TEHRAN – One of the dark points in the history of Iran was the Qajar dynasty and their multiple defeats against Tsarist Russia in the Caucasus, followed by the fragmentation and loss of Iranian territory.

In an era when, due to the conditions of the Treaty of Turkmenchay, all lands north of the Aras River had been ceded to Russia, and in addition, a compensation of 20 million rubles had been imposed on Iran, a French officer named Jaubert had a strange meeting with Abbas Mirza, the crown prince of Iran, governor of Azerbaijan, and commander of the Iranian army in the war camp. Jaubert considered Abbas Mirza, unlike other government officials he had met during his mission, to be a sincere and compassionate individual, as he recounts in his memoirs.

He states: "Abbas Mirza, who was deep in thought about the technical and scientific advancements of Europeans, asked me, as a representative of France and the West, questions out of pain. He asked:

'I do not know what this power is that has made you "Europeans" dominant over us, and what causes our weakness and your progress? You excel in fighting armies and conquering, and using your intellectual powers, while we are immersed in ignorance and turmoil and rarely consider the future. Is it that the population and fertility and wealth of the East are less than that of Europe? Or does the sun, which shines on us before reaching you, have less beneficial effects on us than on you? Or does God, whose mercy is equal to all particles of the world, prefer your wishes over ours? I do not think so. Speak as a foreigner! Tell me what I should do to awaken the Iranians.'"

Perhaps the first answer to this question can be found in our modern history when during the 1980s, Iranians stood against Saddam Hussein’s invasion despite disproportionately lower military and logistical capabilities. Saddam was backed by numerous countries from all over the globe, yet he could not achieve anything against the Iranian people who were determined to fight for their country. 

However, aside from that eight-year defense and our current military self-reliance, we may find a more precise answer to Abbas Mirza's question in the return march of the people of Gaza to their northern homeland.

When Netanyahu, Biden, and all of the West with all their technological equipment face a popular demand or empty-handed people in every dimension—military, intelligence, political, and civilian—they struggle to achieve victory, it becomes clear that the effects of the sun on us Easterners are no less than those on Westerners. A new era in history has arrived for us Easterners through the lessons and patterns of this event.

To clarify the situation, we can quickly touch upon a few points: Israel, Netanyahu, and their supporters—namely all Western governments—have done everything they could in this year and a half of genocide. They used every non-nuclear weapon available to kill women, children, and defenseless people in Gaza. However, not only did they fail to achieve their greatest goals—namely eliminating the ongoing resistance of these people for their land—but even with all their espionage tools and continuous drone flights, as well as bribing these people with ten-million-dollar rewards for betrayal and turning their backs on Resistance, they did not achieve even minimal success in reaching their initial goal of identifying where their hostages were kept and then freeing them through military means. 

In terms of politics, we see today a storm has arisen in the minds of people around the world. The grandeur accompanied by exaggeration and perpetual victimhood of Zionists has been shattered over the graves of the victims of the Holocaust—a Holocaust that for all the years following World War II was merely an excuse for them to bury completely innocent Eastern nations alive in the grave they had dug for them.

Now this excuse has turned into a less effective weapon for justifying their crimes, resulting in widespread hatred among people around the world towards Netanyahu and his extremist government, and Israeli soldiers being recognized as war criminals when traveling to other countries.

The fall of this mask of victimhood and the exposure of the truly repugnant face of Zionism—and, more importantly, the world's new awareness of "the real ability of Easterners"—will create a terrifying future for the perpetual security of arms dealers and Western warmongers in the region.

Ultimately, it can be said that the one-million-person return march of these suffering people to their ruined ancestral homes in Gaza carries an eternal message across history—both past and future—that echoes the words Abbas Mirzas will shout throughout history:

"O Joubert,
Finally, we Easterners have succeeded."