On Iran - A contemplation with personal elements

The Ides of March is known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate. According to Plutarch [1], a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar on the Ides of March.

Not even waiting for the ominous date, no less fateful events have befallen us. Without needing a seer, the writings on the wall had long been a stark warning to all who were not totally blind. These cataclysmic events, that are currently unfolding with Iran in the epi centre, were long time in the making.

In his memoir, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark recounts a conversation [2] he says occurred at the Pentagon in late 2001, when a senior officer showed him a memo outlining a proposed strategy of ”regime change operations” in seven countries over five years - starting with Iraq and continuing with Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finally Iran. Clark himself later criticized the Iraq War and the broader interventionist strategy.

1 The Iran hawks

The list of Iran hawks, however, is longer and runs like barbed wire through US politics over the past few decades: 1990 → 2001 → 2003 → 2018 → today.

Formal U.S. policy has often oscillated between containment, coercion, and negotiation. But a persistent hawkish current has repeatedly tried to reframe Iran not as a state to bargain with, but as a regime to break, replace, or fatally weaken.

A few central Iran hawks and their role:

• Lindsey Graham: Graham has long represented the senatorial hard-line camp. In recent official and public statements, he has argued for confronting the Iranian regime, stressed stopping it by force if needed, and in 2025–2026 continued to use highly escalatory rhetoric about Iran’s future. That makes him less a technocratic sanctions advocate than a political entrepreneur of coercive escalation [3].
  
  
• John Bolton: Bolton is probably the clearest contemporary example of an explicit Iran hawk. He has repeatedly argued that toppling the Iranian regime is the most effective way to remove the threat it poses and has long been associated with regime-change advocacy rather than arms-control or détente approaches [4].
  
  
• Mike Pompeo: Pompeo’s role was different. As Secretary of State, he made maximum pressure the operative doctrine, using sanctions and diplomatic isolation as instruments of extreme coercion. Whether that amounted to declared regime change is debated, but his policy architecture materially strengthened the hawkish camp by making comprehensive pressure on Iran the normal Washington baseline [5].
  
  
• Tom Cotton: Cotton belongs to the congressional wing that consistently argues for a much harder line on Iran and is widely identified with sanctions, deterrence, and a willingness to support military options. In the ecosystem of Iran hawks, his role is to keep the congressional pressure line politically salient and difficult to moderate [6].
  
  
• Not one of the "classic" Iran hawks Benjamin Netanyahu is, as widely discussed by analysts, probably the main influencer of US foreign politics. He has long argued that Iran’s nuclear program represents an existential threat to Israel and has advocated decisive action to stop it. (Israels own clandestine yet well-known nuclear weapon program in contrast was considered as completely justified.) Hereby he exerted an almost magical influence on US decision makers. Israeli lobbying played a decisive role in pushing the United States toward confrontation.

The hawks succeeded, the game is on. So, the 7^th run of the great American Meat grinder will eventually finalise the destruction of the middle east as we knew it – however only as a stepping stone for much greater and even more desperate ambitions.

2 Persia – A personal relationship

I need to explain here, why my personal background prevents me from a cool eyed analysis of the current situation – although necessary.

The year was 1970. At the hopeful age of 18, brimming with youthful optimism, an almost uncontrollable thirst for knowledge, and a great deal of naive energy, I had just graduated from the sheltered world of high school.

I decided to embark on a grand journey to the "Orient," about which I had read so much. Since, against all odds, I had passed my final exams with a quite respectable result, my parents gave me a 10-year-old VW bus as a gift.

I converted it into an expedition vehicle, adorned its front with the words "Hamburg - Kathmandu" using adhesive letters, convinced my friends Bernd and Kurt to join me on this great adventure, and asked my girlfriend Regina if she'd like to take a short trip to Nepal. Regina first had to consult an atlas, then, tormented by anxieties, cried all night, and finally said "Yes" the next morning.

I still vividly remember the moment we crossed the border into Iran after long days and nights of driving – we were looking at a new, different world. It was palpable. During the long journey through eastern Anatolia, devastated since the Armenian Genocide of 1919, the large, blue road signs bearing the inscription "Iran Hududu" (Iran border) along the major Anatolian highway, spaced every 10 kilometres, had given us hope that our unexpected lessons in slalom driving around the uncounted potholes might soon be coming to an end.

And indeed, it was a revelation. While the Iranians, unlike the more down-to-earth inhabitants on the Turkish side of the border, had always been good at putting on a grand show, we intuitively sensed that there was more to it: the breath of a great, millennia-old culture whose state power had been repeatedly broken and undermined, but whose defining culture had survived all the humiliations inflicted by both East and West.

This vast country welcomed us with its wide valleys of the plateau, at the bottom of which lay opulently illuminated cities, already visible when still several hours of driving afar. To the left and right of the still pristine highways lay villages of scattered mud-brick buildings, huddled among poplars, their characteristic trees, between which wisps of fog painted poetic scenes.

Our initial euphoria was soon reciprocated by the expectant openness and incredible hospitality of the people. Poetry wasn't just reflected in the landscape. We saw families gathering around the radio in the afternoons to listen to the poems being recited, poems of which Persian culture is so rich.

I wanted to unlock this treasure. So, three months later, after returning to Germany, I began studying Iranian Studies as a second major alongside Chemistry. I was incredibly fortunate to be taught in a small group by the renowned Shahnameh expert, Professor Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh [7], a ”living legend”. Unsurprisingly, the result of my work was the first German-Persian dictionary of Old Persian, based on Fritz Wolff's glossary. The result can be viewed online here [8].

After that, this fascinating country never let me go. Even less successful endeavours like "The Great Boondoggle" ("Die große Rödelei") [9] have left their literary mark. My genuine passion for the richness of the Persian language and its literature open doors. I was invited to Iranian families throughout the country, saw the free and vivid life behind thick sheltering mud walls.

As a young man, I was fascinated by the unusual combination of nearly unreal beauty, intelligence, self-confidence and knowledge of Iranian women and girls - and they were also a little cheeky - back then.

My last visit in Iran was in 1979, the year when Shah Reza Pahlavi was ousted and Ayatollah Khomeini began his bloody revolution.

In exchange for free meals and a small cash payment, I had driven a brand-new BMW to Tehran in an adventurous and not always safe journey over three and a half days, to arrive just before the set deadline, the Nowruz festival, and was now traveling by train and bus in the country following in the footsteps of the Zoroastrians.

With the end of the Nowruz holidays on Sisdah (the 13^th) I had to head back to Tehran, as did everyone else. Do no chance to get a ticket. Luckily hitchhiking was common then – but different. Usually when you got a lift, the standard bus fare was charged. In exchange you needn’t wait for long. Hence two jet pilots from the Iranian army picked me up from the roadside in Shiraz. It was a cool sober business with these two no-nonsense guys. But when our casual talks came to Persian poetry the atmosphere completely changed. It was as if I had touched their soft soul hidden under a professional camouflage. Had there been talk of paying a fare? No, no one remembered that. And since their journey ended in Isfahan, they performed the miracle of getting me a bus ticket to Tehran. Of course, they also treated me to meals along the way.

During that time a typical pre-revolutionary atmosphere was palpable throughout the country and across various social classes. However, I was reminded of a situation in France some 200 years ago, as everyone I spoke to – or better, who spoke to me - had different reasons and expectations for a major upheaval. 

There was a Muslim Brotherhood member from Tabriz who had lost a relative in a recent unrest, a deserter recruit who just wanted to return home to his parents, and a merchant whose life was made difficult by widespread corruption, the list goes on. 

Only later did I learn that this was not a coincidence, but a recurring pattern of revolutions.

3 The cruel pattern of revolutions

Like the key insights of three Thinkers, two of the time of the French revolution and one more contemporary, reflect …

• “Revolutions arise from many converging causes and grievances” (Edmund Burke 1790) [10],
  
  
• “Political alliances often form through shared opposition rather than shared goals.” (Alexis de Tocqueville, 1856) [11] or
  
  
• “The Revolution was a coalition of groups expecting different futures.” (François Furet, 1978) [12]

… motivations were rather diverse and hence no harmonic outcome could have been expected.

A strikingly similar, well-known historian formulation comes from Ervand Abrahamian, a key historian of the Iranian Revolution: ”The revolution brought together groups with very different ideologies and expectations.” [13]

And that's exactly what happened. And that's precisely why, as with most revolutions, it couldn't end well. 

The general historical pattern is like follows:

1. Many groups unite against a regime.
   
   
2. The regime falls.
   
   
3. The coalition fragments because each faction expected a different revolution.

Historians sometimes call this phenomenon ”revolutionary coalition dynamics.” This pattern appeared not only in France and Iran but also in the Russian Revolution (1917) or the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Much more can be said about the common patterns of revolutions. There is insightful research available. So, this topic deserves a post on its own - later.

And it looks like history could repeat again. Once again, large segments of Iranian society are, for good reason but with highly diverse expectations, very dissatisfied with their repressive government. The similarities to the Operation Ajax are striking. That was a CIA and British-led operation that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on August 19, 1953.

Prompted by Mossadegh's nationalization of Iran's oil industry, the coup d'état restored full power to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, solidifying Western control over Iranian oil and fostering deep resentment that contributed to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

4 Will history repeat?

Indeed, the son of the then-Shah Reza Pahlavi is being touted as the new leader of a re-conquered Iran. This time, he would be installed by the CIA and Mossad, albeit after complete destruction of, what we know as Iran, only. After 73 years, a super cycle would thus come to a close - and the suffering of the Iranian people would continue under new auspices.

And that wouldn't even be the worst-case scenario. As the examples of Somalia, Libya, Iraq, and Syria show, the outlook could be much bleaker.

Libya, which under Muammar al-Gaddafi enjoyed a high standard of living, where women could move about freely and as equals, and where civic life (as long as one wasn't in opposition to the government) was safe and economically secure, is now clearly a failed state ruled by warlords, where migrants who have survived the perilous journey across the Sahara are slaughtered for their organs.

Iraq and Syria, which, like Libya, could guarantee their citizens a high standard of living, where women and men had equal rights, have regressed to the darkest Middle Ages, characterized by religious sectarianism and a low level of civilization. Iraq narrowly escaped a takeover by the so-called "Islamic State". The scars left behind will likely never heal. Syria, now controlled by Turkey, has been de facto taken over by the Islamic State. This has effectively sealed the fate of 40% of the population: Alawites, Kurds, Druze, and Christians.

No, I do not dare to make any prediction. But it should be clear that the situation in Iran today differs in many ways from 1953. The Iranian society is deeply politically divided, and trust in state institutions and among the population has eroded considerably.

And there is a war.

It is an age-old, sad truth: In times of war, the people stand united "as one" behind their leadership. Domestic political differences are postponed until after the war. This serves to distract from scandals and poor leadership performance. This applies in this case to all three main warring parties: Israel, the USA, and Iran.

5 A new betrayal in the making

Since the "regime change" so desperately desired by the US is clearly unattainable in this way, Donald Trump is now calling on the Kurds of Iran and Iraq to support US efforts in Iran and offering them assistance.

Besides, that it sounds like a move of desperation, should they do so, it would be suicide. The Kurds in their region of Rojava in Syria have just experienced first-hand how such actions will end. After the Kurds had "done their duty", they were handed over to Turkey, the notorious butcher of the Kurds, Armenians and Greeks.

This exact scenario would now be likely to repeat itself. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has probably already received carte blanche from Donald Trump to also clean up the Kurds in Iran and, at the same time, annex a large part of Iran to his empire. His loyal brother in arms in Azerbaijan has been waiting for some time to incorporate the Iranian province of the same name. The resulting great empire of the Turkic peoples would then be able to finally implement Mehmet II's vision from nearly 600 years ago: the Islamic conquest of Rome.

6 Cynicism and hypocrisy at its peak

I experienced first-hand the illusions that fuelled the Islamic Revolution of 1979. And I must remind myself of them now, when I see the jubilant outbursts and euphoria in footages of exiled Iranians in safety abroad or even in Iran, albeit with many question marks regarding their authenticity.

Once again, expectations will be bitterly disappointed. There is no "help on the way," as the "peace president" [14] so grandly promised. That was nothing but pure, contemptuous cynicism.

Instead, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are sweeping through the country - and perhaps beyond—bringing devastation, war, hunger, and death.

No one liberates a people by destroying their country. The global hegemon isn't even concerned about Iran, and certainly not about its tormented people. His aim is to defeat the rising world power China – and to distract from domestic political squabbles (the Epstein Papers).

Just as back then, when the cry went up, "The Shah has been overthrown," now, after "Khamenei is dead," the worst is yet to come.

However, ”Iran’s next chapter will not be written by foreign powers alone, or by the clerical establishment alone, or by the protest movement alone. It will emerge from the collision of all these forces — internal and external, historical and immediate.”, as Mahjoob Zweiri, Academic and senior political analyst specializing in Iran and Middle East Politics, commented. [15]

My esteemed Mentor, Professor Khaleghi-Motlagh, often used the metaphor of the Qanat to describe Persian culture: a hidden, underground stream of ancient wisdom that sustains life in a barren landscape, occasionally surfacing in the form of a masterpiece like the Shahnameh. Maybe – against all odds – after centuries of humiliation a new future for the Iranian peoples will emerge from the hidden underground.

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[1] Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Caesar 63

[2] Clark, W. K. (2003). Winning modern wars: Iraq, terrorism, and the American empire. New York: PublicAffairs.

• In this memoir, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark recounts a conversation he says occurred at the Pentagon in late 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks. According to Clark, a senior officer showed him a memo outlining a proposed strategy of ”regime change operations” in seven countries over five years—starting with Iraq and continuing with Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finally Iran. Clark presents the anecdote as evidence of the strategic thinking circulating in parts of the U.S. defence establishment in the early phase of the ”War on Terror,” though he himself later criticized the Iraq War and the broader interventionist strategy.

[3] Graham, L. (2025). Senate floor remarks on Iran policy. U.S. Senate.

• Senator Graham has repeatedly argued that lasting stability in the Middle East requires confronting the Iranian regime and preventing it from achieving regional dominance. In congressional speeches and media appearances, he has advocated strong sanctions, potential military action, and support for Israel in confronting Iran. Commentators often classify Graham as one of the most prominent congressional ”Iran hawks.”

[4] Bolton, J. R. (2015). To stop Iran’s bomb, bomb Iran. The New York Times.

• In this widely discussed op-ed, Bolton argued that diplomacy and sanctions were insufficient to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and suggested that military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities should be seriously considered. Bolton has long supported a strategy aimed at weakening or replacing the Iranian regime, and analysts often cite him as the clearest example of a Washington policy figure advocating regime change in Iran.

[5] Pompeo, M. (2018). After the deal: A new Iran strategy. U.S. Department of State.

• As U.S. Secretary of State, Pompeo articulated the Trump administration’s ”maximum pressure” policy toward Iran, involving comprehensive economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. While he stated that the official objective was to change Iranian behaviour rather than overthrow the government, many analysts argue that the strategy placed extraordinary pressure on the regime and strengthened the political position of hard-liners advocating regime change.

[6] Cotton, T. (2015). Letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. U.S. Senate.

• Cotton gained prominence in the Iran debate through a controversial open letter warning that any nuclear agreement with the United States could be reversed by a future administration. His public positions emphasize strict sanctions, military deterrence, and skepticism toward diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

[7] Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut. (2025, December 4). Porträt eines Gelehrten: Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh. Universität Hamburg.

• Porträt eines Gelehrten: Djalal Khaleghi‑Motlagh
  
  
• This announcement from the Asia-Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg presents a commemorative event honouring the Iranian scholar Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, noted for his critical scholarly edition of the Persian epic Šāhnāma. The event includes the premiere of a documentary film about his life and research. The page highlights Khaleghi-Motlagh’s contribution to Persian literary scholarship and illustrates the continuing academic engagement with Iranian studies within German universities.

[8] Walther, Horst, (2003), personal Web-site, Horst Walthers Shahnameh Dictionary

• Horst Walthers Shahnameh(شاهنامِه)-dictionary
  
  
• Strongly encouraged by Prof. Khaleghi-Motlagh I created this inverted glossary of Fritz Wolff in 1975. Fritz Wolff (1880-1943) was a German Shahnameh expert with Jewish roots. His opus inverted into a German to Persian sorting was meant to serve as a nucleus for a German to Persian dictionary. Here I it is published with some 25 years delay. It is a raw version with 21,937.

[9] Walther, Horst, (2003), personal Web-site, Die Große Rödelei - Tagebuch einer missratenen Iran – Fahrt

• Die Große Rödelei
  
  
• How did this work actually come about? Well, whenever I returned from a longer trip, I was confronted with the same inevitable question: "So, how was it?" and then: "It must have been fantastic, tell us about it!" In one of the many different senses of the word, it probably was fantastic, and so I talked and talked, showed pictures and presented souvenirs, and talked some more. But then, somewhere in the middle of it all, just when I had described the most impactful experiences, it struck me that I had been talking about the impact of them, not about what had actually moved me there. What could be done about that? One would have to—one would have to be on the road... yes, one would simply have to be there, right on the spot, typing everything fresh from the heart directly into the typewriter. And that's exactly what we did.

[10] Edmund Burke. (1790). Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: J. Dodsley.

• In this influential critique of the early French Revolution, Burke argues that revolutions are rarely driven by a unified ideology or a single social interest. Rather, they emerge from the convergence of multiple grievances and aspirations among different groups. His analysis highlights how nobles seeking reform, bourgeois political actors, peasants resisting feudal obligations, and urban crowds motivated by economic distress could temporarily align in support of the revolutionary upheaval. Burke uses this observation to warn that such coalitions are inherently unstable because their participants expect fundamentally different outcomes from the revolution.

[11] Tocqueville, A. de. (1896/1851). Recollections (Souvenirs). London: Macmillan.

• In his memoirs reflecting on the revolutionary and post-revolutionary political climate of France, Tocqueville observes that political alliances often arise not from common positive goals but from shared opposition to a common enemy. This insight helps explain how very different social groups—nobles, bourgeois reformers, peasants, and urban radicals—could temporarily unite behind the French Revolution despite fundamentally divergent expectations of its outcome.

[12] François Furet. (1978). Penser la Révolution française[Interpreting the French Revolution]. Paris: Gallimard. (English translation: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

• In this landmark reinterpretation of the French Revolution, Furet argues that the revolutionary movement initially united actors with divergent political expectations and social interests. Rather than a single coherent revolutionary project, the Revolution functioned as a broad political coalition whose participants—bourgeois reformers, radical democrats, peasants, and urban militants—each projected their own vision of the future onto the revolutionary process. According to Furet, these incompatible expectations explain the rapid fragmentation of revolutionary politics and the escalation of conflict during the 1790s.

[13] Ervand Abrahamian. (1982). Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton University Press.

• Abrahamian demonstrates that the Iranian Revolution was initially a broad anti-Shah coalition composed of religious networks, secular intellectuals, Marxist organizations, students, and bazaar merchants. Each group interpreted the revolutionary movement differently, expecting outcomes ranging from Islamic governance to socialist transformation or liberal democracy. This diversity of expectations explains the rapid political struggles that followed the fall of the Shah.

[14] The New York Times. (2026, February 28). Trump, the self-declared ”peace president,” goes to war seeking regime change. The New York Times.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/trump-peace-president-war.html
  
  
• This news analysis examines the apparent contradiction between Donald Trump’s long-standing political branding as a ”peace president”—a leader who promised to end foreign conflicts—and his decision to initiate major military operations against Iran in February 2026. The article situates the conflict within Trump’s broader foreign-policy narrative, including earlier claims that he had ended several international disputes and deserved recognition as a peacemaker. It highlights the political, strategic, and rhetorical tensions between anti-war campaign promises and the realities of U.S. military engagement in the Middle East. The piece is useful as a primary journalistic source documenting contemporary debates about U.S. foreign policy and presidential war powers in 2026, particularly in the context of escalating tensions with Iran.

15] Zweiri, M. (2026, March 14). The Iranian moment: A leap into the unknown. Al Jazeera.

• https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/3/14/the-iranian-moment-a-leap-into-the-unknown
  
  
• In this opinion essay, political scientist Mahjoob Zweiri analyses the historical and geopolitical significance of the current crisis in Iran, arguing that the country may be approaching a third transformative political moment in its modern history. He contrasts earlier phases of Iranian state development—such as the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic—with the uncertainties generated by the current regional conflict and internal pressures. The article situates these developments within broader debates about state identity, regional power dynamics, and Iran’s evolving relationship with the international order. As an expert commentary published in Al Jazeera’s opinion section, the piece provides interpretive analysis rather than neutral reporting but offers useful insight into Middle Eastern perspectives on the unfolding crisis.