Forgive them: For in their rage, they know not...

It was Shakespeare, in ‘Hamlet,’ Act 5, Scene 2, whose titular character spurns his earlier fear of death, and, rejecting the possibility of knowing the future and what it holds for him, accepts the inevitability of his mortality, his eventual demise, saying, 'Not a whit, we defy augury. There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.' He ponders that even the most insignificant of events, such as the demise of a sparrow, has meaning, impact and consequence, somewhere, and to someone, or something. This may have been drawn, it seems, from the book of Mathew, which purports to suggest the authenticity of God’s ‘great plan,’ for us all, that nothing happens without a greater, divine purpose. He riddles that whether now, or later, “it will come,” and we must be ready when it does. I’m not certain that Shakespeare suggests we should simply go quietly when our time appears to be near, but that we should be at peace, spiritually.
In fact, another great literary entity, Welshman Dylan Thomas, urges us, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” that, “Old age should burn and rave at close of day;” and that we must, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Thomas, in fact, was urging his ill father not to accept his mortality, but that with every fibre of his being he should instead go, to “blaze like a meteor,” and not go gently. Ironically, before the next year was out, Thomas, his father, his premature son, and three of his closest friends would all have passed away.
Hamlet’s reflections come as he is forced to confront his own torrid treatment of Ophelia, telling her one moment, “I did love you once,” and then soon after, “I loved you not,” before exhorting her to “Get thee to a nunnery,” so she could not have children. It’s no wonder she went mad, is it? He was later, of course, to regret what would today be called mental cruelty towards, even ‘gaslighting’ of Ophelia, but not before she had descended into insanity, and eventually, either in a tragic accident or suicide, perish by drowning in a river. It very much sounds as if the fragilities and foibles of the younger generation of today are nothing new, doesn’t it? So, where is this literary diversion taking us? In a roundabout way, I’m reflecting on the realities, the future possibilities for the people of Iran, given that Trump and Hegseth are adamant they can deliver ‘freedom,’ to a long-suffering population, when I’m not so sure it is a genuine possibility.
Iran has been societally oppressive since the 1979 Revolution, when Ayatollah Khomeini created a 125,000 strong Iranian Republican Guard Corps, based on Hitler’s ‘ShutzStaffel,’ with a mandate to prevent the established military forces from political activity (coups), to deny opportunities for foreign ‘interference’ in the Republic, and to crush ‘deviant,’ which meant all, political opposition to the Supreme Leader. Their control has proven absolute, and answerable only to that Supreme Leader, they have ‘ruled’ with an iron hand. However, notably since 2009, strengthened by the patronage of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the IRGC has morphed into a largely autonomous social, political, and economic powerhouse that is beyond reason or control.
It is under this yolk that Iran has, for want of a better word, ‘evolved’ for almost half a century. Beaten, bowed, and deprived, they have suffered, but they only see what America left behind in Afghanistan and Iraq, political instability, death, destruction, warlords and tribal antagonism, so maybe they feel better with the devil they know? Certainly, the dancing in the streets will stop as soon as the music stops... but America knows all this... so why strike now? Whether any of us know, “tis to come, or not to come,” surely this conflict, that will affect those inside and outside Iran much more than the Vietnam War did, demanded more respect and introspection than the pomposity, petulance and hubris it got.