By Husam Dughman
Words do mean a great deal. No doubt. However, their meanings depend on how they are interpreted within a specific context. That is the crux of the matter. Over the last month or so, numerous people have been debating the justification for Israel’s and America’s attack on Iran. Many of those, most notably the BBC, among others, have been doing their utmost to present that war as a war of choice, rather than as a pre-emptive war. They justify their position by suggesting that there was no imminent threat posed by Iran to Israel or to the US. Is that really the case, though? Let’s see:
If one is to use Occam’s razor, the meaning of the verb “to pre-empt” is, as stated by Cambridge Dictionary, “To prevent something from happening by taking action first.” Other reputable dictionaries effectively state the same thing, with no reference to the idea of “imminence.” Yet, as a result of the Caroline affair in the 19th century, a pre-emptive war has since been seen by many as a war launched by one country against another due to an imminent threat posed by the latter to the former. It is said that in reaction to the aforementioned Caroline incident which involved Britain, the US, and Canadian rebels, America’s secretary of state at that time, Daniel Webster, stated that a justified pre-emptive attack had to be one where the “necessity of self-defence was instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation..., and that the British force, even supposing the necessity of the moment authorized them to enter the territories of the United States at all, did nothing unreasonable or excessive; since the act, justified by the necessity of self-defence, must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it.” Nevertheless, one can still wonder whether the word “imminent” may be otherwise interpreted. After all, the meanings of various words are well-known for changing significantly over time. Just because the word “imminent” was used two centuries ago in the above-mentioned manner, namely in temporal terms (i.e. “soon” or “very soon”), that does not exclude in any way the possibility of using it nowadays in a different manner.
More recently, the word “imminent” has come to be interpreted by those who beg to differ with the aforementioned definition in a contextual, rather than in a merely temporal, sense. In other words, those dissenters argue that a threat by one country against another may also be described as imminent if a combination of factors obtain, such as the former’s malintent, the gravity of the threat posed by it, the capability to carry out that threat, and the probability of its attacking the latter and inflicting a massive, or probably even lethal, damage on it. It is on the grounds of this second interpretation of the word “imminent” that America’s and, even more so, Israel’s attack on the Ayatollahs can be justified as a pre-emptive war.
Since their revolution in 1979, the Ayatollahs of Iran have been openly frank and uncompromising in expressing their intention and determination to wipe Israel as a state off the face of the earth. Although on the scale of religious holiness, the Shi’ites had for many centuries held Najaf in far higher regard than they had Jerusalem- having repeatedly dismissed the Umayyads’ claim that Muhammad’s Al Isra’ (Night Journey) was from Mecca to Jerusalem as a baseless pretext invented by the Umayyads to win over Muslim pilgrims to their Levantine base of Jerusalem given that their archenemy at that time, Abdullah Ibn Al Zubayr, controlled Mecca- the Islamic Republic of Iran has relatively recently in history made an astonishing volte-face and promoted Jerusalem to a much higher level of holiness than Shi’ites had ever done. Thus, the Ayatollahs have since put Israel in their crosshairs as an unholy occupier and a blasphemous oppressor of Muslims. To put their anti-Israel fury into practice, the Ayatollahs then set about supporting, arming, training, and financing a number of rabidly anti-Israel proxies over the years, most notably Hezbollah, Hamas, the Shi’ite militias in Iraq and Syria, and- more recently- the Houthis. In the meantime, the Ayatollah regime embarked on a large-scale project of developing and importing suicide drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. Its ambitions did not stop there but extended to include the rapid enrichment of uranium way beyond what would have been needed for peaceful purposes and, in the process, used stonewalling and subterfuge tactics to keep the IAEA from putting an end to its long-awaited plans of developing nuclear capabilities. Even before the Twelve-Day War of June 2025, the Ayatollah regime had already reached a 60% level of uranium enrichment, only 30% short of what would have been needed to build nuclear bombs, and far beyond the 3% to 4% level required for the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. If we add to all of the above the fact that the Ayatollahs showered Israel with massive attacks in April and in October 2024 using suicide drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, one can only conclude from this that the writing is simply on the wall for all to see. One truly shudders to think that had all of those missiles raining down on Israel in 2024 and in the current war had nuclear warheads, millions of Israelis would have been murdered.
On the basis of the above-mentioned considerations, the conditions for the existence of contextual (as opposed to temporal) imminence of mortal danger posed by the Ayatollahs to the US and, in particular, to Israel are thereby fulfilled. Not only that, but if one then adds that (a) Islamists are usually inclined to see victory and defeat as outcomes that are determined in the afterlife, not in this life, where they believe that they will achieve a glorious victory by going to heaven and their adversaries will suffer a shameful defeat by going to hell; (b) the Ayatollahs tend to belong to the same category of suicidal, genocidal Islamists like those of 9/11 (USA), 7/7 (UK), 11/13 (France), and the suicide bombers in Israel over the last several decades; and (c) the historical Shia proclivity for martyrdom is still alive and kicking, it therefore does not require much intelligence or common sense for one to easily detect an ominously looming, mortal danger posed by the Ayatollahs to some other countries, especially the Jewish nation. One would do well to recall that in 1940, the British sank the powerful French navy which had to all intents and purposes fallen into German hands following Germany’s conquest of France in World War II. Yet, there appeared to be no credible evidence proving that that navy was going to be used against the British very soon. What Daniel Webster stated as part of the requirement to legitimize a pre-emptive attack, i.e. that the “necessity of self-defence was instant…...leaving…… no moment of deliberation” did not really seem to apply to Britain’s sinking of the said navy. Nevertheless, the British went ahead with their plans and sank it. Even the US president at that time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, reportedly told the French ambassador that had he been in Churchill’s shoes, he would have done the same thing.
The traditional temporal definition of what constitutes an imminent threat may have been sensible during the 19th or probably even the 20th century. However, when it comes to the massive threats of the 21st century, and particularly with regard to the Ayatollahs’ genocidal plans of annihilating the State of Israel, the contextual interpretation of the word “imminent” easily trumps the temporal one. Even beyond that, the truth of the matter is that at its Occam-razor level, the word “imminent,” as the aforementioned Cambridge Dictionary and other prestigious dictionaries state, means to prevent something from happening by taking action first. That is exactly what Israel and the US have done with respect to the Ayatollahs. Pure and simple.
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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 worked 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 now 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.
