By Howard Bloom
Two surprising things happened in the Iran War on Wednesday, June 3rd. Congress passed a War Powers Resolution. And our president announced about Iran’s supreme leader that “we seem to be getting along quite well” and that he would like to sit down with him in person.
Meanwhile, our president has proclaimed that when it comes to settling the military confrontation with Tehran, he will wait Iran out.
But there is something crucial that our president appears not to know. Iran has weathered a war of missiles and aerial attacks like this one before. For eight long years–from 1980 to 1988– Iran was bloodied by the War of the Cities, a war with Iraq. Each side tried to destroy the other with missile attacks on key cities. Roughly a million died. Iran even sent children to the front line. Yes, children. To clear mine fields, hold territory, and participate in human wave attacks. For eight years Iran never stopped fighting. And it never gave up.
Our president’s dependability is low. One day he warns that if Iran doesn’t “cry uncle” and surrender within a day or two, Iran will be wiped off the face of the earth. Another day he may say that he has all the patience in the world. All the time in the world. And he may say that he can wait the Iranians out. Iran’s eight years of persistence in the war with Iraq says that he is wrong.
What’s worse, Foreign Affairs published an article on Wednesday, June 4, explaining that Iran’s communications with our president are not negotiations for peace. They are simply an Iranian “strategic pause.” They are just one step in Iran’s plan for a far longer struggle, a covert war to take over the entire middle east.
Then to take over the west. I am not exaggerating. As the Islamic Revolution’s founder, the Ayatollah Khomeini put it, “We do not accept the geographical divisions of the world… We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry ‘There is no god but Allah’ resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.” This global jihad is written into Iran’s constitution.
Congress’ passage of The War Powers Resolution Wednesday says to the Iranians that the American people will not tolerate a long war. And 70% of Americans have said it’s time for the war to end. In other words, the United States is throwing in the towel. Iran has already won. Despite our ability to drop bombs and launch missiles, Iran can wait us out.
There is something crucial that the Iran War should teach us. Persistence. Multi-generational persistence. The sort of persistence Islam showed for 779 years, from the time it first attacked Byzantium’s towering defensive walls in 674 ad to 1453, when the forces of Islam finally entered Byzantium as victors, looted, plundered and raped for a strictly limited two days, then turned the biggest church in the world, Hag Sofia, into a mosque, transforming the city from the head of the Roman Empire and the seat of Eastern Orthodox Christianity to a Capital of a Muslim Empire that stretched to the west from the gates of Vienna across the entire 2,500 mile coastline of North Africa. And that reached in the east from the Middle East 5,000 miles to islands in the Pacific Ocean. The triumphant Muslims even changed the name of Byzantium to Istanbul.
The message of this story? Persist. Be patient.
The Muslim empire never stopped growing. And it has not stopped growing today. Today, that empire ncludes Islamic states with a population of 1.9 billion people gathered in the gigantic Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the biggest organization of nations in the world today outside of the UN
How long will the Iran War go on? According to Iran’s Press TV,
The Armed Forces General Staff…issued a… statement vowing that resistance will continue until the “complete destruction” of the conspiracies of arrogant powers, the expulsion of foreign forces from West Asia [the Middle East], and the liberation of al-Quds [Jerusalem] through the destruction of the Israeli regime.
That could take a very long time. But Iran’s secret weapon will be patience.
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About the author: Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. Bloom’s new book is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong. Says Harvard’s Ellen Langer of The Case of the Sexual Cosmos, Bloom “argues that we are not savaging the earth as some would have it, but instead are growing the cosmos. A fascinating read.” One of Bloom’s eight previous books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. Not to mention in scientific journals like Biosystems, New Ideas in Psychology, and PhysicaPlus. Bloom has also appeared more than 40 times on Iranian and Saudi TV and has debated senior figures from Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Says Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution’s End and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, “I have finished Howard Bloom’s [first two] books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I never expected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom’s on the planet.” For more, see http://howardbloom.net or http://howardbloom.institute
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References:
Primary Sources: Writings and Statements of Ayatollah Khomeini
Khomeini, Ruhollah. A Clarification of Questions: An Unabridged Translation of Resaleh Towzih al Masael. Translated by J. Borujerdi. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984.
Khomeini, Ruhollah. Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Translated by Hamid Algar. Berkeley, CA: Mizan Press, 1981.
Khomeini, Ruhollah. Sahifeh-ye Imam [Imam’s Book]: An Ontology of Imam Khomeini’s Speeches, Messages, Interviews, Decrees, Religious Permissions, and Letters. 22 vols. Tehran: The Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works, 2008.
Khomeini, Ruhollah. Sayings of the Ayatollah Khomeini: Political, Philosophical, Social, and Religious. New York: Bantam Books, 1980.
Secondary Books & Historical Standard Texts
Cordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner. The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.
Runciman, Steven. The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Strategic Analyses of the Iran-Iraq Conflict (1980–1988). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Academic Journals & Policy Research Reports
Bajoghli, Narges, and Vali Nasr. “Iran’s New Grand Strategy: How a Remade Islamic Republic Will Reshape the Middle East.” Foreign Affairs 105, no. 3 (May/June 2026): 142–155.
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “Rhetorical Shifts in Tehran’s Hardline Press Regarding U.S. Executive Authority.” Special Dispatch No. 11420, May 18, 2026.
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). “Official Roster and Charter of Member States.” OIC General Secretariat. Accessed June 3, 2026. https://www.oic-oci.org/states/.
Pew Research Center. “Public Sentiments on Prolonged Military Engagements in West Asia.” National Security and Public Opinion Index, May 28, 2026.
United States Institute of Peace. “The Iran Primer: Tracking the Rhetoric of Tension.” Last modified May 20, 2026.https://iranprimer.usip.org/.
Government & Official Records
Soleimani, Qasem. “Address to the Nation on U.S. Threats.” Public speech delivered at Hamedan, Iran, July 26, 2018. Transcribed and translated by BBC Monitoring Middle East, July 27, 2018.
U.S. Congress. House. Directing the Termination of the Use of United States Armed Forces for Hostilities Against the Islamic Republic of Iran. H. Con. Res. 86. 119th Cong., 2nd sess. Passed June 3, 2026.
Media & Press Reports
Associated Press. “House Votes 215–208 to Restrict Presidential War Powers in Iran Conflict.” The Washington Post, June 3, 2026.
Fars News Agency. “Tehran Rejects Washington’s Mock Offers of Negotiations.” May 14, 2024. English edition.
Kayhan. “The True Face of the Arch-Criminal: Maximum Pressure and the Port Blockades.” Editorial, May 3, 2026.
Nelson, Steven. “Exclusive | Trump Predicts Meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei: ‘Getting Along Quite Well’.” New York Post, June 3, 2026. https://nypost.com/2026/06/03/us-news/trump-predicts-meeting-with-irans-supreme-leader-mojtaba-khamenei-getting-along-quite-well/.
Press TV. “US House Approves Resolution Aimed at Limiting Trump’s War Powers.” June 3, 2026.https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/06/03/769796/United-States-Trump-Iran-war-powers-House.
Press TV. “Iran’s Military: Enemy Has No Choice But to Surrender.” June 3, 2026.https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/06/03/769758/Iran%E2%80%99s-military-Enemy-No-choice-but-to-surrender.
Tehran Times. “A Rogue Framework: How the U.S. Outlaw Posture Undermines Global Security.” June 1, 2026.
Tehran Times. “Armed Forces Vow Unyielding Resistance Until Liberation of Al-Quds.” Joint Communiqué of the Armed Forces General Staff and Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, June 3, 2026.