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AS Iran braces to change the global landscape of war and peace, of imperial conquest and its nemesis in a people who refuse to be afraid of dying for their nation’s self-respect, for their abiding pride in a mesmeric culture of poetry, inclusion and reflection, where do its friends and foes go from here? An all but signed agreement for permanent peace with the US promises to leave Israel out in the cold, and with it its sympathisers. That leaves room for future trouble, of course. But Iran has shown it has the wherewithal to figure out the cure.
For now, the peace deal would be a shot in the arm for BRICS whose summit, contrarily, a rightward-bound Israel-hugging India is to hold in September. But what is in store for Pakistan and its Saudi allies whose endeavours for the peace deal, overtly and covertly, may fall short of Iran’s larger vision of a multicultural Palestinian state in lieu of Zionist Israel, in which its Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities live as equal partners as they had done for centuries, not as superiors and inferiors as proposed by colonialism? Isn’t that the equation each one of the communities strives for in its abode in Europe and America? What will become of India’s Hindutva project of majoritarianism in a world in which its sheet anchors in racist Israel, and to an extent the MAGA-bound US, struggle to fend off Iran’s two remaining deadly vows?
Of the four clenched-fisted promises that Iranians learnt to state collectively during Ayatollah Khomeini’s early consolidation of power, the West applauded two and even egged them on with fulsome support. “Marg bar Shauravi” translated as “death to the USSR”. “Marg bar Saddam” was a united cry for “death to Saddam Hussain” at the Friday prayer congregations at the Tehran University. In a Macbeth-like turn of events, however, as if to fulfil the witches’ prophecy in the Shakespeare tragedy, Saddam’s death was instigated not by Iran but by the Western occupiers of Iraq who had recently supplied him with chemical weapons to use against revolutionary Iran.
The more macabre the deaths of its enemies, the more the West exults in its malodorous worldview. The pictures they cherish of the gruesome murder at their bidding of Che Guevara, Najibullah, Muammar Qadhafi and Nicolae Ceausescu were circulated as cruel Roman emperors did with the heads of the rebels hoisted on poles. Qadhafi’s barbaric murder got a laugh out of Hillary Clinton. They cut Che Guevara’s hands after his execution in Bolivia in 1967, and the fingerprints taken from them were used to verify his identity. The severed hands were preserved in formaldehyde and sent to Buenos Aires, Argentina, while the fingerprints were promptly matched in Washington, D.C. Iran denied the world the perverse pleasure of putting a frame around the revered body of its slain Supreme Leader. And that’s the abiding lesson of the war: self-respect.
Of the four clenched-fisted promises that Iranians learnt to state collectively, the West applauded two.
As for the USSR, the West courted a perpetually drunk Boris Yeltsin to avenge Moscow’s glee at its defeat in Vietnam. Then Soviet troops followed their quarry in an error of judgement and waded straight into a merciless Kabul. With Saddam dead and the USSR dismantled, two of Iran’s vows were met, for which Iranians never fail to claim divine help. The remaining two oaths target the US and Israel, the “Great Satan” and “Little Satan”, respectively. But “death to Israel” or “death to America” were never meant as exhortations that the people inhabiting the countries should expire collectively. The dismantling of US imperialism like the one being carried out in Donald Trump’s face with his MAGA base splitting vertically, and a globally isolated Israel in which Zionism has become its bane instead of an asset, could be much of what was ever desired by Khomeini’s Iran.
Where do India and Pakistan stand in the equation? I had been sceptical of the Pew survey of the time claiming that when the world, from Europe to Asia, through Africa and back home in America, had put George W. Bush in the doghouse for his invasion of Iraq, Indians overwhelmingly cheered for the US president. It’s not a surprise, therefore, when idols are carved of Trump today and he is worshipped in propitiating rituals in the presence of the god of fire. The early example came from the top. Prime minister Manmohan Singh hugged Bush publicly in New Delhi and professed to him his affection while reminding him of how much he was loved in India. A communist leader lost patience and ticked off Singh, telling him to speak for himself.
But the silly collective behaviour wasn’t about Bush or his invasion of Iraq; ignore here the fact that Saddam Hussein, who Bush had had executed was the rare Arab leader to back India in its Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. Indians who stand with the Hindutva ideology of blindly close ties with Israel are enthralled by Benjamin Netanyahu who they see as a supremo commanding the ability to gather rich intelligence needed to track and assassinate rival leaders and their military commanders at will. Indian admirers forget that the Israelis are keeping an eye on them too, through Pegasus spyware and other potent contraptions. Remember too that Israel plied the Epstein scam to lure political leaders, which spared nobody.
As for Pakistan, after its well-deserved glory as the key mediator to end the world’s most devastating military confrontation in decades, it would do well to explain to itself primarily its participation in Donald Trump’s imperialist racket to usurp the Gaza Strip for a riviera to be built by his son-in-law. Pakistan maintains that its involvement is strictly focused on humanitarian aid, stabilising a ceasefire, and preventing the permanent displacement of Palestinians. That’s an onerous task to shoulder. How is it planning to throw Trump off the scent? Perhaps the peace deal will take care of that?
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2026
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