This piece draws a sharp line from the ancient Scroll of Esther to modern Iran, arguing that Tehran’s regime aims at annihilation and domination, uses terror proxies and digital warfare, and must be confronted by free nations across military, informational and diplomatic fronts.
Every Purim the Scroll of Esther brings us face to face with a villain who sought “to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews” in a single decree. That story is not just a religious ritual or a children’s tale of costumes and noisemakers, it is a political parable about power, ideology and the bureaucratic machinery of hatred. Today’s Tehran follows the same script, replacing scrolls and seals with missiles and proxy networks.
Hamas’s rampage on Oct. 7 did not spring from nowhere; it came from a network of sponsors and handlers that Iran has cultivated for decades. Those proxy groups are stitched into what Tehran calls the “axis of resistance,” a strategic web that includes militias, terrorists and state allies. The regime has patiently built a “ring of fire” around Israel to try to strangle it and to push America and allies out of the region.
But Iran’s offensive is not limited to rockets and suicide attacks; it is fought in bytes as well as bullets. Tehran deploys bots, fake profiles and coordinated influence operations to sway public opinion, inflame divisions and demoralize opponents. Investigations have shown coordinated bursts of inauthentic posts flooding discussions in Hebrew, Arabic and English to amplify fear and discord.
These efforts are not random trolling. They are state‑directed information warfare aimed at strategic goals like weakening Israeli morale, crushing Iranian dissent, fracturing Western alliances and rewriting the story of victim and aggressor. When regime actors push narratives blaming outsiders or recasting oppression as liberation, they are trying to invert reality and normalize violence.
The same hands that arm Hamas and Hezbollah also murder brave women in Iran who take off their headscarves and punish students who speak out. Tehran supplies drones and tech to hostile states, threatens Gulf partners who open to Israel, and wages a global campaign to smear dissidents as foreign agents. The ideological hatred that animated Haman has been modernized, widened and exported.
Online campaigns have impersonated Israelis, Americans and Europeans to call for Western retreat or internal chaos, and they have repackaged “Zionist control” and other tropes to fit modern audiences. Those operations aim to make democracies doubt themselves and abandon friends when solidarity matters most. The result is a battlefield where truth, identity and alliances are under attack.
Standing with Israel after Oct. 7 is not a denial of other victims, it is recognition of a system of aggression that threatens many peoples and places. The regime’s vision does not stop at one border or one faith; it targets anyone who stands in the way of its revolutionary project, from Sunni Arab partners to American interests. To confront that threat we must be clear about who the enemy is and how it operates.
Defeating this threat requires action on multiple levels: degrade Iran’s military reach, dismantle its proxy networks on the battlefield, and support the courageous Iranians who challenge theocracy at great personal risk. We also need to harden our information environment against manipulation and push back diplomatically so Tehran cannot operate with impunity. These are practical, strategic steps that free nations and allies can pursue together.
Information hygiene matters as much as missile defense; bolstering media literacy and exposing inauthentic campaigns will blunt Tehran’s ability to weaponize narratives. Governments should work with technology platforms to identify and disrupt botnets and fake persona factories without silencing legitimate dissent. Civil society and private media must also stay vigilant and call out deception when it appears.
At the same time, moral clarity is a political necessity. A regime that promises annihilation of a people cannot be treated as just another negotiating partner while it builds weapons and proxies. Standing up for allies and pushing back against tyrants is not adventurism, it is prevention, and it preserves peace by denying aggressors the confidence to escalate.
History’s message is blunt: when a power builds its identity around erasure, indifference is complicity. The Scroll of Esther ends with the intended victims fighting back and surviving, and that resilience is the model for modern defense of freedom. If free nations act with unity and resolve, they can blunt Tehran’s ambition and protect vulnerable communities and allies from future decrees.
