Michael Scott retweeted
I attended a medical conference this week. Next to me in the coffee line was a woman wearing a hijab. She introduced herself as an international surgical fellow at a major medical school (a big deal).
I asked which country she’s from. She proudly said “Israel!”
She’s lived in Israel her entire life, as a practicing devout Muslim woman. Was educated there. Became a physician, then a surgeon, and made it to the US for a prestigious 2 year fellowship. And she’s absolutely proud to be Israeli.
She told me how surprised she is when some people react negatively to her being from Israel because she and her family are treated with respect and given every opportunity.
Sounds like Israel isn’t so great at the apartheid and genocide thing. 🇮🇱
Michael Scott retweeted
This whole Macklemore situation is so spiritually Palestinian.
Ed Sheeran became one of the biggest musicians in the world by writing good music, he built an audience, and people spend hundreds of dollars to come hear his music.
Macklemore gets invited onto that stage and decides to hijack Ed Sheeran’s concert for his political rally. Ed built the stage and brought the audience, and Macklemore decided he was entitled to commandeer it for his demented cause.
And when Ed Sheeran tells him this is a concert, not a political rally, and he doesn’t want to take sides, he becomes the villain.
This is Palestinianism. You build nothing. You bite the hand that feeds you. You leech onto things other people built and destroy them.
These parasites have hijacked every institution, every cultural event, everything other people built, and feel entitled to selfishly destroy it for their tribal clan politics.
Michael Scott retweeted
I've donated 1.2 billion to fight trans rights, @MonsterFemergy? In what currency? Magic beans?
Michael Scott retweeted
Cancer is peaceful. It is part of nature. We must not discriminate against cancer.
But, radical cancer is bad. Cancerism is bad. Militant cancerism is bad. Extremist cancer is bad. Self-radicalized cancerism is bad.
Let's not confuse cancer with cancerism. Let's create a society where cancer can be free to pursue its design. Plus if we attack cancer then all cells will be marginalized. #SayNoToCancerophobia
Michael Scott retweeted
The below is imo not "McCarthyism". In my sense there's an underdiscussed but essential legacy of 7 Oct. Bloodlust.
That is: it's my sense that since 10/07/2023 the world is witnessing a low-intensity global pogrom. A relish in a perception of renewed Jewish vulnerability. Finally, the feeling goes, one can once again explicitly target a Jewish person qua their Jewish identity, i.e. for their natural Jewish affiliations, for their natural cares and concerns, and for their ties of membership in the Jewish nation.
An Israeli in a museum. A Kosher bagel shop. A Jewish student. An actor. A synagogue.
In no other foreign conflict, many *far worse* than the recent war in the Middle East, is the fight pursued locally in the West. In the streets of London. On the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. Against fellow Americans. Against fellow Brits, Against fellow Dutchmen. There's no Indian-Pakistani boycotts; no "defund the Chinese"; no American universities boycotted over Iraq; no anti-Turkish campaigns over Cyprus; no Afghans harangued; no assaults at mosques over Bashar al Assad or Iran; no interrogating ordinary Muslim actors over their views on these countries. Good. That is as it should be. Only "the Intifada" is "globalized". (Think about it: even the phrase "globalize conflict x" sounds patently absurd and evil, if you substitute anything other than the fight against Israel. Globalize, say, the Sudanese civil war?)
The contrast shows that far from a sympathy later lost (as the global reaction to 10/7 is often portrayed), Sinwar's mass murder produced the opposite. (Indeed: Sinwar foresaw this and this was his anticipation in conducting the attack.) From slumber and active repression, October 7 awoke in many groups a deep, abiding *resentment* of Jews world-wide---of this supposed "special people", of their claim to victimhood in the Holocaust, of their possession of a nation state.
The chance to finally air an old grudge. A visceral irritation. A sense that, finally after decades of compelled post-Shoah memory culture, there's again blood in the water.
As a second actor walks out a new charity show starring Maureen Lipman, the actress comes out fighting against this new form of McCarthyism:
‘There are a lot of Jewish actors who won’t speak up for Israel. They keep quiet. That is up to them. But I will not countenance juvenile, immature posturing.
Why didn’t Mr McCarthy just say he had a hernia if he really could not face working with me?
‘Why did he have to release a lengthy, moralising statement attacking views I have “publicly and repeatedly” expressed?
‘I will not be bullied, nor will I allow anybody to tell me what to think. If that affects their ability to work with me, as opposed to convert me to their point of view, then they are lily-livered.
‘I understand that the business I am in is very Left-wing. Most people I work with are very progressive. But if I were to stop working with people who thought like Mr McCarthy, I would be putting up my own gravestone….
‘I confidently predict that Mr McCarthy will one day be appalled about his decision to pull out of Right Before I Go.
He could change his mind though. Let’s behave as actors who believe in free speech and free thought, rather than engage in a new McCarthyism.’
Full piece below 👇🏼
Michael Scott retweeted
Here's my latest Substack, 'Burnham speaks with a forked tongue on antisemitism'
simplysaid.substack.com/p/bu…
I’ve been around the block a bit, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across as classic a demonstration of actions speaking louder than words than a social media post today by Andy Burnham.
I’ll quote it in full: "We send our love and support to the Jewish community in Manchester and beyond who last night gathered to remember Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby, who were killed defending their synagogue last year. My thoughts are with their families and all those who have been affected by the attack.
"I know for many Jewish people, the sorrow and fear from that day has not lifted and I know we must do more to protect communities across the country.
"I want Jewish people to know that their safety is a priority of mine and I’m determined to stamp out antisemitism for good."
It sounds good, doesn’t it? How could anyone object to such fine, warm words?
Let’s ignore the trite notion that Burnham could “stamp out antisemitism for good”. Jew hate has existed for thousands of years and it’s not going to go away because Andy Burnham says he’s determined to end it. I can’t decide if it’s hubris, narcissism or simply stupidity that lies behind such a statement. Probably a bit of all three.
On second thoughts let’s not ignore it, because it exemplifies the overall hypocrisy of his words. The pledge that Burnham is determined to end antisemitism is self-evidently meaningless. He knows, as will anyone reading his post, that he won’t – he can’t, even if he dedicated his every waking moment to it – end antisemitism. But that hasn’t stopped him writing it.
That’s because the entire post is meaningless. It talks of love and support for the Jewish community, doing more to protect it and stamping out Jew hate. But while those are warm words, that’s all they are. Words. When it comes to actions, Burnham shows the very opposite – that when it comes to his priorities, he couldn’t give a damn about the Jewish community or the views of British Jews about our safety.
At the most basic level, the very first extended interview he gave was with Gary Lineker, a man who has repeatedly demonstrated why many – I would say most – Jews regard him as one of the worst antisemites in the country. Anyone truly bothered by antisemitism would shun Lineker, not reward him with an interview.
But the hypocrisy goes far deeper than that, of course. Under his predecessor, Keir Starmer, Labour has spent the past two years rewarding Hamas for its massacre on October 7 2023 by such means as recognising Palestine, thus giving the terrorists the evidence to claim that theirs was the only way to secure such a move.
Burnham, however, has turbocharged this and is poised to announce sanctions on Israel. These are dressed up as sanctions on West Bank trade, but since in most instances it is physically and logistically impossible to separate this from Israeli trade generally, it’s clear what is really going on. Worse, the sanctions aren’t really about Israel or Palestine as such. They are about Labour’s domestic issues – its fear of the sectarian Muslim vote which secured four seats in 2024 and threatens to win many more at the next election.
Burnham (or rather his staff) might have put together some warm words about antisemitism but his actions show that his actual priority is to do whatever he can to win back sectarian Muslim support – and that means treating Israel not as an ally but as an enemy. And if that puts British Jews’ security even more at risk – which it does – so be it.
There’s a horrible saying about politicians, which is a product of the idea that they are a bunch of untrustworthy charlatans: How can you tell when a politician is lying? Their lips move. I hate that cynical attitude because public service is not only important, it is honourable. But the cynicism of Andy Burnham makes it ever more difficult to make that case.
Michael Scott retweeted
Dear Brits,
You got offended by my comment about the Falkland Islands—a bunch of rocks 8,000 miles from your shores? Good. Now imagine how we Israelis feel about your government’s recognition of “Palestine” over our ancestral heartland of Judea and Samaria, its denial of our sovereignty over our capital, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, and its constant meddling in our internal affairs and bashing of our country.
These lands are in the heart of our country, which is already roughly the size of Wales—not lands 8,000 miles from our shores.
Your government criticizes our country’s response to October 7 in Gaza, while it is clear that if your country had been invaded by a terrorist group that killed, raped, tortured, and kidnapped thousands of Brits, while firing thousands of rockets at your cities—as we experienced on October 7—your response would have been much harsher.
Britain flattened Germany during World War II, killing millions of German civilians. The casualties caused by British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq were also much higher than those in Gaza, despite the fact that neither of those countries had attacked Britain or posed a direct threat to Britain.
Since the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7, we have experienced nothing but hostility, antisemitism, and blood libels from your government.
An alliance goes both ways.
Michael Scott retweeted
One of the most successful political tricks of recent years has been turning disagreement into bigotry.
Question gender ideology? Transphobic.
Criticise Islamic beliefs? Islamophobic.
Voice fears about unvetted migrants arriving in small boats? Racist.
Express doubts over the success of multiculturalism? Nazi.
Sometimes people aren’t motivated by hate. Often they’re simply good people with legitimate concerns.
A free society has to acknowledge this reality.
Michael Scott retweeted
Amnesty International’s current troubles—reputational and perhaps legal—are regrettable. John Cleese, who once lent his considerable talent and raised serious money through the legendary Secret Policeman’s Ball events, has wisely distanced himself.
The comeuppance is sad, but thoroughly deserved. There was a time when Amnesty meant something profound: a clear, uncompromising stand against torture and for prisoners of conscience, whoever they were. That institution has been hollowed out and replaced by something else.
I joined as an undergraduate in the late 1980s, stirred by an Iranian friend tortured in Khomeini’s prisons. The moral imperative felt straightforward: decent people must oppose torturers. I drifted away after graduation but hoped to reconnect in the early 2000s.
By then, though, the rot was already visible—the sharp, universal purpose had been clouded and cheapened. Clifford Bob’s The Marketing of Rebellion crystallised it for me. Bob wasn’t writing about Western culture wars, yet his central insight cuts to the heart of today’s mess: NGOs “trade” their hard-won credibility to insurgent movements in exchange for trendy visibility and relevance. It looks like a win-win on paper.
In reality, as Amnesty’s current troubles lay bare, it is an existential risk. Credibility, like capital, can be spent. Spend it unwisely on the wrong alliances and you don’t merely diminish—you go bankrupt. That is precisely what has happened here.
The 2010 Gita Sahgal scandal made it undeniable. Sahgal, head of Amnesty’s Gender Unit, courageously warned that embracing Moazzam Begg and his Cage organisation—complete with documented Taliban sympathies—would damage women’s rights and impartiality. She was promptly suspended and eased out. The leadership didn’t just defend the alliance; they chose it, prioritising fashionable solidarity over core mission.
This wasn’t mere drift or generational change. It was deliberate inversion. The people now running Amnesty have done a horrible thing: they took a rather noble institution dedicated to universal human dignity and methodically flipped it into a vehicle for selective outrage and ideological favouritism. Amnesty still produces valuable reporting on abuses in many places, but the pattern of selectivity has eroded trust.
The pattern is depressingly familiar across branded pillars of civil society. The BBC, police, and many universities have suffered similar internal subversion—captured by activists who master institutional leverage while abandoning founding principles. Amnesty didn’t lose its way by accident. It was steered there by those who value solidarity with the “oppressed” over consistent justice.
The acid truth: a once-honourable name has been weaponised into just another factional megaphone.
Boy, did Amnesty screw up…! What a stupid overreach.
But their report and podcast are VERY helpful, they should be a massive wake up call to the liberal GC feminists - we’re dealing with a MUCH bigger problem here than ‘trans’, and the GCs have been a part of it.
This is a civilisational divide, between truth and lies, self government and technocratic tyranny, humanity and post-humanism - and it is focussed chiefly on Britain, because it is the blueprint for a self governing nation and people, which cannot be allowed to endure in the post democratic order.
I recognise this Amnesty treatment - because it is what I received from the arts sector I once worked and socialised in, when I voted Brexit.
I also recognise it because it’s a (albeit harsher version) of what I have quietly encountered from some of the liberal GC feminists themselves who are now so offended by Amnesty’s nastiness today. Purity politics, mandarin manipulations and fantasies of control.
I was excluded from GC events when I chose Paul Conrathe as my lawyer and worked with Miriam Cates on RSE reform instead of aligning my secrecy in schools campaign with GC feminist activism.
I went from receiving an offer of pro bono by @LoudBonnet to being excluded from a meeting on school’s policy (until others kindly insisted I be invited to it as my legal case was important to them), then told in strong terms I was not permitted to discuss the Equality Act at that meeting, I then received reports I’d been briefed against regarding my views on the EA and my offer to share my research was declined, my polite messages asking for support for my campaign were ignored. Not one repost by GCs to this day - all before I had uttered a word of critique about GC positioning.
I think I was placed firmly outside the GC camaraderie because I was perceived by atheist, pro choice, humanist, internationalist, liberal feminists and gay rights advocates to be ‘not liberal enough’ in some way - maybe a Christian, hard conservative or nationalist - maybe even (horror of horrors) anti abortion or a bit iffy about women’s or gay rights? Who else could possibly be against the EA2010 and HRA?
They were wrong about this - I just knew that the intersectional feminist and queer Marxist movement had taken control of the corruptible, Blairite human rights constitutional car crash that they still want to believe in. The totalitarians are now enacting a purity spiral that will engulf just about everyone who isn’t showing perfect allegiance to their Maoist style cultural revolution - all funded by powerful capital that cares not a bit about liberty.
They’re just coming for the Christian conservative, sovereigntists first (as Marxists will) and so I stand with them.
It is of no surprise to me that JKR used to work for Amnesty International… Forstater for The Global Development Fund… Joyce for the Economist. Remainer, internationalist human rights based governance is their mileu. They were simply the first to fall foul of or perceive the wrongness of the ‘trans’ issue and thought they could correct the good, Fabian ship. They are so wrong. ‘Trans’ is a feature not a bug of the Fabian project.
The entire, internationalist, Human Rights framework is the problem. It has all but ruined Britain and radical reform is needed, specifically we must repair our sovereignty and constitution if you want to keep women, children, minorities and the vulnerable safe.
Michael Scott retweeted
Palestinians have a feeling that the world has finally woken up and will right the wrong by dismantling Israel and constructing Palestine. They cannot be more delusional.
In fact, the world today is furthest away it has been from international law, ethics and morals. The post WWII world that was hoped to be as such, failed, because while America was powerful, it was not strong or patient enough to turn the world into one of law and order.
With the end of the world of international law and organizations comes the age of transactional global relations. Everyone for their own.
What Palestinians mistake as the world’s sympathy and support for them is in fact antisemitism and jealousy of Israel, independent of Palestinians. Take Iran and Turkey, both professed champions of Palestine. Neither one is fighting for a sovereign and independent Palestine, but for a Palestine that’s under their thumb. Just look how Iran rules Lebanon and Turkey rules Syria. Iran and Turkey have imperial schemes for the region and perhaps the world and political Islam is their best tool for cross border expansion.
The reason why Israel is the best bet for Arab countries that are useless and cannot behave as sovereign states is because their sovereignty is in Israel’s interest. Israel is strong enough to make Iran and Turkey kneel, but not big enough or willing to construct an empire. Beyond the borders of Mandate Palestine, Israel has no ambitions or schemes.
I know Arab propaganda teaches you Greater Israel is from the Euphrates to the Nile and that this is inscribed at the entrance to the Knesset, but this is false. Go to the Knesset and look for the inscription. You’ll find instead a copy of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, in Eretz Yisrael, the Hebrew name for British Mandate Palestine.
By going with Israel instead of Turkey and Iran, for the price of Palestine, Arabs can save the Levant, North Africa, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula from Turkish and Iranian imperial greed and schemes. This is how smart nations think, especially ones that could barely construct three or four functioning states out of 21.
Think before you respond. Don’t come to me with Palestinian rights, Gaza and genocide. Global affairs in a lawless world is about making the best out of a weak hand, not committing suicide for the sake of an imagined past in a resourceless and tiny piece of land.
I understand that if you’re Palestinian, you’ll say that your grandparents were forced to abandon their land. As Lebanese and Iraqi, my grandchildren will say their grandfather was forced to abandon his ancestral land in Iraq and Lebanon and migrated to America in pursuit of a better life. This is the story of humanity since human migration started out of Africa. People are not wedded to land. They’re designed to seek interests, and insisting on Palestine is like banging one’s head against a wall. Don’t let the cheering of the world’s crazies, from Hollywood to UN rapporteurs, fool you to keep doing it, thinking it’s possible. Think of your interests, not with your emotions.
Michael Scott retweeted
Britain had a moment of silence for George Floyd. Our politicians kneeled en masse to show their outrage at his killing. "I can't breathe" became a slogan.
George Floyd died on the other side of the world. He wasn't British.
Henry Nowak *was* British and his treatment by the police was shocking and negligent in the extreme. Yet there is no minute of silence. There is no coordinated public campaign. There is no kneeling at sporting events.
And we all know why.
During the summer of BLM, some people said "All Lives Matter". This was treated as the highest form of racism and anyone who said this was immediately cancelled. Why? Because the people in charge don't actually think all lives matter in the same way.
They have created a racial hierarchy of victimhood where a career criminal who died through mistreatment by police in a foreign country with 0 evidence of racism like George Floyd is automatically sanctified because of the colour of his skin.
And Henry Nowak, a British man, one of ours, is automatically dismissed and ignored because of the colour of his.
This is the ugly fruit of so-called "anti-racism", an obsession with race that has created a two-tier society which treats people differently because of the colour of their skin.
This needs to stop.
Michael Scott retweeted
I’m sure we have all now seen the footage of Metropolitan rozzers kicking a suspected terrorist in the head, repeatedly, when he was down.
We can all play a part in putting an end to this sort of police brutality. Mainly by not going around stabbing people.
Michael Scott retweeted
As a boy, I was at a boarding school very close to Parliament. I took the opportunity to go and watch the debates in both houses from the visitors' gallery; at that time it was not widely known that one could do this, so it was easy and quick to get in. I saw all the famous politicians of the 1970s. But what was self-evident, even to a teenager, was that whereas the elected members of parliament were out to score points in their speeches, before voting according to pre-set ideas, the hereditary Lords were genuinely issued in persuasion and had open minds. This was because, being hereditary, they were beholden to no-one and no party; ironically, they were much more representative of ordinary people with common sense than their political colleagues in the lower house.
Michael Scott retweeted
The Arab Word is Watching a Different War:
Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position:
The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks.
What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought.
Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies.
The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran.
The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic.
When Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world.
The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does.
This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice.
The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with.
The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence.
open.substack.com/pub/zinebr…
Michael Scott retweeted
If the New York Times reported the war in 1944 as it’s reporting the war today.
President Roosevelt continues to pursue a war for which he failed to prepare the United States. Though there have been some significant military achievements, especially in North Africa, U.S. forces remained bogged down in the Pacific and severely bloodied in strategically meaningless places like Tarawa and Guadalcanal. The Italian campaign has totally stalled, with an appalling loss of American life that will soon be surpassed by the utterly reckless and inevitably doomed invasion of France. Meanwhile, the innocent people of Japan and Germany continue to suffer. The damage to both their countries and the impact on the world economy is incalculable. The chances of a negotiated settlement appear more than ever remote. And all of this because the impressionable Roosevelt was duped into going to war by that master manipulator, Churchill.
Michael Scott retweeted
Pleased to announce that I’ve been invited onto Women’s Hour to discuss the rising numbers of ladies diagnosed with prostate cancer.
🏳️⚧️ ⚧️
Michael Scott retweeted
Iran has bombed Iraq. Saudi Arabia. UAE. Bahrain. Qatar. Kuwait. Jordan. Turkey. Even Cyprus. 16 days of war. Missiles and drones in every direction.
But one country right on Iran's border hasn't been touched - Pakistan.
And Pakistan has US military reconnaissance operations on its soil.
So why is Iran leaving Pakistan alone?
This is one of the most interesting strategic questions of this entire war. And the answer reveals something much bigger than just Pakistan.
First — let's establish what we know as fact.
Pakistan shares a 900-kilometer border with Iran. They are literal neighbors.
Iran has attacked countries far less threatening to it — Jordan, Turkey, Oman, Cyprus — countries with no shared border and minimal strategic significance to the US campaign.
Yet Pakistan, which borders Iran directly, which has US reconnaissance assets on its territory, which has deployed F-16s to Saudi Arabia under a mutual defense pact — has not received a single Iranian strike.
Iran has also not attacked Pakistan verbally. No threats. No warnings. No ultimatums.
In a war where Iran has threatened everyone from the UK to South Korea — complete silence toward Pakistan.
Here's why...
1. Pakistan is playing every side simultaneously — and Iran knows it.
Pakistan finds itself in one of the most complex positions of any country on earth right now.
It has a strategic defense agreement with Saudi Arabia — Iran's regional rival.
It has deployed F-16s to Saudi soil.
It procures over 80% of its military weapons from China.
It is simultaneously fighting its own war against the Taliban on its Afghan border.
It is managing violent pro-Iran Shia protests inside its own cities.
It has evacuated approximately 35,000 Pakistani nationals trapped inside Iran.
And it has publicly stated it considers Iran to be "defending itself" against US-Israeli aggression.
Pakistan is simultaneously allied with Iran's enemies and sympathetic to Iran's cause.
Attacking Pakistan would force it to pick a side.
And right now — Pakistan not picking a side is more valuable to Iran than any missile strike could achieve.
2. China.
This is where it gets strategically important.
China has invested $62 billion in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor — CPEC.
A massive infrastructure project running from western China all the way to Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea in Pakistan's Balochistan province.
Gwadar sits just 170 kilometers from Iran's own port of Chabahar.
China has been clear in its position: the CPEC corridor and Gwadar Port must be protected at all costs.
Beijing has even proposed permanently stationing Chinese military personnel in Gwadar.
Iran attacking Pakistan means Iran attacking the endpoint of China's most important strategic infrastructure project.
China buys over 80% of Iran's oil exports. It is Iran's single most critical economic lifeline during this war.
Iran will not bite the hand that feeds it.
3. The Corridor Theory.
This is an analytical hypothesis — not confirmed fact — but it is being discussed seriously by defense analysts.
Iran has been firing thousands of missiles and drones every day for 16 days.
The US has destroyed Iran's missile production facilities. Bombed its military infrastructure. Claims Iran's missile volume is down 90% from Day 1.
So the question that genuinely puzzles analysts is: where are Iran's weapons still coming from?
One theory gaining traction: the CPEC corridor running through Pakistan's Balochistan province — which shares a border with Iran's Sistan-Balochistan province — may be functioning as a supply route.
Oil going from Iran into China via Pakistan.
Drones, missiles and military supplies coming back the other way.
CPEC assets in Balochistan must be "urgently protected" — while simultaneously acknowledging the corridor's strategic proximity to Iran.
If this route exists — attacking Pakistan destroys the very lifeline keeping Iran's war machine running.
4. The nuclear factor.
Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state.
Iran is not.
Attacking a nuclear power — even with conventional weapons — carries escalation risks no military planner takes lightly.
A conflict that spills into Pakistani territory risks triggering responses that could involve China, India, and nuclear calculations that dwarf everything happening in the Gulf right now.
Iran is fighting a calculated, strategic war. Not a reckless one.
Starting a nuclear-adjacent crisis with Pakistan while already fighting the US and Israel simultaneously is not strategy. It is suicide.
Here is what all four reasons point to when you put them together.
Iran has not attacked Pakistan because Pakistan — whether intentionally or not — sits at the intersection of every strategic interest Iran needs to protect.
China's money. China's infrastructure. China's supply chains. Nuclear deterrence. Diplomatic ambiguity.
Iran is not being merciful toward Pakistan.
Iran is being strategic.