By Husam Dughman
Right in the centre of Tehran stands a clock calculating the countdown to the time when the state of Israel is to be completely extinguished. Since 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has always expressed its uncompromising intention of destroying the Jewish state. One is at a loss to find another contemporary example of unabashed genocidal plans.
For thousands of years, the Jews and the Persians (Iran was called “Persia” until the 1930s when the name of the country was changed to “Iran”) had mostly civil relations. It was in fact the Persian King Cyrus the Great who freed the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity in the 6th century BC following his conquest of Babylon. This led to the Jews’ returning to their ancestral homeland and the subsequent rebuilding of the Jewish Temple after Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians half a century or so earlier. For this, Cyrus the Great is mentioned with honour in ancient Jewish scripture (e.g., Isaiah 44:28, 45:13; Ezra 1:2).
Since the dawn of Islam in the 7th century AD, the Persians, who later became predominantly Shi’ites, never really paid much attention to the “holiness’ of Jerusalem. They regarded Islam’s most religious places as Mecca, Madina, and Najaf. Most Shi’ites did not believe the Sunni account of Muhammad’s travel to Jerusalem in what became known in Islam as Al-Isra’ (The Night journey). They, like some Muslim scholars including Al-Waqidi and Al-Azraqi, believed that it was the Umayyads who manipulated some Islamic accounts in order to promote Jerusalem- which they controlled- as a city that was as holy as Mecca (a city which their arch rival Abdullah Ibn Al-Zubayr controlled), thereby diverting the attention of numerous Muslims away from Mecca and to the city of Jerusalem, resulting in a massive enhancement of their religious- and therefore political- prestige among Muslims. The Islamic Republic of Iran has now reversed that time-honoured Shi’ite tradition and replaced Najaf with Jerusalem as the third holiest city in Islam. Its motive appears to be primarily political rather than ideological. By presenting themselves as Israel’s greatest adversary in the region of the Middle East, the Ayatollahs seem to have as their goal their potentially enormous increase in influence, weight, and prestige among the world’s Muslim populations, currently estimated at around 2 billion people.
It is patently clear that over the past several decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has set as its main goal the annihilation of Israel and- in all likelihood- the subsequent destruction of the US and its Western allies. To accomplish its nefarious objective of wiping the Jewish state off the face of the earth, Iran has implemented a three-pronged assault on the Jewish state: (1) It has massively supported proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in their infliction of mindless violence on Israel; (2) It has amassed a huge arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles with which to attack Israel directly; and (3) It has done a tremendous deal of work for the purpose of developing nuclear bombs with which to threaten- or, more likely, attack- Israel. One would do well to bear in mind that the Islamic Republic of Iran believes in the same version of genocidal Islamism as did suicide bombers who wreaked havoc on Israel in the past, as well as the 19 hijackers of 9/11. Unlike rational actors on the world stage, those genocidal Islamist do not regard a nuclear war as totally abhorrent or completely undesirable, thereby dismissing its potentially lose-lose outcome. Instead, they consider a lose-lose outcome in a nuclear confrontation in this world to be worthless in view of the fact that they see this earthly existence as insignificant and pitiful. For them, the ultimate outcome in the struggle between the Forces of Good (Muslims) and the Forces of Evil (Non-Muslims) will be decided in the life to come when God, in his infinite wisdom, will send the Muslims to experience eternal bliss in heaven where, among other beautiful things, each Muslim (male) martyr shall enjoy 72 heavenly virgins, while the non-Muslim infidels shall suffer unbelievably infinite pain in the fires of hell in what can only be described as a ceaseless, never-ending, interminable Holocaust.
The lethal combination of the Ayatollahs’ genocidal beliefs and the deluded trust which they have in an eternal state of bliss for themselves and an eternal state of damnation for their adversaries in the hereafter renders the possibility of their acquiring weapons of mass destruction the greatest threat to human existence that the world has ever seen. It is against this background that one has to view Israel’s actions since the 12th of June 2025. Israel simply has no choice. Unlike other wars in the world and in history, this one is a particularly existential war. If Israel failed in accomplishing its mission, it would be signing its own death warrant. Pure and simple. The fact that Iran has reached a 60% level of enrichment of uranium- which is way beyond the 3.5% that would be needed for the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes- and only 30% short of the 90% needed to build nuclear bombs; the fact that recent reports by IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) have indicated that Iran is in breach of its non-proliferation obligations; and the fact that Iran attacked Israel twice in 2024 with massive numbers of suicide drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles should make it patently clear to anyone who has a minimum level of common sense that the Islamic Republic of Iran has long been hell-bent on the annihilation of Israel, something which they have always openly declared and about which they have never shown any qualms. This ought to make not only Israelis, but also citizens of Western countries, as well as Arabs in the Gulf states very worried indeed.
Since it first initiated its attacks on Iran on the 12th of June 2025, Israel has mainly targeted sources of grave danger to its existence, namely nuclear facilities, nuclear scientists, conventional weapons, and Iran’s top military leaders. Israel has been taking great care to avoid harm to non-combatants through precision bombing and advance warnings to Iranian civilians to move away from conflict zones. This stands in stark contrast to the random nature of Iran’s missile attacks on Israel, be they this year or last year. The very low level of civilian casualties resulting from Israel’s attacks on the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as those previously carried out on Lebanon and Syria, highlights the ludicrous nature of the accusations being constantly thrown at Israel since October 2023 to the effect that the Jewish state has been murdering non-combatants in Gaza. Nothing could be further from the truth. What makes the number of casualties in Gaza higher than what they should have been can be explained by a number of factors: Firstly, Hamas has never stated in its estimates how many of the deceased individuals in those estimates were actually Hamas fighters, how many have died as a result of the booby traps planted extensively by Hamas itself throughout Gaza, and how many have died a natural death. Secondly, and differently from Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Ayatollahs in Iran, Hamas has been using Gazan civilians as human shields in order to discredit and vilify Israel in the eyes of the world. To the best of one’s knowledge, and in spite of one’s strong reservations about them otherwise, neither the Islamic government of Iran nor Hezbollah has used Iranian or Lebanese civilians respectively as human shields. And thirdly, unlike non-combatants in conflict zones in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, or even Ukraine, among others, non-combatants in Gaza have no place to run to away from the raging war between Israel and Hamas. Egypt, which has borders with Gaza’s southern region, has been adamant in refusing to let any Gazans seek refuge in that country. Even when forces opposed to the Islamic State group were fighting that organization in the Battle of Mosul in 2016-2017, non-combatants had the opportunity to flee to other parts of Iraq. No such luck for Gazans. In spite of all of this, Israel has consistently been very careful in avoiding hitting civilians in Gaza and has unfailingly given them advance warnings to move out of harm’s way. That is why the death toll of non-combatants in Gaza in the last 20 months of the war is actually under 20% of the corresponding death toll of non-combatants in Germany in World War II (1939-1945) in that same 20-month period (on average), and it is only 5% of the number of non-combatant deaths in the Korean War (1950-1953) in that same duration (20 months, on average). Considering that, unlike Hamas, neither Germany in the Second World War nor North Korea and its Chinese allies in the Korean War openly and deliberately used civilians as human shields, it is highly impressive that the number of non-combatant deaths in Gaza has so far been very low by comparison.
The fact remains that the most important reason which accounts for conflicts involving Israel in the Middle East is the unrelenting, implacable refusal by the vast majority of Arabic-speaking, Muslim-majority countries to recognize Israel’s right to exist. On the international stage, both despotic Russia and tyrannical China are now pitted against Israel. On the other hand, friends of Israel tend to be democratic Western countries. In the region of MENA (Middle East and North Africa), the worst enemies of Israel have always been the followers of the bigoted ideology of pan-Arabism as well as those of the demented ideology of Islamism. On the other hand, the least hostile Middle Easterners to Israel have consistently been the supporters of enlightenment and constitutional government. As they say, “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.”
Considering the purpose of Iran’s Doomsday Clock, and in view of Israel’s demolition of Iranian capabilities, as well as the US’s destruction of Iran’s three major nuclear centres in Isfahan, Natanz, and- most importantly- Fordow, it seems that the Ayatollahs have now been hoist by their own petard. ………………………………………………………………………………………………
About the author
Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has been working with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.
Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has just completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.
