以色列和伊朗又大打出手了。这一次不像去年那样双方表现得相当克制，只为给国内舆论一个交代而点到为止，而是从一开始就展现出往死里打的态势。同样，这次冲突也是由以色列先发制人的打击开始的，与去年以色列和黎巴嫩真主党之间的冲突非常相似。在令人惊讶的精准情报支援下，以色列对伊朗高官特别是伊朗革命卫队的首脑进行了斩首行动。同时，为了解除伊朗的核威胁能力，遭到暗杀和斩首的还包括伊朗顶级的核物理科学家。这些情报的精准程度几乎可以确定，伊朗政权内部充满了各种内鬼，导致其四处漏风。
伊朗作为一个神权国家，内部尚且如此分裂，世界上一些世俗化的专制政权，其成员的忠诚度可想而知，也仅停留在口头层面。与以色列人有直接利害冲突的主要是阿拉伯人，但经过几次中东战争和数次冲突后，阿拉伯国家基本承认现实，不再谋求消灭以色列。唯独伊朗还在坚持这一口号，尽管伊朗和以色列并不直接领土相邻，且历史上波斯人和犹太人之间的关系相当不错。在古代历史和圣经记载中，犹太人的祖先建立的国家多次被亚述、巴比伦等帝国毁灭，人民被掳为奴隶。而波斯帝国取代巴比伦帝国后，居鲁士大帝释放了那些被囚的犹太人，让他们返回故土。当然，现在的伊朗是伊斯兰神权国家，与历史上的波斯帝国不可同日而语。在伊斯兰革命前的巴列维王朝，伊朗确实与以色列关系非常友好。
然而，双方如今剑拔弩张的局面主要源于两国统治阶层的利益考量。从伊朗这次开战初期被渗透斩首的情况来看，伊朗政权内部相当分裂，亲西方的派别在明面上被压制，但数量不小。因此，掌握话语权的神权派必须树立以色列这个外敌和威胁，以团结内部并压制亲以色列派和亲西方派的话语权。另一方面，这也牵涉到伊斯兰教近千年来的教派之争。伊斯兰教在先知穆罕默德死后分裂成两大派：逊尼派遵从叙利亚地区的总督为新哈里发，什叶派则坚持以穆罕默德的家族血统为合法性。历史上，逊尼派一直掌握较强的军事实力，压制着什叶派。如今，在逊尼派为主的阿拉伯国家已放弃与以色列对抗的情况下，什叶派的伊朗扛起这面大旗更能凸显什叶派作为伊斯兰教正统代表的地位，从而提升伊朗神权政权的合法性。
Israel and Iran are fighting again. This time, instead of showing considerable restraint on both sides as last year, just to give an explanation to domestic public opinion, they showed a posture of fighting to the death from the very beginning. Again, this conflict began with an Israeli preemptive strike, very similar to last year's clash between Israel and Allah in Lebanon. Backed by surprisingly accurate intelligence, Israel has carried out a beheading operation against senior Iranian officials, especially the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. At the same time, Iran's top nuclear physicists have been assassinated and beheaded in an effort to disarm Iran's nuclear threat capabilities. The accuracy of this information is almost certain, and the Iranian regime is full of intrigues that are leaking everywhere.
Iran is still so divided internally as a theocratic state, and the loyalty of its members to some of the world's secular authoritarian regimes is understandably only at the level of words. It is mainly the Arabs who have a direct interest in the Israelis, but after several wars and several conflicts in the Middle East, the Arab countries have largely recognized the reality and no longer seek to eliminate Israel. Iran is the only country that still sticks to this slogan, even though Iran and Israel are not directly territorially adjacent and relations between Persians and Jews have historically been quite good. In ancient history and biblical records, the countries founded by the ancestors of the Jews were repeatedly destroyed by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, and the people were taken into slavery. After the Persian Empire replaced the Babylonian Empire, Cyrus the Great released the imprisoned Jews and allowed them to return to their homeland. Of course, Iran today is an Islamic theocracy, not unlike the historical Persian Empire. During the Pahlavi dynasty before the Islamic Revolution, Iran did have very friendly relations with Israel.
However, the current tension between the two sides is largely due to the interests of the ruling classes of both countries. Judging by the infiltration and beheadings in the early days of the current war, the Iranian regime is quite divided internally, and the pro-Western factions are suppressed on the surface, but in large numbers. Therefore, the theocracy, which holds the right to speak, must establish Israel as an external enemy and threat in order to unite internally and suppress the discourse of pro-Israel and pro-Western factions. On the other hand, it is also involved in sectarian strife in Islam for nearly a thousand years. Islam split after the death of the Prophet Muhammad: the Sunnis followed the governor of Syria as the new caliphate, and the Shiites insisted on Muhammad's family lineage as legitimacy. Historically, the Sunnis have always had a strong military power to suppress the Shiites. Now, with the predominantly Sunni Arab countries abandoning confrontation with Israel, Shiite Iran is raising the banner to highlight the Shiites as the legitimate representative of Islam, thereby enhancing the legitimacy of Iran's theocratic regime.