Today I would like to talk about the war in Iran, and whether we think this is a good thing or not. Of course, it’s too early to tell, but the question is whether the potential is good or not? In my mind, there are lots of people who have the potential to benefit from a good outcome. Iran was going in a particular direction; we’ve expanded that direction. It can stay on the same path of the Ayatollahs, but it can also take a broader approach. I think the average has gotten better, but who in the world could benefit the most from this?
In my mind, the people who would benefit the most from this are the Iranian people. I don’t know the exact percentage of the Iranians who were against their government, but it feels to me that it’s in the 80s—a very high percentage. I see lots of numbers, but when I try to figure out what the number really is, I think it’s a very high number. We’ll see in a few years or maybe in a year what it really is. It strikes me that we have a certain moral obligation when we see two countries fighting, Russia and Ukraine for example, and we think that the country that is oppressing the other country is bad, and we feel obligated to help the country that is being attacked. And I think that’s great. Our hearts go out to them, and we want to save them.
For some reason, which I don’t exactly understand, I think that the same moral obligation doesn’t happen when people are fighting within their regime. Imagine that we didn’t think about Iran as one country, but we thought of it as two countries. The Ayatollah and the military vs. the people. One is clearly oppressing the other. But when we think about it within one country, somehow our moral indignation is not as high. I think we should apply the same principle of across country to the situation of Iran, where their regime is violating the human rights of the individuals so much.
The second, and this took me a while to realize, are the rest of the Arab countries. People who are looking at the Middle East from far away, the U.S. or Europe, for example, view the Middle East as the same, all Muslims as the same. Do you remember the New Yorker cartoon where it illustrates Fifth Avenue then the Hudson River and then Europe? It shows details very close up and as it gets farther out, it’s all very general. I think that people who look at the Middle East from far away don’t understand the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis. I can tell you that whenever I had talks in the Arab world, this conflict was even stronger and more painful than the question of Arab countries versus Israel. I think the Muslim Arab world needs some peace from the Sunni Shiite conflict. Hopefully, a new ruler in Iran, maybe like who we had in the Shah many years ago, will make that possible.
Then I think there is Israel, of course, Israel is under a threat, and getting this threat to subside would have an unbelievable benefit. And then there’s the rest of the world. I must say that I’m finding some of the leaders of the world to be very, very strange. For example, the Prime Minister of England made a speech in which he, on the one hand, condemned the attacks on Iran, then on the other hand, he said that there were more than 20 terrorist attacks that were planned and by Iran this last year. Iran has a lot of terrorist groups. They are responsible for a lot of terror. They’re responsible for most of the terror in the world. How can we say that attacking them is not going to be beneficial for the world? Now, if I had my druthers, would I have done it in a different way? Gotten more approval and all kinds of other things? Absolutely. But if I think whether this is going to create huge potential for the world, they are answer is absolutely yes. I think we were headed in a very bad direction, and now the range has opened dramatically. Now, where will we end in that range will require lots of thought. Ending this war would be one step. But there will be lots of other things about how the world moves forward. How Iran moves forward. How the Middle East moves forward. How the relationship between the US, Europe, and the Middle East moves forward.
I think it was Churchill who said, “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste.” I think we have a manmade crisis here with lots of opportunities for where it will go and I hope that we’ll be smart enough to use it the right way and get huge advantages. I think the potential is there, but it will require a lot of work to reach this potential. So, with lots of sadness about the war, but lots of hope that three years from now, we look at this and we say, this was the moment that changed the trajectory of the Middle East and to some extent the world.
Let’s hope.
