Based on the history of Iran through decades and even centuries, the country has usually come out as winner at different wars it has been a part of.
Tension between Iran and Israel has reached unprecedented levels during the past weeks. Last week on Monday, Israel directly targeted Iran’s consulate building in Syria’s capital of Damascus, killing 7 of the top members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). I retaliation, Iran launched a massive drones and missiles attack against Israel in the early hours of this Sunday, directly targeting Israel.
This tit-for-tat game between Tehran and Tel Aviv has led many to think that a wider clash between the two rivals may come to reality in the coming days, resulting in a great regional war. The UK-based news agency, the Telegraph, for example, wrote this Sunday that “if things escalate, there remains a grim possibility of full-scale war between Iran and Israel, a nightmare scenario that would carry enormous cost to human life on both sides and probably drag the United States – and potentially Britain – into the fray.”
Although Tehran has warned that it will strike again with greater force if Israel or the US retaliate for the Sunday strike on Israel that used more than 300 drones and missiles on Saturday night, chances of a direct military confrontation between the two is still not impossible. But if such a scenario happens, which side can come out as the winner of the war, Iran or Israel?
Iran or Israel? Who will win the war if it happens?
Israel was created in 1948 and since today, it has fought a few battles with Arab states, winning most of them. But these battles have been quite short in terms of duration, lingering for a few weeks to a few days. In fact, the war in Gaza which started roughly 6 months ago is the longest war Israel has ever fought since its creation some 8 decades ago.
Iran, however, is one of the oldest nations in the world, with a history dating back tens of thousands of years. History of Iran through all these years show a quite stable pattern of victory in almost every war that Iran has been a party of.
From the ancient time when the great Cyrus was the king of Iran to the present time, the country has been fighting numerous wars, most of which it won. In a big war that lasted five years (545–540 BC) between the army of Iran under the leadership of king Cyrus with the kingdom of Gedrosia, part of coastal Balochistan that roughly corresponds to today’s Makran, Iran conquered Bactria, Arachosia, Sogdia, Saka, Chorasmia, Margiana and other provinces in the kingdom.
The Battle of Ghazni was fought in 1148 between the Ghurid army of Sayf al-Din Suri and the army of the Ghaznavid Sultan Bahram-Shah of Ghazna. The Ghurid ruler first defeated Bahram-Shah and took the city while Bahram-Shah fled to Kurram District in present day Pakistan. However, Bahram-Shah returned the next year with a bigger army and defeated and killed Sayf al-Din Suri and retook Ghazni. During the Safavid Empire, Uzbek invasion of Khorasan took place in 1578, but the army f Iran could very strongly hold he ground and Uzbeks were badly defeated and forced to withdraw from northeastern Iran.
In one of the latest wars that Iran has been a party of, the Iraqi army, under the rule of dictator Saddam Hossein, invaded several Iranian cities on the day of September 22, 1980. That day, the Iraqi Air Force launched surprise air strikes on ten Iranian airfields with the objective of destroying the Iranian Air Force.
The next day, Iraq launched a ground invasion along a front measuring 644 km (400 mi) in three simultaneous attacks. Saddam hoped an attack on Iran would cause such a blow to Iran’s prestige that it would lead to the new government’s downfall, or at least end Iran’s calls for his overthrow. However, a war that Iraq has expected to last a few days and end with a great victory lasted for nearly 8 years, with Iran strongly defending its territory, not losing even one inch of its soil to the enemy.
Iran won the war and almost a year later in 1990, Saddam Hossein decided to attack Kuwait in frustration, a move that finally led to Iraq’s defeat when an American-led military coalition came for military help and attacked Iraq.
Strong sense of Nationalism, a key factor in Iran’s victories!
One key factor in Iran’s victories throughout history is the strong sense of nationalism and patriotism that exist among Iranians and have been handed sown from one generation to the other.
In the case of Iran-Iraq war, the latter was supported by almost all the countries in the word, supplying Iraq with any kind of weapons as much as it wanted to defeat Iran.
Iran however, could win this war all single-handed because of the strong sense of nationalism that existed and still exist among Iranians. Back then, even 14-year-old Iranians passionately wanted to go to war and defend their country.
And today, as many anticipate that tensions between Israel and Iran could lead to a direct military confrontation between the two, history can teach Tel Aviv a good lesson to think twice if it intends to start a war with Tehran.
