Regardless of one’s faith or religious convictions, Easter and Passover are always a time for reflecting on the concepts of renewal, hope and optimism. Resurrection, even. Confronted with the terrifying thought of a major ongoing war in the Middle East and what such a conflict potentially means for Australia – fuel shortages, empty shelves, crops not making it to market – it would be easy to fall into despair and fear. But that is not the message of Easter.

So let’s look on the bright side. There is no question that at some point the West would have had to confront the murderous Islamic regime of Iran. For close on half a century there have been two absolute certainties in this contest of ideologies between democracy and Shia fundamentalism. On the one hand, from the revolution’s inception, and never wavering for a second, the mullahs have declared ‘Death to America’, ‘Death to Israel’, and ‘Death to the West’. There has been no ambiguity or room for misinterpretation on the part of the ayatollahs. Every weapon manufactured or purchased was earmarked for one of those ideological destinations. Every proxy ragtag army knew that their particular skirmish or battle was all part of a bigger Iranian Islamist picture. Every young Iranian army recruit was schooled to believe in the divine righteousness of the apocalyptic vision of the mad mullahs.

As far back as the 1980s, serious commentators have been warning that the Iranians’ pursuit of nuclear weapons would end up bringing a nuclear war to the Middle East. Whereas the concept of ‘mutually assured destruction’ and other deterrence strategies have been enough to prevent nuclear weapons being used since 1945, the simple reality is that radical Shia Islam is an ideology that is immune to such strategies. The horrific reality is that there are those within the Islamic republic who genuinely believe that a nuclear conflagration over Jerusalem is not only unavoidable, but for religious reasons, desirable. You cannot reason with such a belief system.

The only people who did not take seriously the deadly intent of the Iranian supreme leadership were those left-leaning luvvies occupying seats of power from Washington to Brussels to Canberra, along, of course, with the craven and pathetic Western media. So put aside the laughable comments regarding the timing of Trump’s attack from those who, like Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, idiotically ask, ‘Why now?’. The real question is, ‘Why didn’t it happen sooner?’

In any war, one side must move first. The Iranian gamble, and it was a pretty good one, was that no Western leader, not even an Israeli one, would ever dare launch a serious attack against Iran if there was any kind of face-saving alternative. Thus, Tehran knew that all it had to do was keep stalling the West until it had built up a nuclear military capability that made any deterrence irrelevant, allowing Iran to either move against Israel or begin a war that would escalate to a nuclear exchange. Hence, the building of vast underground facilities. Luckily for the regime, the gullible (or treacherous, depending on how you look at it) Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, and thus began a blissful eight years of Iran not only arming itself, but doing so with pallet-loads of cash flown in by the foolish Americans themselves.

Oh, how the mullahs must have laughed themselves silly!

A nuclear bomb to threaten the annihilation of Israel was, until a month ago, the regime’s primary focus and coveted goal. How close did they actually get? Well, there was only one way to actually find out and that would have been the moment Tehran was armed and ready. Did we really want to carry on playing ‘chicken’ with these lunatics so we could find out with absolute certainty? Reportedly, the regime recently boasted of having enough uranium for eleven nuclear warheads.

If we are talking about optimism, hope and even ‘resurrection’, surely the greatest hope now is that the entire vile regime will be toppled and replaced with a non-Islamist government, perhaps even a constitutional monarchy built upon the return of the son of the Shah. The rebirth of a Western-leaning and non-theocratic Iran.

Such an outcome would in turn lead to the possibility of a comprehensive peace across the region, or at least a genuine sense of stability and safety. With peace and security comes prosperity. Indeed, a rebirth of Iran would be a rebirth of the entire Middle East.

Will it happen? As recently as only a decade ago, it seemed impossible that, for example, the Saudis would even talk to the Israelis. Now they are fighting on the same side, along with the rest of the Gulf.

Yes, it could all go horribly wrong, in ways that do not bear thinking about. But given how high the stakes are, and how incredible the rewards of success would be, for the time being, it’s worth remaining optimistic. In spite of all the inconveniences and problems that lie ahead.