On July 23, 1960, during a press conference held by the late king of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, he gave a gentle answer to a simple question – an answer that created enormous political controversy and conflict, and which, with historical and investigative certainty, can be considered the starting point of the Islamic revolt and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s uprising in Iran.
Since that date, 66 years have passed, and like the layers of an onion, the world – asleep before the threat of Islamic terrorism – becomes familiar each day with another layer of it, yet the sleep of negligence still continues.
After that, for 18 years, six months, and 22 days, activities, propaganda, organization, recruitment, guerrilla-building, struggle, and conspiracy took place until the black and bloody Islamic Revolution triumphed – a revolution that, in the true sense of the word, was a display of barbarism and savagery by two forces: Islamic terrorism and Marxist-Leninist terrorism.
It pushed the Iranian nation back by several centuries, destroyed the lives of millions, wiped away all the achievements of millions of Iranians since the Constitutional era, and today almost nothing remains of Iran except ruins – a burned land with 90 million captives and hostages in the hands of a savage group.
On that day, the editor-in-chief of the Kayhan newspaper asked the late, patriotic, and beloved shah of Iran about the nature of Iran’s relations with Israel. In response, the shah said that Iran had recognized Israel in a “de facto” manner for many years. This simple question and answer created enormous excitement, propaganda, controversy, and political conflict throughout the region.
The following day, Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of the newly established United Arab Republic – formed through the union of Egypt and Syria – delivered a fiery speech in Alexandria in which he fiercely attacked the shah of Iran and declared that the United Arab Republic was waiting for the day when the people of Iran would free themselves from the yoke of the shah and Zionism.
Nasser described the shah as an accomplice of the colonialists and declared that Egypt had the ability to overthrow his regime. He enjoyed the full support of the Soviet Union through his promotion of Arab pan-nationalism.
Terrorism in Iran
Khomeini also entered the scene like an agent of Nasser. Immediately, the supporters of Iran’s demagogic, loudmouth, and fraudulent prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, moved closer to Egypt in order to receive military assistance from him and carry out a military coup against the shah and Iran.
The Mossadegh faction – the National Front and the Freedom Movement – in alliance with Khomeini, and out of defiance toward Iran and deep resentment and hatred toward the shah, refrained from no crime, and they were and still remain admirers of Islamic terrorism. Even today, because of their hatred and resentment toward the Pahlavi name, they are willing to tolerate the survival of the Islamic Republic, so long as the names of Israel and Pahlavi are not raised.
This same faction, which created terrorism and promoted Islamic Marxism, handed over to Khomeini a terrorist organization called the Mojahedin. Khomeini was fully aware of all the crimes, terrorism, and wickedness of this group.
Members of this faction went to Yasser Arafat’s terrorist camps for training, and later in Iran they established the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in order to defend the “Islamic caliphate of the Shi’ite mullah” and the hated religious dictatorship in Iran. Absolutely no reference to Iran exists in the name of this terrorist institution. The Mossadegh faction itself were the founders of this institution, and the ideology of Hussein-Ali Montazeri and Mehdi Hashemi’s Islamic terrorism still dominates the organization today.
In February 1979, when Khomeini and the Shi’ite mullah came to power, the first day of the Islamic Republic began with the presence of Yasser Arafat. Perhaps on that day, the Mossad and the prime minister of Israel did not realize where this story would eventually end.
Menachem Begin was prime minister at the time, and the leadership of the Mossad was in the hands of Yitzhak Hofi. Mossad lost its most important partner during the Cold War, and SAVAK (Iran’s Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State) was gone. Israel also lost its most important friend, supporter, and ally – the Shahanshah of Iran.
Israel and the Iran crisis
Israel endured many years of suffering and hardship afterward. Today, after 47 years, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has risen to bring this crisis to an end. Of course, the harvest Netanyahu is gathering today is the result of the efforts of individuals such as Nahum Admoni, Shabtai Shavit, Danny Yatom, Efraim Halevy, Meir Dagan, Tamir Pardo, Yossi Cohen, and David Barnea, who struggled for the survival and existence of Israel and sought to cut off the terrorist arms and threats of the Iranian regime.
Netanyahu himself has served a total of 18 years as prime minister and still remains on the political stage. He holds the longest premiership in Israel’s history. And he knows that every one of his counterparts and predecessors – Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Naftali Bennett, and Yair Lapid – shared one dream: the destruction of the Islamic regime of the Shi’ite mullahs.
After 18 years, it can be said that Netanyahu has now “read the book of the Shi’ite mullah” and understands that this is not a normal regime. It possesses a destructive ideology, and the expansionism of this system is the main obstacle and barrier to the emergence of a new Middle East. It is a bloodthirsty and savage regime that, if it possessed nuclear weapons, would by now have fired them at Israel many times over. Netanyahu knows that this regime has refrained from no crime in order to expand savagery and terrorism.
But today, Netanyahu himself can be brought before the court of history and asked: Is Israel’s determination for regime change and resolving the crisis in Iran truly serious? Is he waiting for a green light from Washington? Is peaceful coexistence with such a wounded, humiliated, isolated, and hated regime even possible?
Netanyahu is responsible for the continuation and survival of Israel. Will he help bring about regime change in Iran? Will his name be recorded in history as a fearless and tireless warrior against Islamic terrorism? He himself may no longer be on the stage on the day the court of history remembers him.
But whatever happens, today in the minds of patriotic Iranians, he is viewed as a popular figure who wishes to build friendship with a future Iran and see Iran once again return to peace, stability, and tranquility.
Uprooting the Islamic regime
Of course, Iranians themselves, relying on this same patriotism, will fight to uproot the “religious octopus of the Shi’ite mullah.” But today, the entire Persian Gulf is also watching the true determination of America and Israel. Just as Netanyahu succeeded in collapsing the axis of Islamic terrorism in Lebanon and Syria, will he also crush the Popular Mobilization Forces and the Houthis? For now, it remains unclear.
In the end, the palace of the Shi’ite mullah’s despotism will also collapse. That day will be an important victory for the Middle East, for the world, and most importantly for the history of Israel – a moment when Israel once again embraces with open arms its principal friend and ally in the region, the Iranian people. Just as Cyrus the Great and Reza Shah the Great showed the Jews that Iranian society is friendly toward the Jewish community, this friendship stretches across history, and the petty mullah cannot cut it apart.
This is a regime whose breath is running out, a regime that at night takes refuge in Islamic terrorists to create chaos in the streets. All that remains is the regime’s machine of repression and propaganda, but they have nothing left in their arsenal. The regime is fragile and trembling, although many Islamist terrorist criminals are still breathing inside the country.
The reality is that the reformist mafia, together with its lobby abroad and even Persian-language media funded by the United States, seeks to preserve this vicious cycle. The destruction of Iran means nothing to them so long as their own interests are protected.
Day and night, the regime declares victory and suppresses the people in the hope that someone might believe they have won the war. But this is the very foundation of the Shi’ite mullah’s mentality – to live in delusion and declare victory.
The Islamic Republic is similar to Hamas thugs; it is willing to sacrifice all of Iran and the Iranian nation for the sake of its destructive ideology rather than retreat. And the end of this regime will mark the beginning of the rebirth of the Middle East and humanity in the 21st century.
The writer is a Middle East political analyst. His recent book, Tehran’s Dictator, examines the theocratic era of Ali Khamenei (1989-2026). @EQFard.