{"id":37414,"date":"2025-06-20T09:26:49","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T07:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=37414"},"modified":"2025-08-19T15:41:39","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:41:39","slug":"israel-is-todays-sparta-middle-east-wars-viewed-from-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/israel-is-todays-sparta-middle-east-wars-viewed-from-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel is Today’s Sparta: Middle East Wars Viewed from Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somewhere in Tehran today, a child is experiencing what I once felt in Baghdad: a sudden, incomprehensible terror as foreign missiles descend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hassan Abdulrazzak<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I was a child in Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war, my family and I were heading to visit relatives when suddenly traffic came to a standstill and panic ensued. The adults got out of the car and started staring at the sky where there was tracer fire. Some kind of attack was happening. The adults took me by the hand, and we began to run in a blind panic, knocking on the doors of nearby houses as we sought shelter. After several attempts the occupants of one house let us in. We stayed in their courtyard until it was safe to leave. Initially we thought the attack was by the Iranians but later it transpired that it was Israel bombing Iraq\u2019s nuclear facilities at Osirak<\/a>. That incident was the most terrifying memory I have of the Iran-Iraq war. What I couldn\u2019t understand as a child was how Israel could act with such impunity, why no one could stop their aggression.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, decades later, a similar attack has taken place \u2014 but this time, in Iran. Somewhere in Tehran today, a child is experiencing what I once felt in Baghdad: a sudden, incomprehensible terror as foreign missiles descend. And just as I grew up in a household that loathed Saddam\u2019s tyranny, many of these Iranian children will come from families that oppose the Iranian regime. But the trauma of being bombed by an external power leaves its own scar \u2014 one that will not easily fade.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I visited Baghdad in December 2024 to attend the Baghdad International Theatre Festival<\/a>. It was my second return as an adult \u2014 the first was in 2019. The festival had originally been scheduled for October but was postponed due to fears that Israel\u2019s escalating war in Gaza could embroil the wider region, Iraq included. The delay significantly impacted the \u201cinternational\u201d nature of the event; many European troupes pulled out due to scheduling conflicts or security concerns, depriving local artists of valuable exposure to outside theatrical traditions.<\/span><\/p>\n

One standout performance was <\/span>Horse of Murderers<\/span><\/i>, a visually striking Iranian play. Although the surtitles were at times fragmented, the gothic atmosphere was unmistakable: actors wielded handheld lights to illuminate their faces, ladders morphed into carriages, bodies transformed into horses. It was part folktale, part fever dream. The narrative \u2014 a peasant uprising \u2014 was muddled, and the characters veered toward caricature with exaggerated laughter, but younger audiences were captivated by its energy and inventiveness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"\u201cHorse
Horse of Murderers<\/em> was presented by the Ordibehesht Theatre Group of Shiraz and directed by Seyed Mohammad Hashemzadeh (photo courtesy theateronline.ir).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

To see an Iranian production in Baghdad would have been inconceivable during my childhood. In those days, anti-Iranian sentiment in Iraq mirrored the rhetoric we now hear in Israel. But things have changed. When I visited Al-Kadhimiya Mosque in 2019, I was struck by the sight of Iranian pilgrims touring the site, a guide addressing them in Persian. That moment captured a new, complex alliance.<\/span><\/p>\n

The current Iran-Iraq entente is an unintended consequence of the 2003 U.S. invasion, what Chalmers Johnson called \u201cblowback.\u201d After the 1991 Gulf War, the elder President Bush allowed Saddam\u2019s helicopters to crush a Shia uprising in southern Iraq, fearing that a Shia-led Iraq would tilt too closely to Iran. By the time his son came to power, such caution had evaporated. Post-9\/11 vengeance was the order of the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.S. Congress, \u201cIf you take out Saddam, I guarantee you will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.\u201d When asked for evidence, he fumbled, referring vaguely to a book he\u2019d written in the 1980s. His solution for dealing with \u201cterrorist regimes\u201d was simple: use force.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I hold no illusions about the Iranian regime. It is authoritarian, brutally repressive, and contemptuous of dissent. But if Israel succeeds in fully neutralizing Iran, I fear it will remove the last obstacle to the final phase of Palestinian dispossession. The Nakba of 1948 never truly ended; it simply evolved. Now, with Gaza in ruins, the process is accelerating.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/blockquote>\n

What Netanyahu meant by \u201cpositive reverberations\u201d was clear \u2014 removing one of Israel\u2019s chief adversaries. Never mind that over a million Iraqis died. Never mind the bloodbath of 2006\u20132008, or the devastation wrought by ISIS from 2014\u20132019. Never mind the displacement, the deepening sectarianism, the hollowing out of Iraq\u2019s institutions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With Iraq and Syria\u2019s Ba\u2019ath regimes dismantled, only Iran remains as a regional counterweight. Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza continues with chilling confidence, buoyed by a track record of strategic success. If Iran is neutralized, who remains to challenge Israel\u2019s power?<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me be clear: I hold no illusions about the Iranian regime. It is authoritarian, brutally repressive, and contemptuous of dissent. But if Israel succeeds in fully neutralizing Iran, I fear it will remove the last obstacle to the final phase of Palestinian dispossession. The Nakba of 1948 never truly ended; it simply evolved. Now, with Gaza in ruins, the process is accelerating.<\/span><\/p>\n

These tensions play out not only on geopolitical maps but in the hearts of Iraqis. On the day Israel struck Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities, Iraqi feminist critic Fatima Al-Mohsen wrote on Facebook: \u201cIs it really important for Iran to have a nuclear reactor, to spread militias, and to dominate the region with its hollow bravado, when what the Iranian people truly need is food, democracy, and freedom?\u201d But the next day, when Iran retaliated, she posted again: \u201cFor the first time, I feel a sense of gratitude and pride\u2026 a slap in the face of the criminal Netanyahu and his generals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This ambivalence is widespread. Iraqi writer Hassan Blasim captured it poignantly: \u201cMany Iraqis never understood how Saddam Hussein \u2014 despite his crimes \u2014 became a hero in some eyes just because his missiles reached Tel Aviv. Today, many cheer Iran\u2019s clerics and ignore their crimes\u2026When values are forged in fire, they become collective schizophrenia. We condemn killing here and celebrate it there.\u201d He further adds, \u201cThe blame lies with the West, its Zionist project, and the dictatorships that never learned to build strong, self-reconciled societies. I hope Iraq \u2014 this wounded, sick country \u2014 does not get dragged into the chaos of blood and ruin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Iraqi armed forces spokesperson Sabah Al-Numan has said, \u201cThe Iraqi government calls on the United States to prevent any airspace violations by Israeli aircraft,\u201d but this has not stopped Israel from committing these violations. Israel feels emboldened to disregard international law as it is protected by the United States and its allies, including my own country of nationality, Britain, which continues to supply Israel with parts for its F35 jets as well as share intelligence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Iraqi novelist and NYU professor Sinan Antoon, reposting an extract from a September 2024 essay after Israel\u2019s strike on Iran, called Israel \u201cthe Sparta of the modern age \u2014 a society and state founded on war, its values, and its culture.\u201d Antoon is vocal in his support of student protests against the Gaza genocide. He has stood firm in solidarity even as universities moved to silence dissent.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the strike on Iran happened, I was taken back to my childhood. But this is not the first time I feel like history is repeating itself. The horrific images coming out of Gaza have reminded me of the images I saw in my father\u2019s edition of Newsweek magazine of the bloated bodies of Palestinian children murdered in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre. This was an era before 24-hour news and social media feeds and yet perhaps precisely because the images were not so ubiquitous that they had a big impact on me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Two plays of mine about Palestine have been produced \u2014 <\/span>Love, Bombs and Apples<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>And Here I Am <\/span><\/i>\u2014 and I\u2019m currently developing several projects, both directly and indirectly related to the Palestinian struggle, which I hope will eventually reach audiences. While researching a new radio play about the Nakba, I was struck more than ever by the deep sense of betrayal many Palestinians feel toward the Arab governments \u2014 including Iraq\u2019s \u2014 that failed to prevent their dispossession and have since capitulated to Israel in increasingly shameful ways. As an artist, I\u2019ve made it my mission to speak out in solidarity with the Palestinian people \u2014 to use whatever voice I have to bear witness and resist silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel is like a man in a white sleeveless vest who every now and then beats the wife who has been forcibly married to him. He justifies each blow: she was disobedient, she provoked him, it\u2019s for her own good.\u00a0The neighbors hear the screams. They shake their heads, but say nothing \u2014 afraid he might turn his fists on them next. And as time goes on, the man\u2019s violence towards his wife escalates and escalates and will not stop until either he kills her or she, unable to restrain her rage any longer, lashes out at him.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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