The drumbeat succeeds once again

I was in Saudi Arabia in 1990 when the First Gulf War erupted. While I was never in real danger, I vividly remember, as a 9 year old, crowding into my parent's bedroom and putting on gas masks to ward off any chemical weapons Saddam might have lobbed at Saudi Arabia in retaliation for hosting American bases and troops.

Then, at least, there was a clear justification for the war, Iraq had invaded Kuwait, and the entire world, under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 678, was united in authorizing the use of force to liberate Kuwait.

In the 35 years since however, the pretexts for wars in West Asia, by the West, have grown increasingly flimsy, and yet the war drums never fail.

The reason why seems obvious to me.

Iran

Just in the last ten days (13th of June 2025 onwards) Iran has been attacked unilaterally twice, first by Israel, and then by the United States of America. Not only were these attacks unilateral, but they were unprovoked, and unjustified. These are acts worthy of horror and condemnation, and yet Western heads of state and Western media not only refuse to do so but in some cases even cheer. Because of them the slide of the world into international lawlesness accelarates.

Palestine

This overlaps with the genocide of the Palestinian people that has been funded, armed, and protected by the West for more than twenty months. The same Western leaders and media are complicit as they were unable to muster the will to resist and force an end to a travesty that will stain the reputation of the West for generations to come.

What is common?

So what do Palestinians and Iranians have in common to justify the callousness with which they are treated by the West? After all the countries and peoples have completely different cultures, languages, ethnic makeup, histories etc. There is only one thing that we can point to.

Islam

Both countries are predominantly Muslim, that's it. Not even the same denomination of the faith, and yet, this is enough to justify any level of violence against them by the West. This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact of the Western bombings of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. I may have missed some in there.

There is a deep horror in knowing how vilified me, my family, and my people are. And a further depth of terror to the realization on how long a slog it will be to fix this as it was through words that we were demonized and it is only by words that we will force our way out of this libel. And so as we fight to protect ourselves and to silence the ugly drumbeat of war, millions more of us will die, or be injured, or suffer shattered families.