Want even more content from FPM? Sign up for FPM+ to unlock exclusive series, virtual town-halls with our authors, and more—now for just $3.99/month. Click here to sign up.]
In a recent article, it was reported that “In addition to having its nuclear facilities, its ballistic missile factories, and its storehouse of weapons destroyed or severely damaged in the twelve-day war with Israel, Iran now faces another challenge to its existence: a severe drought that threatens to bring the supply of water to a ‘zero point,’….” It has also been reported that the government of Iran is considering declaring a week’s stay-at-home holiday on regular one-day-a-week holidays as a solution to the crisis. This is a typical Iranian mindset non-solution since if people stay home in the heat they will be taking more showers, consuming more water, and flushing their toilets more frequently than if they were in their workplaces.
In one province, farmers reported being on the brink of losing their entire harvest after a 10-day cutoff of agricultural water, with no government body taking responsibility.
Amazingly, considering the terrible clashes that have recently occurred, Israel has offered to help, but that offer has been rejected.
Hugh Fitzgerald who has reported on this water crisis asks, “How do the mad mullahs, who have been defeated in war by Israel and in peace by the ongoing water shortage, and now do not know where to put their feet and hands, propose to deal with this crisis?”
This unwillingness to be open to real-time solutions to real-time problems is so typical of the militant jihadist mindset, and especially to the Iranian aggressive Shi’ite mindset which appears to this writer to be blinded by arrogance and lack of knowledge of how to think through problems, accept reality, and take constructive action.
I lived and worked in Iran for a few months towards the end of the Shah’s reign. The Iran I experienced was a model of incompetence combined with extreme arrogance. On the main highway, all the wrecks from untold months or years of accidents were piling up by the side of the road. Iran did not have the sense or interest in removing those wrecks. Groups of men openly mocked old ladies as they struggled with their shopping carts to board local Teheran city buses. The number one supermarket in Teheran was filled with empty shelves, and entire unbutchered thighs of cows were in their refrigerated bins.
Traffic jams were incredibly dense and ubiquitous, and autos would often drive on the sidewalks hoping to get past the jam (they never did). I taught an adult small class of English as a p/t job, and I had one student who insisted on arguing almost every point of grammar or syntax that I taught. By the way, I had taught writing prior to Iran at Harvard and Penn State. After I spoke to him about arguing less with me in class as those arguments were interfering with the class’ progress, and after his agreeing to desist, he nevertheless continued to argue incessantly in defense of his MISUNDERSTANDINGS!
This defense of uninformed ideas and false beliefs is so persistent in the Iranian mindset. While I was there, American engineers working in Iran would, at Westerner social gatherings, consistently mock the aggressive ignorance so typical of Iranian males. I had to attend to some matter at an Iranian government office and the official who was not a high official emphatically told me that I must tell the headmaster of the private school where I taught something about how he was to run the school. I replied to the official that the headmaster tells me what I am to do – I don’t tell him. But, in perfect form, that uniformed lower ranking employee stood and drew himself to his full height and fiercely insisted that he was telling me to tell my headmaster, and I must carry it out. (I’m happy to report that I did not tell my headmaster what he directed me to say.)
There must have been many signs that the water delivery and maintenance systems were inadequate, but I can easily see the Iranian mindset of its government workers and “engineers” scoffing if any mention of the dangers should be expressed. Deny, deny, deny is the name of the game. I don’t know why Israel is trying to help them, but perhaps they have done so under the anointed injunction of Leviticus 19:18 where all followers of the Holy Bible are called upon to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Perhaps Israel with its high-minded approach to life has been able to see Iran as its neighbor and not only as its neighbor-enemy. But the Iranians true to form won’t be moved. Since the ayatollahs took over, they have taken the Iranian cultural arrogance, stubbornness, and macho disdain for compromise to even more intense levels than under the Shah.
Like Hamas, whose leaders would rather die than say thank you to any Israeli Jew, the Iranians would rather lose its citizens to agonizing deaths from water shortages than accept the help from the “Little Satan,” the horrible “infidel” [sic] state of Israel. They are drowning in the ocean of their own lovelessness and ignorance!!
Immediately after the U.S. airstrikes directed by Pres. Trump obliterating their nuclear manufacturing sites, the Iranians downplayed the effects of that bombing. Iranian authorities confirmed the strikes after several hours, but said there was no radioactive leak. The Iranian government also noted that there was only limited smoke.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also confirmed there was no off-site contamination. They did not state that everything regarding nuclear power that they had been working on for more than ten years was destroyed.
In a statement of pure bravado, Ayatollah Khamenei said, ““The damage it [the USA] will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter.” The anchor of Iranian channel 3, its state tv channel, said, “The US president in the Oval Office chose to take delivery of the coffins of up to 50,000 US soldiers in Washington,” and the head of an Iranian daily newspaper said, “It is now our turn to immediately rain missiles down on the US naval force in Bahrain as a first measure.” Hamid Rasaei, one of the most hardline members of Iran’s parliament, went one step further and said Iran must hit US bases in Saudi Arabia.
The attitudes of the leadership of Iran are intensely rigid and hostile. The leaders believe they have underlying religious or spiritual reasons for their rigidity and intransigence. Nothing can shake their belief that their hostility towards the Great Satan and the Little Satan is justified. They are willing to accept help from outside including pallets of millions upon millions of dollars from the Obama administration, but find themselves resisting help when it comes to water or peace. Dealing with Iran, we become much more aware of the meaning of the expression “fallen world.”
*****
Jeffrey Ludwig was a teaching fellow in American History and Literature at Harvard University
and served on the Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review. He has also taught at Penn State, Boston State College, and Juniata College and was listed four times in Who’s Who Among America’s High School Teachers.
