It is neither frivolous nor without a long-range strategic aim that the decision-makers in the Iranian operations room directing Yemen's Houthi militias should decide to target Makkah. No; there are several aims behind a matter of this gravity. And there are reasons- which can be placed within the course of the war under way for seven months- that required Tehran to take the decision for the trial run that took place on the fifteenth of this month: sending a drone toward the Grand Mosque in Makkah, which Saudi defense forces intercepted and destroyed before its operators could bring it into the airspace of the holiest place for Muslims in the whole world. The purpose was to gauge the reactions to this audacity- Islamic reactions in particular, and international ones in general.
Of course, to anyone who has followed closely the upheavals the Middle East has passed through since Khomeinism took power in Iran, it is no secret what dreams of dominion over the Islamic world haunted the leaders of the so-called "Islamic Revolution." They sought to realize them by every means within reach, some of them not free of domination over minorities of every confession inside Iran and beyond it, quite apart from raising the banner of exporting the method of their "revolution" to neighboring states. It was within this scheme that the First Gulf War broke out, after the pressure of Iranian provocation exceeded every limit the Iraqi government of the time could tolerate. So came the eight-year confrontation that ended with Khomeini compelled to "drink the poison chalice."
The reality is that no one invited the rulers of Khomeinist Iran to drink any poison. They were the party that refused to respond seriously to the attempts of the neighboring states around them to lay foundations for relations resting on a dialogue aimed at resolving points of difference in any field, choosing instead Khomeini's insistence on imposing the program of the "Islamic Revolution," even by force. Within this context of coercion, more than one provocative event took place in execution of Tehran's instructions- among them, for instance, the organizing of riots by Iranian pilgrims in Makkah during the Hajj season of 1407 AH, corresponding to 1987, despite the decisive divine command forbidding all lewdness, wrangling, and wickedness during the performance of the rites of the obligation. But none of the Iranian provocations was frivolous or mere chance.
No; Makkah is the target. The Ancient House is the direction of prayer for the multitudes of Muslims in every prayer, and it is the place whose people- the custodians charged with serving it- the Creator distinguished, answering the prayer of Abraham, peace be upon him, that He make the hearts of people from every corner of the world incline toward them, and provide them abundantly with fruits. Is it any wonder, then, that they should be a target? No. The methods have varied, and the approaches multiplied. Despite the sectarian difference and the vast distance in time between the drone of the Houthi militias and the Juhayman seizure of the Grand Mosque in 1979, the aim of targeting Makkah remains one and the same. And it must be said, too, that Palestinian voices standing in the Iranian-Houthi ranks- beyond being a fundamentally mistaken position- are a painful matter, with nothing to justify them, whatever their proponents claim, whatever the content of those claims, and whatever the platforms from which they launch them.
