Axis of criminal idiocy

“An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes’ - Attributed to Sun Tzu

- By TISARANEE GUNASEKARA

LITTLE girls died first. Over a hundred of them. Felled by a missile on a warm sunny morning. On the first day of Israel-America’s illegal war against Iran.

The Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab was hit by an Israeli/American missile on 28 February. There were 170 students in the school that morning. 108 of them were killed, girls aged between seven and twelve. UNESCO condemned the massacre as ‘a grave violation of international humanitarian law’.

Perhaps the invasion of Venezuela and the capture of President Maduro constituted a dry run. Perhaps the Trump administration thought that decapitation would make the Iranian regime collapse or buckle down. The Tranian regime is tyrannical and murderous, but the Iranian state is neither weak nor brittle. As analysts have pointed out, the Islamic Revolution of 1978 did not upend the Tranian state. It captured the state and built on it. Over the last decade or so, the balance of power within has shifted from clerics to the Revolutionary Guard which reportedly owns about one third of the Iranian economy including such vital sectors as oil, gas, and construction. They are said to care more about strengthening Iranian nationalism than enforcing hijab rules.