The Iranian Rush to Armageddon

The Iranian Rush to Armageddon  

by Peter Huessy

For more than half a century, the US has bought into the idea of a “Middle East Peace Process” where finally in return for the creation of a Palestinian state, the terrorism flowing from that grievance would largely disappear.

It’s a fairy tale.

The actual danger is the Iranian pursuit of Armageddon and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

To understand this, we have to go back to the beginning.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the idea of a Palestinian state or land stolen by Israel and the Jews was invented by the Soviet Union in 1965. Moscow wanted a lever to help secure power in the Middle East. Two-thirds of the conventional hydrocarbons are in the region, control over which would enable Russia to be the world’s hegemon. Russia sought to grab Iran’s oil supplies as early as 1953 in cooperation with Iran Prime Minister Mosaddegh. He seized the British owned oil resources and was negotiating to form a strategic partnership giving Moscow critical access to the region.

Fortunately, the Shah of Iran fired Mosaddegh, which was legal under Iran constitutional law. Unfortunately, urban legend turned this restoration of constitutional rule into a US led “coup.” This is turn has animated radical progressives in the US to support the Islamic Republic of Iran and its IRGC terrorism, despite Tehran ‘s key role in the attacks of 9-11 and subsequent killing of over 1000 American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The USSR was not deterred for long. A decade after being frozen out of Iran, the KGB and Yasir Arafat (the head of Fatah) created the Palestinian Liberation Organization.  Zahir Nuhsein of the PLO Executive Committee admitted in 1977 that the PLO was invented for political reasons--to lead the struggle against Israel with the objective of destroying the Jewish homeland, as well as uprooting US influence in the Middle East.

The PLO  established a clever framework of blackmail: European nations highly dependent upon Persian Gulf oil and gas exporters would support the PLO financially while “winking” at the organization’s terrorist enterprise. The oil would continue to flow and Arafat would not kidnap Europe’s officials nor hijack their airplanes—as long as the big checks for the “Palestinians” kept rolling in.

A neat arrangement: PLO terrorism against Israel, and other US Allies gets a sanctuary from rollback, while Arafat and the PLO rake in billions. With the compliance of regional oil and gas exporters that wanted their energy infrastructure to be free from PLO terror attacks.

With the 1979 fall of constitutional government in Iran, the jihadis took over and have copied the PLO playbook now for nearly half a century, becoming the world’s top terrorist regime.  

The US has been drawn into this game as well.

First, it was shuttle diplomacy seeking a long elusive land for peace deal, where Israel would give land needed for a Palestinian state in return for not being attacked. The big problem is that the PLO would never delineate what land they had in mind for a Palestinian state—except occasionally information would leak out that what the PLO had in mind was land from the “river to the sea,” meaning all land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea would comprise a Palestinian state, obviously eliminating Israel in the bargain. Arafat was asked point blank by the host of CBS television news to actually draw a map of what a Palestinian state would look like. Arafat refused. 

Second, eventually this led to a 1993 agreement at “Oslo” where Israel itself established a process to negotiate with the PLO or Palestinian National Authority to which it morphed in 1994. The result was not peace, but another series of PLO inspired intifadas or uprisings attacking Israel.  

Third, a narrative emerged that the entirety of the “conflict in the Middle East” as it was often described, could easily be resolved if Israel simply conceded the right amount of land to the Palestinian Authority, even with complicated “land swaps” and promises of peaceful coexistence. The late Middle East and Israel expert Shoshana Bryen found a 2014 quote from former President Clinton—if the Palestinians were granted a state, most terrorism would disappear. 

Fourth, the idea of a Palestinian state was never a serious objective. For example, while the West Bank and Gaza were ruled by Jordan and Egypt for years, the land was never turned over for the establishment of a Palestinian state. And especially Gaza, while fully turned over by Israel to the Palestinian National Authority in 1993, saw Hamas come to rule in 2006, and with it massive increases in terrorism, including tens of thousands of rocket, drone and missile attacks against Israel.

Fifth, Israel, fully under its right to prevent the re-arming of Hamas in Gaza, installed a blockade. Then a flotilla supported by associated UN agencies tried to run the blockade. Humanitarian aid including lumber must be allowed the media demanded. Only later was it determined to have been used to shore-up tunnelling beneath Israel which were access points for terrorist attacks on schools and hospitals.

Sixth, the US has for decades bought into the fairy tale that Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad even ISIS and Al Qaeda, are all just aiming for a Palestinian state, when they are in fact the terrorist machinery built to tear down the state of Israel and propel the US out of the Middle East.

We now have dozens of recently selected Democratic and Democratic Socialist candidates for office supporting Hamas and describing Israel’s defense of its homeland as “genocide.”

Seventh, an amendment offered in the Senate by Senator Sanders received 40 votes to ban all military assistance to Israel. Support came from 39 of 45 Senate democrats plus “Independent” Sanders. An early 2025 similar amendment received only 16 votes.

Eighth, the Democratic party has moved from protecting Israel as America’s ally, to now some 60 years later, supporting its destruction and marching with its enemies. And implementing exactly what Moscow and the KGB envisioned when in 1965 they created the PLO. 

Missing from much of the conversation is that there never was a “Palestinian” state. A fiction continues to be supported.

But historically there was a state or kingdom of Israel.

After World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman empire, the British were given a mandate to temporarily control what is now Jordan and Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza. The previous ruling Ottoman empire described the area as the “district of Damascus.” England termed the area “Palestine” based on the Roman use of the term some 2000 years ago but not on the basis of any nation once named “Palestine.” As Jerry Seinfeld quipped recently, as for Palestine, “there is no such thing.”

On the other hand, in the 9th and 10th centuries BC the Kingdom of Israel was created, with the Jewish people subsequently expelled by the king of Babylon in 598 BC and then again from the region by the Roman authorities in the 1st and 2nd centuries. The creation of Israel in 1948 was recreating a kingdom that thrived some three thousand years ago.  

While the Soviets and now Russia have geostrategic ambitions for their alliance with Iran and the Palestinian Authority, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and their Islamist allies are motivated by a central tenet of Islam which is the destruction of the West and any faith other than Islam. The Iranians are guided by the rules of what are known as “Twelvers” which foresees the return of the 12th Imam or Mahdi, to judge all and send humankind either to Heaven or Hell.

But more important is Iranian eschatology believes the Mahdi doesn’t return until after Armageddon. And what better way to usher in the end of times than through nuclear war. For example, when the founder of the Islamic Republic was asked wouldn’t Iran be destroyed should the Israelis know that Iran had launched nuclear weapons at Tel Aviv, Khomeini said he didn’t care that Iran would be decimated as a result, because “all the Jews would be dead.” As the “moderate” former Iran President Rafsanjani once quipped, “Israel is a one bomb country.”

Thus, to fail to destroy Israel and the West, Iran’s mullahs and IRGC would be disobeying Allah. And there is no clause in the Koran that allows Muslims to take a break from Jihad or postpone the war against the unbelievers. Thus, Iranian IRGC leaders have an incentive to initiate Armageddon and that can probably only be accomplished through the use of atomic bombs. Sort of a “rush to Armageddon.”

The challenge? Creating within Iran those seeking, like the US, to avoid Armageddon and celebrate “the right to life.”

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Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis