Mick Hartley

Jonathan Sacerdoti in the Spectator on Iran’s ceaseless obsession with Israel:

Iran’s conduct strips away any illusion about priorities. Even amid water shortages, electricity failures and economic contraction, the regime has channelled vast resources into instruments of attack. Mohammad Javad Zarif’s recent acknowledgement on Al Jazeera that roughly $500 billion was spent on the nuclear programme was striking precisely because it carried no regret. The expenditure was framed as ideological defiance. The moral judgement, drawn by others, contrasts that figure with empty reservoirs and decaying infrastructure. The choice was deliberate.

In Tehran’s Palestine Square, a digital clock counts down to the envisioned destruction of the State of Israel. The symbol is grotesque, yet clarifying. While Israel has invested relentlessly in shelters, early warning systems and civilian resilience, Iran has provided its population with little protection from the wars it seeks. Iranian friends of mine abroad speak quietly of families without shelters, without warning systems, without any sense of personal safety.

Israel harbours no reciprocal obsession. During the war, it possessed the capacity to push further, to pursue regime change directly. It chose restraint. Its focus remains survival and protection rather than ideological conquest. Even under fire, its economy functioned. Its society absorbed shock without collapse. That resilience frustrates Tehran, which speaks openly of breaking morale and dismantling prosperity. The effort has failed, so far.

The wider world should observe this regime with the same clarity Israel is forced to apply. Iran’s leadership is so consumed by the project of destroying Israel that it accepts, even embraces, the sacrifice of its own people as collateral. Chronic water shortages, failing infrastructure, economic exhaustion and the absence of basic civilian protection are not unintended consequences but tolerated costs. The clock in Palestine Square, counting down to 2040, makes this plain. It is not a threat of imminence but a declaration of endurance, a statement that the campaign is generational rather than tactical.

That obsession does not stop at Israel’s borders. Across Europe, including in the United Kingdom, Iranian regime institutions, networks and operatives continue to function openly or semi-openly, engaged in intimidation, subversion and preparation. From European capitals to Latin America, including Venezuela, the Islamic Republic has built a lattice of influence dedicated to disruption, coercion and violence abroad. Israel stands on the front line of this project, but it is not its final destination.

The clock continues to tick. One can only hope that the regime which built its future around such a promise is gone long before it reaches zero.

Iran’s obsession with Israel echoes that of its proxy, Hamas. But whereas Iran’s influence in the West is largely limited to clandestine networks, for Hamas there’s a whole army of hard-left – and not so hard left – allies, inspired by the the cries of Free Palestine and the new-found joys of Jew-hatred.