AMERICA, or Trump (these days they are interchangeable), fresh from bullying Venezuela, arrogantly thought it could replicate that in Iran. Seeing that Iran had a different chemistry from Venezuela, it devised a more sinister approach. It killed the country’s spiritual leader and a string of its military leaders. It thought the regime would collapse, enabling it to balkanise the country into fragments, making it difficult for them to come together again in a hundred years.
But if there is a honey badger nation, that should be Iran.
The honey badger (aka the ratel) is famous as the most fearless animal on Earth. It regularly confronts large predators such as lions, attacks venomous snakes, and ignores bee stings. Its skin is exceptionally thick and loose, allowing it to twist around and bite an attacker even when caught in a larger animal’s jaws.
The honey badger has a natural resistance to the venom of dangerous snakes such as cobras and puff adders. Even if a bite temporarily knocks it unconscious, it often wakes up after a brief nap and finishes off the snake. It can also release a foul-smelling secretion to keep enemies at bay.
Instead of running away, the honey badger charges straight at its enemies, surprising larger animals such as hyenas and leopards and prompting them to back down. Highly intelligent, it knows how to use its environment, crack open hard turtle shells, and raid beehives without fear of the swarm. Many may think that is foolhardy, suicidal or blind madness. Animal experts, however, note that honey badgers are smart strategists, using their tough build, natural qualities and environment to make fighting them too costly for larger predators.
America will never rest as long as Israel wants Iran destroyed. Unfortunately, Israel has always been the tail and America the dog. However, in this case, it is the tail that wags the dog, rather than the other way round.
There is no nation on earth that Israel hates more than Iran. Iran has prevented it from fulfilling its dream of establishing a “Greater Israel”. All the Gulf nations have been recruited into the project; they are already proxies of Israel, providing bases, airspace and logistical support to the aggressors. Remove Iran, dismantle it as they did Iraq and Libya, and success is assured. Therefore, Israel will always prod America into attacking Iran on its behalf.
But Trump, and by extension America, also wants Iran’s oil.
That would make it even richer, shore up its currency and, more importantly, give it a choking stranglehold over the Russian and Chinese economies. That, in turn, would make them more malleable—a dream America has pursued for decades.
Being the roadblock to Israel’s ambitions has also placed on Iran the responsibility of supporting the mainly Sunni Palestinians and Lebanon, abandoned by their Arab brothers at the behest of their masters—America and Israel.
Removing Iran from the equation is, therefore, a top priority. Hence the attacks by America and Israel, the Siamese twins, supported by the Gulf nations.
But like the honey badger, Iran neither flinched nor scurried away. It neither turned tail nor begged, “No más”.
“No más” is a Spanish phrase meaning “no more” or “enough”, famously associated with the Roberto Durán versus Sugar Ray Leonard II boxing match.
The fight—widely known as the “No Más Fight”—took place on November 25, 1980, at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, where Sugar Ray Leonard defeated Roberto Durán by technical knockout in the eighth round.
At 2:44 of the eighth round, Durán turned his back on Leonard, waved his glove and quit, reportedly telling the referee, “No más”. Leonard’s superior speed, movement and constant taunting frustrated Durán, forcing him to abandon his usual aggressive style.
America keeps changing its reasons for attacking Iran. As soon as one justification no longer holds water, it conjures another. But Iran, like the honey badger, used its natural endowments—domestic production—and its environment to protect itself. It erected numerous decoys fitted with signal-emitting materials that the US mistook for genuine targets, bombing them relentlessly.
Iran also did what Muhammad Ali did to George Foreman in “The Rumble in the Jungle”, the historic undisputed heavyweight championship bout held on October 30, 1974, in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
Ali secured victory with his famous “rope-a-dope” strategy. Instead of going toe-to-toe with Foreman’s immense power, Ali danced around the ring to stay out of reach or leaned against the ropes to absorb punishment, allowing Foreman to expend his energy on ineffective blows. By the eighth round, Foreman was exhausted, and Ali capitalised with a sudden combination that secured the knockout and reclaimed his world title.
America has used every conceivable weapon against Iran. According to General Abolfazi Shekarchi, an Iranian spokesman, “Washington had brought every piece of weaponry, every technology, every capability that had not been used even once in any war… every contingency that the Americans had planned for World War III in its attacks on Iran.” Yet Iran demystified all those weapons. The days when the world shivered at the mention of the B-1 or B-2 Lancers, the Tomahawk or the F-35 are gone. Before this war, any nation threatened with the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln believed hell was coming. But now? Not anymore.
Iran also adopted the “rope-a-dope” strategy, absorbing the blows from the Siamese twins while allowing them to exhaust their armoury. Did you not see how missile shortages forced America to return to using older PAC-2 Patriot interceptors? Iran then employed Leonard’s method of superior speed, movement and continuous taunting—effective psychological warfare to frustrate America, forcing it to abandon its usual aggressive style.
Undoubtedly, this has become the most expensive nothing in American military history, having depleted its critical weapons stockpile and diminished the respect of its allies. It has spent hundreds of billions of dollars, lost servicemen and had its aura of invincibility punctured. Nations will no longer fear it as they once did.
While they remained fixated on its nuclear programme, Iran developed conventional missiles now challenging the most expensive American and Western air-defence systems.
A missile costing a fraction of the systems deployed to intercept it can still penetrate the shield the West spent fortunes presenting as unbeatable.
You know, they mistook technological wealth for invulnerability, sanctions for paralysis, and Iran’s restraint for weakness.
It took that route because it is a nation surrounded by foreign military bases, repeatedly threatened, and periodically attacked; it became a race for survival because it was under existential threat.
But its enemies completely underestimated the country’s survival instinct, tied to its tens of centuries of existence, history and culture.
But of course, the war is not over yet. Trump’s ego will never let him step back. But at least one thing is dead: the myth of American military invincibility. And so, Iran ended the American Empire in the Strait of Hormuz. America knelt there; its haughtiness and pride sank there.
Iran, the honey badger nation, fearless and resilient, used its natural endowments and environment to defend itself. It also adapted the skills of arguably two of boxing’s greatest champions to exhaust the American aggressor into shouting, “No más”.
Lest I Forget
Who observed how Saudi Arabia picked a side in someone else’s fight, absorbed missiles on its capital, airbases and refineries for doing so, only to receive a cancelled contract as its reward—or thank-you note?
History will surely remember the shame of not only the Arabs and so-called Muslims, but also all those around the world who chose to support the side that oppresses the helpless.
To be concluded.
- Dr Gimba, anipr, is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime. His syndicated column, The Arbiter, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Monday.