I am sure by now we all know that the Supreme Leader of Iran was killed in a major military attack carried out by Israel together with the United States.
I am going to explain why this is happening in very simple English, so that anyone who knows nothing about politics can understand.
As you may know, Israel and Iran are both in the Middle East.
The Middle East is a group of countries in Western Asia. These countries include:
▪ Iran
▪ Israel
▪ Saudi Arabia
▪ Iraq
▪ Turkey (a part of Turkey is in Europe)
▪ Jordan
▪ Syria
▪ Lebanon
▪ Kuwait
▪ Qatar
▪ Oman
▪ United Arab Emirates
▪ Yemen
▪ Bahrain
The Middle East has a lot of oil.
Oil brings money, but it also brings problems. Powerful countries from outside the Middle East want control and influence there because of oil. America has been involved in Iran since the 1940s, sometimes as a friend and sometimes as an enemy.
Inside the Middle East, countries also compete with each other for regional power, politically, economically and religiously. The religion side is often overlooked. For example people often forget that Saudi Arabia and Iran fight for religious dominance in the Middle East. This is because the religion of Islam has two main denominations namely Shia and Sunni. Iran is mostly Shia and Saudi Arabia is mostly Sunni.
But ofcourse, the biggest rivalry in the Middle East is actually between Israel and Iran.
Israel depends on its strong army and support from the United States. It sees Iran as a serious threat. Iran has threatened to destroy Israel. These threats were made as early as 1979 by Iran’s first Supreme Leader, and I will explain that later.
At the center of the Israel–Iran conflict is the belief among hardline leaders in Iran that Israel should not exist as a country. Last year I made a full video explaining how the morden state of Israel was created and why it is at war with Palestine. The video is available on Taffy Theman YouTube channel.
In Palestine, Israel has killed many civilians, bombed homes, hospitals and schools, stopped food and aid from getting in.
Iran supports Palestine. It calls Israel's actions crimes and even genocide, and helps groups that fight Israel by giving them money, weapons and training.
The other cause of this war is Iran's nuclear program.
Israel wants to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons because Iran has threatened to destroy Israel before. But Iran says its nuclear program has nothing to do with nuclear bombs. However Israel doesn't believe this.
It is worth mentioning that nuclear weapons give countries an extra layer of security.
For example, North Korea built nuclear weapons to protect itself from outside threats.
Because North Korea has nuclear weapons, attacking it would be very dangerous. That makes Western countries think twice. It is therefore not unthinkable that Iran wants the same level of protection. But Israel says no. America also says no.
By the way, I have noticed that some people think America ONLY attacks other countries because of oil. That is not always true.
America acts based on its own interests.
Those interests are not always about money or oil.
Sometimes they are political or strategic. For example, Afghanistan does not have large oil reserves. But America still sent its military there.
I am saying this because some people believe that if a country has no oil, then it does not matter to America. That is not true.
Korea does not have major oil resources. Yet during the Korean War, America fought to defend South Korea. This shows that oil is not the only reason America gets involved in other countries. Sometimes the reasons are political, military, or strategic.
In June 2019, Donald Trump even visited North Korea. He became the first sitting U.S. president to step onto North Korean soil when he crossed the DMZ to meet Kim Jong Un.
Clearly, oil is not the only factor in American foreign policy. So the claim that America does not attack North Korea simply because it has no oil is false.
Now let us look at U.S-Iran relations
After the Second World War, America became more involved in the Middle East to stop the Soviet Union from spreading its influence. Oil had become very important to global power. America strengthened its relationship with Iran because of Iran’s oil.
In 1951, a new Iranian leader named Mohammad Mossadegh came to power. He took control of Iran’s oil and said it should belong to Iran. He nationalized the oil industry. This was during the Cold War era when America and the Soviet Union were competing against each other for power and influence around the world.
In 1953, America sponsored a coup in Iran as a response to the nationalization of oil. This coup led to the rise of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, commonly known as the Shah. This man went on to rule Iran for 26 years.
The Shah was a harsh ruler, but he was friendly to America. The United States ignored his human rights abuses because he supported American interests. During this time, Iran was a close ally of America and also had good relations with Israel.
However, many Iranians hated the Shah. One of his strongest critics was a religious leader named Ruhollah Khomeini, an Ayatollah. Remember an Ayatollah is a very senior Muslim leader in Iran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini strongly criticized the Shah. He also criticized Western influence, and America’s role in Iran. Because of this, he was forced into exile in the 1960s. Even while in exile, Khomeini sent recorded messages back to Iran, telling people to oppose the Shah.
Public anger grew. In 1979, the Shah was removed from power in a revolution. That is how Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became Supreme Leader and how Iran became an Islamic Republic.
The new Iranian government was strongly against America because many Iranians believed America had interfered in their democracy in 1953 and had supported a dictator for many years.
Later in 1979, Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. American diplomats were held hostage for 444 days.
From that moment, Iran and America became enemies. As Israel became closer to America, Iran’s new leaders saw Israel as a Western creation in the Middle East that was harming Muslims. This belief shaped Iran’s long-term policy toward Israel.
This supreme leader who was recently killed was known as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He had been in power since 1989, having taken over after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
So why did they kill him?
Well, if you want to destabilize a regime in a time of war, you eliminate its leader. Not every country can survive a sudden leadership crisis in a time of war.
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