Iran’s strategy in widening the conflict: force God’s hand to defend Iran

The analysis of Iranian decision to widen the conflict by shooting missiles and drones at its Arab neighbors (and a UK base in Cyprus) I’ve heard so far boils down to one word: “stupid.” And indeed, the incomprehension of analysts is easy to understand: why make more enemies? The only rational explanation those analysts come up with, is that Iran inflicts pain on countries with influence on American decision-making, so they come running to Washington, crying “please stop!”

Well, this reflects the way the Western mindset operates. Yet ayatollahs may have an entirely different plan in mind — because their picture of the reality in which they operate is very different from the Western one.

Here I think is the clerics’ view of the situation, and of their grand strategy. The combined power of the Great Satan, and of the Little one that now hit Iran from the South and the West in order to extinguish the source of divine sunshine that is the Islamic Republic is nothing compared to the power of God. Get Him to act — and the evil, arrogant powers will be defeated,.

The trick is — how to do it? How to force God’s hand?

Well, how about multiplying the dangers to the pious, so God has no choice but to come to their rescue?

If this is the driving consideration of ayatollahs, than the way Iran reacted — by multiplying enemies and increasing the military pressure on itself — makes perfect sense. The worse, the better! Make it so bad for the good that God has no choice but to use His thunder on the impious to prevent their triumph — and bingo! The pious Islamic Republic is victorious!.

This strategy is perfectly “logical” (to use a word so beloved by the ayatollahs) — but the problem is that it hinges on ayatollahs’ ability to read God’s mind. To them, Koran is the guide — and they surely find any number of quotations in it that supports their position, and keeps open their hope that, given the dire straights the pious now find themselves in, God will finally send the long-missing Mahdi  into the world, thus fulfilling the ultimate goal of Islamic Republic — to be a catalyst of saving the world from satanic impiety of infidels that now engulfs it.

That’s a sensible plan — except that it is impossible for anyone to know whether Koran is God’s word, whether God talked to Mohammed. The fundamental stumbling block is what I termed “the problem of the third party.” Any two-step communication in which the first party supplies information to the second, and that second party than relays it to the rest of us, is by its very nature unreliable: it is simply impossible for any third party to know w0hether the second party tells truth, lies, or is honest but “sees things.” The Islamic “revelation” in which God talks to Mohammed, and Mohammed enlightens the rest of humanity is precisely of this, utterly unreliable pattern. Those who take Koran as definite divine truth are relying of their non-existing ability to know, thus practicing idol-worship — the lowest form of religiosity despised even by Moslems themselves.

Put simply, Iran’s war strategy is idolatrous — and it won’t work for that reason alone, no matter how wide Iran’s circle of enemies becomes, and no matter how hard Iran is hit.

Where others see stupidity, I see idolatry. This said, the outcome for ayatollahs will be the same — defeat.