By Husam Dughman
Following the initiation of strikes by Israel and the US against the Islamic Republic of Iran on the 28th of February 2026, the BBC published an article by its international editor Jeremy Bowen in which he describes the US-Israel attack as a war of choice, rather than a preemptive war as described by Israel. The reason which he gives for his view is that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to Israel or the US. Yet, according to Cambridge Dictionary, the meaning of the verb preempt is “to prevent something from happening by taking action first.” Others such as The Britannica Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, and Collins Dictionary state the same thing, with no reference to any “imminence.” That is not the only thing the BBC got wrong.
In his above-mentioned piece, Bowen goes on to say that the attack on Iran is essentially a case of opportunism. He explains that both the US and Israel saw that the Islamic regime in Iran was vulnerable due to a very shaky economy, mass protests within Iran, and a considerably degraded fighting capability mainly as a result of the Twelve-Day War back in June 2025, and that they both decided that now was the best time to attack the Ayatollahs. Bowen appears to reject the claim made by both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump to the effect that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a danger to their countries, with Trump calling it also a global danger. He asserts that while Iran is their bitter enemy, it is difficult to see the legal justification for a case of self-defence in consideration of what he maintains is a huge power imbalance between Iran on the one hand and the US and Israel on the other. Furthermore, Bowen seems to suggest that Netanyahu’s decision to attack Iran may be partly motivated by Israel’s general elections towards the end of this year. In his opinion, that is apparently why the war on Hamas lasted for two years. However, Bowen comes across as less clear about Trump’s decision to attack Iran.
To further strengthen his case, Bowen dismisses out of hand Netanyahu’s and Trump’s calling upon the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the Islamic regime in their country. He cites the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and NATO’s UN-authorized air intervention in Libya in 2011 as good examples of why he believes that no major improvement will be made in Iran should the Iranians revolt en masse against their government once again and successfully remove it. He predicts that like Libya and Iraq, no liberal democratic system will emerge in Iran; instead, there will be chaos, much bloodshed, and the failure of Iran as a state. Bowen also cautions that an attempt to kill Iran’s supreme leader will be futile since, he contends, unlike Hamas or Hezbollah, Iran is a state rather than an armed group, and a smooth transition to a successor is therefore what is likely to happen in Iran. Besides, Bowen appears to imply that the recent rounds of negotiations between Iran and the US were bound to fail because of Trump’s demands that the Islamic Republic severely restrict its missile program as well as its support for its regional allies who are inimical to the US and Israel. Bowen concludes by lamenting what he considers to be a serious deterioration in the state of the world in terms of more violence, turbulence, and instability as a result of the February 2026 attack on Iran.
It is certainly true that both the US and Israel took advantage of the current vulnerability of the Iranian regime to attack it: Its severe degradation as a consequence of the Twelve-Day War of 2025, its very weak economy, and last month’s (January’s) large-scale rebellion by numerous Iranians definitely took their toll on the Ayatollahs. Those factors explain why Israel and the US chose to attack Iran now, but they do not explain why they attacked at all. Unlike what Bowen states in his article, the Islamic Republic of Iran does pose a grave danger to the US and, even more so, to Israel. Departing from the historically traditional Shia view of the three most important cities in Islam being Mecca, Madina, and Najaf, the Islamic Republic of Iran has very recently adopted Jerusalem as a very holy city, in spite of the time-honoured Shia dismissal of Muhammad’s Night Journey (Al-Isra’, in Arabic) happening in Jerusalem, as their arch-enemies the Umayyads had conveniently claimed, instead of its occurrence in the village of Al Ju’ranah, as some Muslim scholars such as al-Azraqi and Al-Waqidi state. Those Islamists who strongly believe in the holiness of Jerusalem tend to be bent on the destruction of the Jewish state which is viewed as a usurper and an unholy occupier committing a great act of sacrilege.
Combined with the Ayatollahs’ literal interpretation of the Quran, their 9/11-like genocidal inclinations, and the historical Shi’ite penchant for martyrdom, it is not too difficult to grasp the enormous danger Iran poses, particularly with regard to Israel. We have already seen how its 3-pronged strategy of backing up fanatically anti-Israel proxies in the Middle East, its violation of its non-proliferation obligations as pointed out by the IAEA, and its torrential downpour of missiles on Israel twice in 2024 have made the Islamic Republic of Iran the most lethal enemy of Jews since the Nazis. Contrary to what Bowen says, the fact that both Israel and the US are more powerful than Iran does not in any way diminish the mortal danger posed to Israel of a nuclear-armed Iran. After all, Islamists believe that the real decider of victory and defeat is the afterlife where they are going to go to heaven and their enemies are going to go to hell. The threat of a massive nuclear retaliation by Israel or the US in that particular scenario would almost certainly not deter them.
Bowen’s comparison of a potential scenario in Iran in the near future with that of Iraq in 2003 onwards or with that of Libya since 2011 is out of place. Neither Iraq nor Libya posed a mortal danger to the region of the Middle East, including Israel, or to the US. The Ayatollahs of Iran do. While it is very hard to predict how things will unfold in Iran in the near future, any scenario, no matter how unpleasant, would be much better than a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran. In that scenario, not only would Israel be destroyed, but the Iranian population as a whole would be obliterated by retaliatory Israeli attacks. That would surely be much worse than any alternative whatsoever. The Ayatollahs have already been given the choice of considerably curtailing their support for their fanatical proxies in the region and significantly diminishing their nuclear and missile program. The fact that they have refused to do so is proof of their malicious intentions, bad faith, and nefarious ulterior motives.
Maybe the 7th of October horrors were meant to be. Maybe it took a tragedy of that magnitude to wake up a sleepy Israel to the mortal dangers lurking around it. Maybe if the 7th of October had not happened, the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies would have become far too dangerous for Israel to handle. Maybe Israel would have been far worse off. Maybe Israel’s awakening since that tragedy is the silver lining in the cloud that is October the 7th. At this point in time, I cannot help but recall one occasion when an elderly couple once told me that every day was a good day. I asked them how that could be when there were also bad days. They said that even bad days could also be good days because they would make one stronger and wiser. I think they were right. Israel is now most certainly wiser and stronger. It looks like the 7th of October calamity did not happen in vain, after all.
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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.