as ‘the main perpetrators of this crime’, according to Iran’s state-run Tasmin News Agency. A fatwa is a ruling made by an Islami religious authority on high-ranking scholar binding on those who recognize their authority….Extremist expert Heiko Heinish told Euronews he estimates ‘the risk of spontaneous single offence attacks and the activation of sleeper cells to be relatively high.’ Terrorism researcher Nicolas Stockhammer warned the fatwa acts as ‘an accelerant for possible attacks in Europe,’ affecting ‘exiting networks, sympathisers and hybrid actors’ aimed at a ‘diffuse, transnational support base.’ Heiko Teggatz, head of the German Federal Polie Union, said it ‘cannot be ruled out that Iran will send people all over the world to carry out terrorist attacks on Israeli and American facilities.

Small wonder the issues, history and both diagnosis and prognosis of this latest war, beyond spiking gas prices, as well as an anticipation of higher prices for many of the world’s goods and services, remain beyond the ‘pay grade’ of meagre bloggers and observers from a Canadian location. Suffice it to say that synagogues just north of Toronto have been fired upon in recent days and protesters favouring Iran have been witnessed carrying placards on busy thoroughfares in Ontario cities.

This ‘thing’ has a long way to go to even begin to envision a dénoument and, with both Russia and China reported to be offering materiel and support to Iran, who knows the extent of the risks and the dangers?