Arash Azizi writes:

There is something ironic about the fact that, of all the countries in the Middle East, Iran is the one that now finds itself on the brink of war with Israel. Iran is not one of the 22 Arab states party to the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict. Its population, unlike those of many Arab countries, harbors little anti-Israel sentiment. During the past year, mass rallies in support of the Palestinians have taken place in cities all over the world: Baghdad, Sanaa, New York, and Madrid, to name only a few. Nothing like this has happened at scale in Tehran—when Iranians really protest en masse, they tend to do so against their own regime and its obsession with Israel.

Alas, wars are waged by governments, not peoples. And because the regime ruling Iran has long made hostility toward Israel central to its identity, Iran now faces a direct confrontation with the Jewish state, regardless of whether most Iranians want such a war. For the country’s opposition, the prospect has occasioned a divide—between those who fear that the next round of fighting will be a costly setback to their efforts and those who cautiously hope that it will shake something loose.

In the first camp are many Iranian dissidents, both inside and outside the country, who loudly protested Iran’s missile attacks on Israel in April and October. Now they are also opposed to an Israeli counterattack on Iran: All-out war between the two countries, these activists say, would be a disaster in both humanitarian and political terms, making life worse for ordinary Iranians without weakening the Islamic Republic. [Continue reading…]