Over the past few years, when discussion turned to Iran and whether they would or would not use a nuclear weapon if they had one, we often heard a constant refrain. Basically, people said that the leadership there may be tyrannical but they are not stupid. That they would never use a nuclear weapon because it would ultimately hurt their own people and they would not want to do that.

In that vein, Marc Daalder, a senior political report at NewsroomNZ, in a piece in the on-line publication “InTheseTimes” wrote on September 18, 2015: “Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, isn’t stupid. He knows that, were he to order any sort of attack against Israel, the tiny Jewish country would respond with magnified force. While Israel has never admitted to having any nuclear weapons, NGOs and foreign governments estimate it has built as many as 300. And a hawk like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not hesitate to respond to Iranian aggression with overwhelming nuclear force. Khamenei knows any nuclear strike would be suicidal. And besides, such a scenario presumes that Iran even wants to attack Israel. But all historical evidence shows that it does not.”  Not a very accurate prediction to be sure.

However, history has given us plenty of evidence that the intelligence assigned to the Iranian leadership has been sorely overestimated.

For example, even before the current round of hostilities began, the leadership was basically taking the country “down the tubes” in pursuit of their military objectives. So much of the country’s resources were devoted to building up Iran’s military capabilities that the economy itself was left in shambles.

Inflation, which has run rampant, is a case in point. The exchange rate of the Iranian Rial to the US dollar stands at an incredible 1,315,545 Rials to the dollar (a year ago it was 42,133) which makes it virtually impossible for the local population to buy anything, while the elite class live lives of luxury at the expense of regular Iranians.

In addition, directing its assets to the military buildup instead of dealing with its dwindling water resources has caused Tehran to approach water bankruptcy. After a fifth year of extreme drought, Iran’s long-running water crisis has reached unprecedented levels. The country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, warned last November that Iran had “no choice” but to move its capital away from arid Tehran, which has a population of about 10 million, to wetter coastal regions — a project that would take decades and has a price estimated by analysts at potentially $100 billion. Meanwhile, citizens of the city who need water have to purchase it commercially at inflated prices with currency that loses its purchasing power every day.

Yet the worst example of the stupidity of the government occurred this week when, in addition to attacking US bases situated in various countries of the region, the Iranian air force, what is left of it, launched attacks on civilian targets as well in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.  Attacking hotels, tourist sites, foreign embassies and oil fields went way beyond going after the assets of the US in retaliation for the combined US-Israel strike on Iran which began last weekend.

The effect of this strategically idiotic move was to quickly get the Arab countries in the region on Israel’s side. This morning I saw a video of a US pilot who ejected from one of the three US fighter jets mistakenly brought down by Kuwaiti anti-aircraft defenses as he parachuted to safety in Kuwait. A local Kuwaiti approached him, asked if he was ok and then said clearly: “Thank you so much for your help.” Welcome to the real world of international diplomacy.

So, these smart Iranians now have the entire region lined up against them as they try to deal with continuing attacks by both Israel and the US and try to do so with no air defense capabilities, a decimated air force and navy, a dwindling supply of defensive weaponry, an economy on the verge of collapse and a population unable even to depend on government supplied fresh water. None of these augurs well for future success.

The decision by the US President to start this war, while it may have been lacking in congressional approval as required by the Constitution, was probably the right thing to do given the unique weakness of the world’s largest sponsor of state terrorism. While some, especially in the US, say that Trump was being managed by Netanyahu, frankly, that is hard to believe.

Of late there is credible reporting that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) urged Trump to act now. Given the amount of investment funding that Saudi Arabia has recently committed to the US along with the billions invested with the Trump/Kushner family interests as well, it would be safe to assume that MBS holds more sway over Trump’s decision making than does Netanyahu. For a transactional decision maker such as Trump, he gets much more benefit out of keeping MBS happy than doing the same for Bibi.

Regardless of the motivation, and in spite of the cost this war will impose on Israel and the US as well, the world will be a safer place with Khomeini and his minions away from the levers of power in Iran. We can only hope that new leadership will arise who reflect what people believe are the good intentions of the people of Iran.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)