God Be With Us. And Our Enemies.

Thoughts on Iran and Nazi Germany

When I was a college student my mother worked for an Iranian thoracic surgeon, Dr. Hadi. He was perhaps the first Muslim I ever met, growing up in WV.

His father had gone to military academy with the Shah, Rezah Pahlavi.

Dr. Hadi was unfailingly kind and compassionate. I’ll never forget that in his office was a beautiful hand drawn piece of artwork of a lion, done by an artist, in gratitude for the medical care he provided to the wife of the artist. I can still see the pattern in my mind.

Dr, Hadi, of blessed memory, encouraged me. When I was in college he paid me to clean his office. When I was in medical school I spent time with him in the OR.

Every Iranian, every Persian that I have met in my education and career has been, well, a regular, kind human being.

We should pray for the safety and freedom of the people of Persia. They deserve so much better than what they’ve endured, and what western leaders have basically encouraged, for decades.

They have lived under cruel oppression for far too long. Torture and death or not strangers to them. Freedom and civil liberties are strangers.

And that doesn’t mean it’s our job to change regimes. It’s just that we can feel sorrow for people who have been downtrodden and hope for better.

I don’t pretend to understand the geopolitics of all of this. My last formal education in such was from Dr. Abbas at Marshall University. I took his upper level Middle Eastern Politics class. He was a wonderful political science professor who was Iraqi. He was passionate in his opinions and my eyes were opened. But sadly, that was about 40 years ago. Much has changed.

I think that we can look at the world and be sad for the wars and the suffering of all. I believe we can hope for changes in politics and changes in heart. We can recognize that even the guilty have families and friends and are part of networks that are disrupted by loss.

And we can certainly pray that peace erupts all over.

Sometimes that peace comes at a high price. What will that mean right now? I’m not smart enough to know.

But in it we can see humanity.

Many years ago I cared for an older patient who was German. He had fallen and had some broken ribs. He came back from the CT scanner and laughed, “the last time I had my hands over my head like that, one of Patton’s soldiers had a rifle in my back!”

(Ironically I also met one of Patton’s drivers once. He said ‘General Patton? He was crazy!’)

Anyway, my patient had been a young Wermacht soldier. He said, “we knew that we had to lose. We couldn’t live like that.” He understood the tyranny and misery of life under Hitler.

But he pointed out that German soldiers’ belt buckles said:

Gott Mit Uns.

God with us.

That’s what they thought even though their leadership, their oppression, was shown to be wrong.

I wonder how many of our ‘enemies’ around the world are just like my German friend. Swept up in events they really prefer to avoid. Believing they’re right but suspecting they’re wrong.

Perhaps in future years we’ll meet them and they’ll say much the same.

And in that moment we will be reminded of that fact that while danger sometimes has to be confronted, there is also far more good in the people of world than we realize.

God be with all.