A Boring Position on Iran

The Essay I should Not Have to Write

I will not waste time formatting this writing, for this writing is written out of sheer frustration and confusion. Here are some angles on how we should view the conflict in Iran.

Useless Binaries

Someone remarked that liberals who support the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities are on the side of Ted Cruz due to his position in his Tucker Carlson interview/debate. These remarks are coming from progressives whose entire foreign policy philosophy can be summed up with ‘Israel bad’. It is essential to consider various perspectives, many of which are multifaceted, on how to view the war with Iran. Cruz supports Israel because he has theocratic tendencies and believes that Netanyahu is leading the same ‘Israel’ from the Old Testament. Cruz is a slave to quack dispensationalist hermeneutics that refuse to distinguish a referential change in the name ‘Israel’. Dispensationalism asks the reader to have a horrifyingly literalist reading of Scripture, forcing Cruz to support Israel no matter what they do. Progressives who present this talking point should be ignored. Any TikTok troglodyte who believes that stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions puts them in bed with Cruz does not care for conversations, only their self-affirmations that they are stopping Islamophobia.

Useless binaries also force us to view someone who wants to see the theocratic regime in Iran crumble as a supporter of Netanyahu and his fascist like tendencies. This point is tough to drive home because we are already drowned by progressives who still insist on Hamas being a political liberation force. For those, I can only leave you with the 1988 Hamas Charter here.¹ Hope seems lost for a society that is bent on classifying you as either a terrorist sympathizer or a Ted Cruz apprentice. Ironically, the progressives do not realize that by applying this binary, they are recruiting the grifting Tucker Carlson to their ranks. Carlson, who has supported the Great Replacement theory (a theory that the Jews are bringing in more black people and Mexicans to eradicate the white race), is not someone with whom I am quick to find companionship.

Someone can arrive at the right answer through the wrong method, and someone can have good intentions and still support a terrorist group.

What is Iran

I believe the bulk of our energy as a political species in the United States should be directed at the egregious insanity emanating from the executive office. Donald Trump has proven himself (and was in 2016) to be an anti-democratic, self-indulging, opportunistic, grifting, sociopath who is willing to throw America under the bus so he can get a new role of Trump-branded toilet paper on the market for his cult members to buy. When we need all hands on deck to professionally coordinate a counter movement by midterms 2026, progressives still prove themselves to be a parasite to common-sense liberalism. Progressives love joining in liberal movements and hijacking them for their grift. They must learn they are not allies with liberals. When it comes to understanding the threat that Iran poses not just to Israel, but to the United States and our allies, it is the progressives who need to have this point hammered in.

Politically, Iran refuses to recognize Israel as a state and certainly does not believe it has the right to defend itself. In 2023, the Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, peace be upon him, eloquently said, "I hope that God will liberate Palestine as soon as possible, and we witness the final moments of Israel's existence and celebrate its end." Iran is so bent on Israel’s destruction, as well as the United States, let’s not forget, that even as they endure economic obliteration, they manage to scrounge up a couple of million dollars to fund terrorist proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah. I could stop writing here and the question, ‘Should Iran have a nuclear weapon?’ is answered. But the time of rest is not yet upon us dear reader. Iran is far worse than this. What is established by Iran’s views of Israel is that Israel is justified in bombing, killing, and destroying any political actors who pray to God for its destruction. This equation applies to literally every country. But what about America?

Many progressives hate the United States; this is what they have in common with Trump and MAGA. So when Iranian protesters and their president chant “death to America”, it might take a degree in political science and a high school ethics course to understand what is wrong with this. The United States has always had its enemies. The reality of Russia, China, and North Korea’s nuclear armament has led to complicated, tedious, expensive, and bloody relationships, which reveal just how much it is in our interest not to allow another enemy to acquire nuclear weapons. As a service to our allies, when that same country chants for their destruction as well, we owe it to our allies to step in.

Though these next points do not necessarily justify military action, they should serve as an obstacle for ambitious polemical progressives. Iran is a theocracy that gets giddy about subjecting its women to flogging when they show their faces in public. If they are not flogged or fined an egregious amount of money, then rest assured, they will learn their lesson in prison. Of course, many women have met death due to not living in a cloth bag at the hands of the Iranian Mullahs. Iran uses drones not to hunt terrorists or criminals, but to identify women acting indecently. Ask a modern progressive in America how harmful Christian nationalism is, and they will give you a detailed (and correct) exposition on the past harms and future dangers of smooth-brained demagogues carrying forth the hand of God. Ask that same progressive about the harms of theocratic Islam, and you will get an annotated lecture on the history of bigotry, American imperialism, inclusion, and cultural relativism. Although Iran has decided women can vote, it still bars them from office in many ways. Iranian women can drive, but struggle with having to cater to hijab laws (a driving hazard). The laws around family in Iran are dictated by the Sharia law. This means women cannot divorce as easily as men can; they need their husbands’ permission to get a passport, they cannot choose where to live as the husband makes that decision, and they cannot see their kids after a divorce. Rest assured, Iran is not that barbaric; some women can divorce if their husband finds a new and more submissive wife. When one of your few ways out of an abusive marriage is when the husband finally cheats on you with a more attractive woman, your family laws are immoral, but morally repugnant. For progressives to stand with Iran at this time is to reveal their true lack of knowledge on the situation.

Trump and Iran

Trump, peace be upon him, is not bombing Iran out of moral concern. This point is critical to make in an era where concern for the moral character of our leaders has evaporated. If Iran purchased Trump Steaks, flew MAGA flags, and abandoned their dangerous exploding pagers for Trump Mobile devices, there is no doubt that Trump would find no moral qualms with Iran and might even turn against Israel for not striking a deal in his name. As I mentioned earlier, it is possible to arrive at the correct position through the wrong means. Certainly the assault on Iran’s nuclear and military installations should continue, but how much resistance will Trump face when he realizes that a not insignificant portion of his party is neo-nazi adjacent and is just as critical of Israel as the (un)progressives are?

Although I am relieved that there is finally military action being taken against an enemy of America, I am confused as to how and why it took this long. Ironically, though I support military action against Iran, I cannot help but replay the endless diatribes of Trump secreting promises of “no new wars” under his watch. I guess we also forgot to celebrate the end of the Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine wars, which ended on day one of him taking office. I guess we do not always get what we vote for.

Is There A Just War

Just-War Theory has been explored in political philosophy for a significant time with rare developments. The difficulty with developing a theory of a just war is that the definitions of ‘just’ change so sporadically with the moral relativism of the day. With moral poverty rampant, finding a consistent position not tied to political identitarianism is seemingly impossible. We must summit the mountain of this moral confusion. There are evil people with evil intentions, some of these evil people even manage to lead technologically advanced countries that must be stopped to preserve others. When Russia illegally invades Ukraine, killing and raping civilians, motivated by the lie that Ukraine is the property of Russia, then Ukraine is entitled to defend itself and even mount counter offensives against its adversary. There is no moral confusion to be had here; the clarity is lush. When Hamas pledges to destroy Israel and has an unfortunate history of sacrificing the Palestinian people via suicide bombs, lack of access to protection, and religious motivations, they lose their right to complain about retaliation. For the progressives who cannot be detached from their hatred for Israel, they will always have so much in common with their MAGA counterparts. When progressives are taught that Israel is the enemy of the world, then any enemy of Israel becomes a progressive’s wet dream fantasy lover, even an unprogressive theocratic death cult. There are such things as just wars, and some wars need to be fought.

If the lens I approached Donald Trump’s policies was ‘Trump action=bad’, then I would be no different from the progressives I have been complaining about. It might just so be that almost every action Trump takes is a deteriorating force on democracy, but this does not mean he cannot accidentally find himself correctly defending America and Israel from Iran’s barbarism. For me to be satisfied with America’s response is not to all of a sudden be MAGA adjacent. Ironically, I fear that Trump’s fetish with himself makes him an easy purchase for Iran to swoon him into a calmer response, just look at Putin as an example.

This war on Iran is a relief in that it stops a theocratic religious death cult from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, the moral poverty endured by both MAGA and progressives in America will leave a permanent moral stain on our discourse. Inconsistencies, moral poverty, both-sidesisms, and political identities might prove to be just as damaging as a nuclear bomb.

1. I understand there is a new 2017 charter. I have thoroughly read through this charter, and it is a disgusting cover-up of the crimes of Jihadism. The 2017 charter covers up and denies the Islamic excitement of the eradication of the Jews in the 20th century. The charter does not address any of the rampant anti-semitism found in the 1988 charter, nor does it address the anti-egalitarian realities found in any other Islamo-theocratic regimes. The 2017 charter still argues for the erasure of Israel, blatantly lies about what is under the Al-Aqsa Mosque (hint hint, it’s a Jewish temple), and parades Hamas as something akin to the ACLU.