Iran and Lesser Satan vs. Little and Great Satans

One more conflict has recently been added to the Middle East problems - an exchange of blows (so far) between Iran and Israel. What is interesting is that these countries do not border, so thanks to the modern science and technologies, they can fight over the heads of their neighbors (in this case - Iraq, Syria and Jordan) and the debris of downed missiles and drones conveniently falling somewhere on the territory of the non-belligerent countries.

Iran and Israel have a long history of enmity that began with Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979 and the rise to power of a religious figure Ayatollah Khomeini. It's noteworthy that he called Israel "Little Satan", the US was "Great Satan" and the Soviet Union was "Lesser Satan."

Somewhere around that time, my father and I were watching the news on TV in Ukraine (it was the USSR then) and there was something about Iran. For some reason I remember that my father said then: "Nothing good will come out of this. The clerics in power will lead the country into trouble."
I didn't ask him why he thought so.

Iran and Israel (Little Satan).

So, on April 1, 2024 Israel was suspected in a missile strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus (Syria), killing 16 people, including several high-ranking Iranian military officers. The consulate annex building adjacent to the Iranian embassy was destroyed. The Israelis declined to comment.

Iran promised to retaliate and on April 13th launched a massive missile and drone strike on Israel from its territory for the first time in the history of the two countries' relations. Most of the deadly carriers were intercepted by Israel's air defenses, but some were also shot down by allies - the US, Great Britain and even Jordan which apparently just didn't want missiles flying over its head.
After the strike, Iran said it was satisfied with the results of its attack and was stopping there, but it would respond to any further possible aggressive actions of Israel.

Now Israel has taken offense and notified everyone of its coming retaliation. On April 19 (the birthday of the current supreme ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei) the Israelis launched their next strike near the airport of the city of Isfahan, where a major Iranian Air Force airbase is located. An Iranian officials said that their air defenses have intercepted 3 drones and no missiles were involved. The Israeli military as usual gave no comments.
Basically, Iran has downplayed the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation.

The world community is again "concerned" and demanding de-escalation. Several major airlines have canceled their flights to Tehran, Beirut, Tel Aviv and were going to fly around Iraq.

Another military conflict is breaking out, which is increasing tension in the Middle East. It is almost pointless to sort out who is right or wrong because there are longstanding grudge behind the actions of both sides, despite Iran and Israel were friends 50-60 years ago…

Iran and the US (Great Satan).

Iran-US relations have not been easy either.
Once upon a time, when the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ruled Iran, two countries were friends. Then in 1953 the US along with the UK replaced the Iranian government with a loyal one, and then (also after the Iranian Islamic Revolution) relations soured badly. Especially after the «Iran hostage crisis“ when armed Iranian students – the followers of Ayatollah Khomeini - seized the American embassy in Tehran in November 1979.
The US and other countries imposed and lifted economic sanctions on Iran several times for that and later for the support of terrorism and the development of uranium enrichment program.
In 2015, Iran and the P5+1 have reached a deal on Iranian nuclear program which removed the main sanctions, but the US under Mr. Trump administration withdrew from the deal in May 2018, causing the return of sanctions and the resumption of uranium enrichment in Iran.

As you can see, as it was with Israel, Iran's behavior changed dramatically after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the rise of the clerics to power. My father was right. Since then, Iran has been living under harsh sanctions for many years, and it seems to have gotten used to it. Having failed to find understanding in the West, it had to look for friends in the East and found Russia.

Iran and Russia (Lesser Satan).

The Soviet Union was the first state to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran in February 1979, but despite that the USSR supplied Iraq with large amounts of arms during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.
After the war Iran made a long-lasted arms deal with the Soviet Union and after 1991 prolonged it with Russia.
By the mid-1990s, Russia agreed to continue work on developing Iran’s nuclear program with plans to finish constructing of the nuclear reactor plant at city of Bushehr.

In September 2010 Russia stopped the delivery of different arms to Iran, following the UN resolution banning the sale of all types of heavy weaponry to the country, and Iran even brought suit against Russia in Swiss court. In response Russia threatened to withdraw diplomatic support for Iran in the nuclear dispute.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Iran and Russia have become the Syrian government's principal allies in the conflict, openly providing armed support.

Russia was also sanctioned by the West in 2014 because of the Russo-Ukrainian war which brought the two outlaws closer together, and in 2015 Russia had lifted the arms sale ban and the deal of the missile defense system for Iran was revived.
In August 2014, the two countries signed a historic US$20 billion “oil for goods» deal.
In 2021, trade between the two nations rose to a record $3.3 billion.
In February 2023, Iran and Russia announced that they fully linked the Russian Financial Messaging System of the Central Bank of Russia with Iran's SEPAM national financial messaging service to avoid possible cutting off from the SWIFT system.

The US accuses Iran of supplying Russia with weapons for the war in Ukraine. Iran denies this. In September 2022, the Ukrainian military claimed that it encountered an Iranian-supplied suicide drone used by Russia, publishing images of the wreckage of the drone.

As you can see, Iran's relationship with Lesser Satan is now quite warm. They have a lot in common - both countries are in fact sponsors of terrorism, although Iran is officially recognized as such, while Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine is not.

Oddly enough, many countries can be declared sponsors of terrorism because politics is a dirty business and the use of dirty methods is quite rife.

The US also violates its own laws and international ones. Every Satan rebukes sin.

On January 3, 2020, the US launched a targeted drone strike against the Baghdad (Iraq) airport area that killed one of Iran's senior military leaders, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and 8 others with them.

Yes, Qasem Soleimani was personally sanctioned by the UN, the EU and was designated as a terrorist by the US. And yes, Iran is recognized by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism. But Gen. Soleimani (and nine other people) were killed in Iraq! And neither the UN, nor Iraq authorized the killing. It looked like a terrorist act (or an act of war) performed by the US on the territory of another sovereign state.
In my opinion, this is not how the country which claims to be the bastion of democracy and moral authority in the world should act.

The strike was authorized by President D. Trump who is apparently very brave when he is not personally threatened. By late January 2, Mr. Trump has finalized his decision of the most extreme option his advisors had provided him, which reportedly "stunned" the top Pentagon officials. They were professionals and interpreted Mr. Trump’s order correctly - just as a terrorist act on the territory of another sovereign country.

Evil tongues claimed that one of Mr. Trump’s motivations to strike Soleimani was the pushing Republican senators to support him in his upcoming Senate impeachment trial. Watching Mr. Trump for a while, this opinion seems to be true. And the Americans are going to elect this man as president for the second time… Well, okay.

Later the US officials justified the Soleimani strike saying it was necessary to stop an "imminent attack", though after clarifying the legal justification of the action as being taken "in response to an escalating series of attacks...to protect United States personnel, to deter Iran from conducting or supporting further attacks...and to end Iran's strategic escalation of attacks.»

Democrats condemned the killing of Soleimani, arguing that it escalated the conflict with Iran, and risked retaliation or war.
Republicans in Congress largely backed the move.
No one from the American elites has been ashamed of the mean and illegal actions of their great country even against a clear enemy.

The American people mostly did not pay attention to the incident and the lack of dignity of their elected representatives.


I want to remind you that the UN Charter mandates the member states to “maintain international peace and security, uphold international law, achieve higher standards of living for their citizens, address economic, social, health, and related problems, and promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.»

According to Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing, "the killings of Qassem Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis violates international human rights law". She said that the US is required to confirm "the individual targeted constituted an imminent threat to others." Callamard also described the killing of other individuals alongside Soleimani as "unlawful" and other scholars argue it violates international law and even the US domestic laws (the strike had to be approved by the US Congress).


For some reason, I immediately remembered in connection with the murder of Gen. Soleimani another murder — the killing of the first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev, committed by the Russians in 1996. They detected his mobile phone and fired a missile.

D. Dudayev was an outstanding personality, a Major General of the Soviet Armed Forces. He declared the Chechen republic's sovereignty and its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Then he led the First Chechen War for independence against Russia. A number of streets, squares and alleys in Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia are named after him. By the way, he warned Ukrainians about the inevitable war with Russia, but nobody believed him then. D. Dudayev was right: the proxy war in Donbas has started in 2014, and the full-scale invasion of Russian army began in February 2022.

Russia is a member of the UN and has also signed the UN Charter.


So, the Russians honor the UN Charter and at the same time appoint enemies (or “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine) and kill them with missiles and wars. The United States also designates its enemies, kills them with drones on the territory of third countries and also honors the UN Charter. The number of victims among the civilian population of Gaza Strip of Israeli retaliation to Hamas is estimated at least 30 thousand people and Israel also respects the UN Charter.

Why is all this hypocrisy? And why then does the UN exist with its Charter?
The UN has turned into a completely impotent organization with a huge budget, whose opinion no one takes into account. The UN Security Council even often cannot make any decision because either the USA/Great Britain/France, or China/Russia veto it.

Why hasn't Russia been declared a state sponsor of terrorism yet?

It’s just because the other countries should also be declared as sponsors of terrorism. Many countries (Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, Croatia, India, Pakistan, China, Japan) now have territorial claims against their neighbors and often act illegally.
The US Department of State cannot declare the United States a state sponsor of terrorism for the assassination of General Soleimani in Iraq in 2020... Or its ally Israel for the attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus on April 1, 2024…

Homo Sapiens is the most aggressive species on the planet.

I have already written that mankind was entering a zone of Disintegration and more chaos is going to come. Our civilization is based on the states which are going to collapse because of amassing internal problems, and there are many instruments to help humans with that: climate change (global warming, man-made and natural disasters, diseases/viruses/pandemics, extreme weather, polluted environment), social inequality and poverty, uselessness of international organizations and governments, mass emigration, and, of course, wars.

The current states don't get along well with each other because of a “human factor.”
What do rich and powerful men need? Surely, more money and power — as the Oracle from “The Matrix” correctly said. That's exactly what the elites of different countries do. Therefore, the interests of the elites go beyond the borders of their countries and, naturally, intersect with the interests of other elites sooner or later. The people, as a rule, are busy with their own survival and cannot influence their elites. Therefore, when it is impossible to resolve a disputes through diplomatic methods, the wars arise. And no one is to blame, because each country, of course, is individually right, but together they are very wrong because they wage wars. This is perhaps the only thing that humanity can do easily and naturally.

Large and small conflicts happen all the time due to human nature which has not changed for many millennia. Homo Sapiens is the most aggressive species on the planet. It is actually an animal with developed brain/vision/consciousness, facial expressions, emotions, will, a larynx with capability to articulate complex sounds and modified upper extremities that constantly remake the environment for its convenience. But…
The enhanced vision can also see a distorted picture of the world and believe it is truthful. The improved larynx can also utter complete lie, defending the wrong point of view. The skillful hands can also produce and hold a quick-firing weapons which effectively kill our own kind, and we justify that as a vital necessity.

One friend of mine said that humans would never find an intermediate link between an ape and a man because we are this intermediate link.