SHIA-Sunni. Arab-Persian. Jew-Muslim. Christian-Muslim. These are false binaries being thrown into the mix in the context of the war on Iran, and it’s been this way since well before the build-up to it. The binaries serve to obscure the nub of the matter, the real stand-off, which has its roots in 20th-century colonialism. Those roots are being nourished and nurtured by post-1990 unipolar imperialism. This is a war that wouldn’t have happened had Israel not usurped Palestinian homeland at will in 1948 and 1967, while continuing to “mow the lawn” in Gaza and West Bank.

Iran last week celebrated Quds Day in the middle of carpet-bombing raids by Israeli and US warplanes. The day marks the primacy Khomeini’s Iran set on the liberation of Jerusalem for Palestine. To support the quest, Khomeini set up an elite Quds Force. There’s a heart-tugging clip you could see of an Iranian woman and her two-year-old child at the Quds Day march through Tehran where President Masoud Pezeshkian also showed up.

She was asked if the war had impaired her ability to change the child’s nappy in the absence of readily available clean water. Her reply was jaw-smacking: “It’s not a bigger problem than the children of Gaza have been facing for years. God willing all will be well and we shall win.” The Palestinians are Sunni Muslims, and those that aren’t are Christian. And this was a chador-clad Shia woman praying for the freedom of Palestine. Figure that out.

This is a war in which Iran’s objectives are nothing if........

© Dawn