“I think it means bringing the end of the world closer, sort of.” (Illuminatus! - Vol 1 - Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson)

According to a report in ‘The Guardian’, US military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify involvement in the Iran war to troops, according to complaints made to a watchdog group.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has received more than 200 complaints from personnel across the US armed forces including members of the  Marines, Air Force and Space Force.

According to one complaint from an NCO in a unit on standby to be deployed “at any moment to join “operations against Iran, their unit commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”

“He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”, the NCO added.

According to Mikey Weinstein (MRFF’s president) “These reports indicate an increase in Christian extremism in the military”, noting that the complainants “report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders” who perceive a “‘biblically-sanctioned’ war that is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’.”

Shia Islam, in its Twelver version, demands (as is made explicit in the Constitution of Iran itself, article 5 --> ref. to art. 107 calling for the upcoming of the Mahdi) the coming of the End of Times (as implied by the reappearance of the Madhi), and clearly commends it as a desirable state of affairs. This is un undeniable principle of the Iranian Constitution. The ayatollahs and their acolytes long for the coming of the end of the world, as Christopher Hitchens so eloquently reminded everyone who would read/listen on several occasions.

The fact that you are denouncing here to me sounds as the shadow of a shadow of a similar intent from members of the US military, although from a Christian viewpoint, and it strikes me as profoundly unbalanced in its scope, never mind some groups or subgroups of such institution being in synch with such delusional thoughts. "According to a report" and according to complaints made to "a watchdog group", and all of this reflected by "a certain paper", to me, is not enough.

IMHO, the situation is bad enough as it is, without anybody trying to make it look like what's going on is another crusade from the Christians against the Muslims. Something it is not.

This is playing with fire ideologically.

It will take me one week at least to get up to speed with any answers on this thread, so please bear with me. I don't generally participate in these topics, but in this case accuracy is of paramount importance.

2 hours ago, joigus said:

Shia Islam, in its Twelver version, demands (as is made explicit in the Constitution of Iran itself, article 5 --> ref. to art. 107 calling for the upcoming of the Mahdi) the coming of the End of Times (as implied by the reappearance of the Madhi), and clearly commends it as a desirable state of affairs. This is un undeniable principle of the Iranian Constitution. The ayatollahs and their acolytes long for the coming of the end of the world, as Christopher Hitchens so eloquently reminded everyone who would read/listen on several occasions.

The fact that you are denouncing here to me sounds as the shadow of a shadow of a similar intent from members of the US military, although from a Christian viewpoint, and it strikes me as profoundly unbalanced in its scope, never mind some groups or subgroups of such institution being in synch with such delusional thoughts. "According to a report" and according to complaints made to "a watchdog group", and all of this reflected by "a certain paper", to me, is not enough.

IMHO, the situation is bad enough as it is, without anybody trying to make it look like what's going on is another crusade from the Christians against the Muslims. Something it is not.

This is playing with fire ideologically.

It will take me one week at least to get up to speed with any answers on this thread, so please bear with me. I don't generally participate in these topics, but in this case accuracy is of paramount importance.

I’m not entirely sure what you are criticising or taking exception to here. The pernicious effect of what is commonly known as ‘Christian Zionism’ in neo-con political circles concerned with US foreign policy has been widely documented for quite a number of years.

To avoid any misunderstanding, what is being  referred to here are white evangelical fundamentalist  christians who believe that they are living in elder times in which the apocalyptic events described in the Book of Revelation are being re-enacted.

They fervently believe that the locale and the geo-political objectives they are pursuing will coincide with the arrival of the Antichrist and his defeat in the final battle of Armageddon on the plains of Megiddo and the valley of Jehoshaphat, followed by the second coming of the messiah, and a ‘rapture’ of the faithful up into heaven by the Lord.

President George W. Bush was susceptible to this form of bible-thumping, and it was one of the factors that helped direct his administration’s disastrous march into the second Persian Gulf war from 2001 onwards.

Mike Pompeo  a former director of the CIA who became the Secretary of State in the first Trump administration was yet another believer. A New York Times article from  30 March 2019 spelled out quite clearly what that belief system involved:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/politics/pompeo-christian-policy.html

An evangelical Christian, Mr. Pompeo had just returned from tours of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on the ground where Jesus is said to have been crucified and buried, and of tunnels beneath the Western Wall, by the holiest site in Judaism. The interviewer posed a question around a biblical tale about a queen who saved Jews from slaughter by a Persian official: Did Mr. Pompeo think President Trump had been “raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?”

“As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Mr. Pompeo said. “It was remarkable — so we were down in the tunnels where we could see 3,000 years ago, and 2,000 years ago, if I have the history just right — to see the remarkable history of the faith in this place, and the work that our administration’s done, to make sure that this democracy in the Middle East, that this Jewish state, remains. I am confident that the Lord is at work here.”

Mike Huckabee the current US Ambassador to Israel is another senior political figure who has expressed views similar to those of Christian Zionism in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson

https://forward.com/news/807715/mike-huckabee-christian-zionism-tucker-carlson/

President Trump still routinely holds ‘prayer meetings’ in the Oval Office with fundamentalist christians, and there have been troubling reports that key foreign policy decisions are sometimes being influenced by what used to be known as Stichomancy (from the the Greek root στιχος - “row, line, verse”) aka Bibliomancy,  a form of divination in which the bible is opened to a random page and a finger placed on a verse with your eyes closed. The same was said to have happened during the G.W Bush administrations as well.

2 hours ago, joigus said:

IMHO, the situation is bad enough as it is, without anybody trying to make it look like what's going on is another crusade from the Christians against the Muslims. Something it is not.

Whether it is or not, there are more than a few prominent Americans who don't mind portraying it exactly as a crusade, Pete Hegseth among them

Edited March 9Mar 9 by npts2020
example

On 3/9/2026 at 2:02 AM, toucana said:

I’m not entirely sure what you are criticising or taking exception to here.

Here:

On 3/8/2026 at 11:20 PM, joigus said:

[...] and it strikes me as profoundly unbalanced in its scope, never mind some groups or subgroups of such institution being in synch with such delusional thoughts.

The lack of balance in the analysis.

Also in answer to,

On 3/9/2026 at 2:05 AM, npts2020 said:

Whether it is or not, there are more than a few prominent Americans who don't mind portraying it exactly as a crusade, Pete Hegseth among them

On the one hand (worryingly, I admit) we have relevant people willing to portray what should be --and IMO essentially is-- a geopolitical/geostrategic affair, however ill-conducted, ill-motivated, etc as an eminently religiously motivated course of events.

On the other hand (IRI) we have an echelon of highly influential, be-all-end-all fanatics, religious zealots of the coming of the end. So much so that they included it in their Constitution. Every waking hour they devote to speeding up the coming of the last Imam and are longing for Christ to come back to Earth, and "kill the swine", and "break the cross", and "abolish the Yizya", which, as you can imagine if you know anything about Islamic theology, implies either convert to Islam or die.

The latter is not something they (here and there) utter, mutter or confide to others. They've written it in their law, they proclaim it. They accept nothing but it. It's the main reason for their existence.

It is arguably fortunate that Sunnis (the mayority) are not in such a hurry to kill us all. The leaders of Iran have been for a while.

3 hours ago, joigus said:

The leaders of Iran have been for a while.

Worth asking if ordinary Iranian citizens really buy into all this eschatological crap. I doubt it but am open to survey evidence.

My impression is that in the US, even conservative states, most people do not believe in dominion theology (the broader category of those who believe a Christian theocracy across all the globe is destined) and consider the dominionists to be kooks. Unfortunately the military does seem to be attracting a lot of Christian nationalists in its recruiting, as well as right-wing partisans generally. While many of those might not believe the End Times hogwash they are in a military structure where they "go along to get along."

47 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Worth asking if ordinary Iranian citizens really buy into all this eschatological crap. I doubt it but am open to survey evidence.

No, it is coming mostly from the leadership and a loyal rural core. If you talk with Iranian students, you might be surprised how modern and westernized (not really the right term, but I can't think of something fitting right now) they are, especially the women and especially relative to some of their peers in the area.

4 hours ago, joigus said:

On the other hand (IRI) we have an echelon of highly influential, be-all-end-all fanatics, religious zealots of the coming of the end. So much so that they included it in their Constitution. Every waking hour they devote to speeding up the coming of the last Imam and are longing for Christ to come back to Earth, and "kill the swine", and "break the cross", and "abolish the Yizya", which, as you can imagine if you know anything about Islamic theology, implies either convert to Islam or die.

The latter is not something they (here and there) utter, mutter or confide to others. They've written it in their law, they proclaim it. They accept nothing but it. It's the main reason for their existence.

The Constitution of Iran (in its 1989 amendment form) contains 177 articles organised in 14 chapters. Perhaps you would like to specify which articles you are referring to ?

7 hours ago, joigus said:

Here:

The lack of balance in the analysis.

Also in answer to,

On the one hand (worryingly, I admit) we have relevant people willing to portray what should be --and IMO essentially is-- a geopolitical/geostrategic affair, however ill-conducted, ill-motivated, etc as an eminently religiously motivated course of events.

On the other hand (IRI) we have an echelon of highly influential, be-all-end-all fanatics, religious zealots of the coming of the end. So much so that they included it in their Constitution. Every waking hour they devote to speeding up the coming of the last Imam and are longing for Christ to come back to Earth, and "kill the swine", and "break the cross", and "abolish the Yizya", which, as you can imagine if you know anything about Islamic theology, implies either convert to Islam or die.

The latter is not something they (here and there) utter, mutter or confide to others. They've written it in their law, they proclaim it. They accept nothing but it. It's the main reason for their existence.

It is arguably fortunate that Sunnis (the mayority) are not in such a hurry to kill us all. The leaders of Iran have been for a while.

But the point is Iranian politics has been like it has since '79. It's a known quantity. This shift to non-secularism in the US administration is very recent, with the pernicious influence of Christian Nationalism infiltrating US policy. Your response to the OP, imo. detours from the concerning sharp turn the US is taking geopolitically and domestically towards a theocratic mindset, like the Iranian government. The US is turning into an Iran. Both the pot and kettle are actually black.

I'll have to agree with @joigus

Whereas The Iranian Religious leadership believes the fundamental crap about the 'end times', and tries to convert as many nutbars as they can to their apocalyptic views, The American leadership is only using the ruse of fundamentalist religion to influence as many American nutbars as they can.
But make no mistake, American leaders only pretend at religion, fundamental or otherwise; the altar they worship at is the almighty dollar.

( frankly, I'm not sure which is worse )

Edited Saturday at 11:52 AM5 days by MigL

13 hours ago, TheVat said:

Worth asking if ordinary Iranian citizens really buy into all this eschatological crap. I doubt it but am open to survey evidence.

From recent demonstrations and the savage repression by the regime, leading to more than 30,000 dead, I guess not.

12 hours ago, toucana said:

The Constitution of Iran (in its 1989 amendment form) contains 177 articles organised in 14 chapters. Perhaps you would like to specify which articles you are referring to ?

I already did. Please read my comment so I can correct any possible mistakes I made. I'm not an expert on the Iranian Constitution.

9 hours ago, StringJunky said:

But the point is Iranian politics has been like it has since '79. It's a known quantity.

What's more of an unknown is how much power of global annihilation they've been holding and advancing for all these years, hidden from view, knowing as we do they are committed to putting an end to this world.

28 minutes ago, MigL said:

The American leadership is only using the ruse of fundamentalist religion to influence as many American nutbars as they can.
But make no mistake, American leaders only pretend at religion, fundamental or otherwise; the altar they worship at is the almighty dollar.

This is certainly my feel. What makes Trump tick is obviously basically money and power. He's only probably found it useful to spice up his political ammo with Christian fundamentalism. In this case of the Evangelist kind. I don't think he's a fundamentalist of anything.

The Ministry of War, basically says it all...

Another step to the 'right'...

Iran was a manageable threat, the odd strike to keep their attention focused and their hands off the prize, politically it's Israel pulling the strings and religiously the bloody isms are to blame bc they tend to be a reaction to the currant bully.

Edited Saturday at 12:57 PM5 days by dimreepr

6 hours ago, joigus said:

I already did. Please read my comment so I can correct any possible mistakes I made. I'm not an expert on the Iranian Constitution

Article 5 of the Constitution of Iran refers to the leadership of the Ummah (Islamic community)  during the occultation of of the Twelfth Imam, and states that this post should be held by a just and pious faqih (Islamic jurist) who is knowledgeable about affairs of the day, in accordance with Article 107.

Article  107 of the Constitution of Iran specifies the qualities and theological qualifications (further specified in Article 109) that such a candidate is expected to possess in order to be elected supreme leader by the 88-man ‘Council of Experts’.

https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iran_1989

If you are interested in a balanced discussion of the Constitution of Iran, then you might also wish to consider:

Article 13 (Recognized religious minorities)  - which states that:

"Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities, who, within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies, and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education."

Article 14 (Non Muslims) - which states that :

"In accordance with the sacred verse ("God does not forbid you to deal kindly and justly with those who have not fought against you because of your religion and who have not expelled you from your homes" [60:8]), The government  of the Islamic Republic of Iran and all Muslims are duty-bound to treat non-Muslims" with "Islamic justice and equity", provided those non-Muslims "refrain from engaging in conspiracy or activity against Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran".

I have found nothing in the text of the Constitution of Iran so far to support your claim that:

“Every waking hour they devote to speeding up the coming of the last Imam and are longing for Christ to come back to Earth, and "kill the swine", and "break the cross", and "abolish the Yizya", which, as you can imagine if you know anything about Islamic theology, implies either convert to Islam or die.”

On the other hand, I don't think the Imams of the Iranian leadership had any fear of being further exposed by the Epstein files.
They had enough enriched Uranium to make approx. 11 bombs, but it was only enriched to 60%, not weapon grade: and that is a big step. They admitted this to the American negotiators.
There is also the rumor that the negotiators, S Witkoff and J Kushner ( with whose family B Netanyahu used to stay when he visited New York ), were tasked with getting the ruling Iranian Council all together in one known place, so they could all be taken out with one strike.
Still, the way they treat their people is abhorrent, and I'm not the least bit sad for their deaths. But I don't actually believe they are 'end of times' religious fanatics either; they are adept at controlling their people with the religious institution, and plenty of violence when that fails.

D Trump thought this was a win-win situation.
Take control of another country's oil, as he did in Venezuela.
Distract his base from Epstein files revelations and the economy, plus avoid impeachment, and possible jail time.
Shore up 'patriotism' under a 'war-time' President.
Further erode the powers oh House and Senate by showing that he can do whatever he wants to do.
But he's stupid and didn't realize how badly things would turn out.

B Netanyahu has his own agenda.
He's been wanting to do this for 40 years.
Hr needs to stay in power to avoid persecution and jail time, and the people keep re-electing him because of his willingness to 'protect' them by going to war.
He saw the American President as one who could be easily manipulated, and forced his hand ( as M Rubio let the 'cat out of the bag' 2 days after the attacks.

Its too bad American, Israeli, Lebanese, other neighboring countries, and Iranian lives have to be sacrificed as these men try to push their ideologies, hide their crimes, and empower/enrich themselves.

2 hours ago, toucana said:

Article 5 of the Constitution of Iran refers to the leadership of the Ummah (Islamic community)  during the occultation of of the Twelfth Imam, and states that this post should be held by a just and pious faqih (Islamic jurist) who is knowledgeable about affairs of the day, in accordance with Article 107.

Article  107 of the Constitution of Iran specifies the qualities and theological qualifications (further specified in Article 109) that such a candidate is expected to possess in order to be elected supreme leader by the 88-man ‘Council of Experts’.

https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iran_1989

If you are interested in a balanced discussion of the Constitution of Iran, then you might also wish to consider:

Article 13 (Recognized religious minorities)  - which states that:

"Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities, who, within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies, and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education."

Article 14 (Non Muslims) - which states that :

"In accordance with the sacred verse ("God does not forbid you to deal kindly and justly with those who have not fought against you because of your religion and who have not expelled you from your homes" [60:8]), The government  of the Islamic Republic of Iran and all Muslims are duty-bound to treat non-Muslims" with "Islamic justice and equity", provided those non-Muslims "refrain from engaging in conspiracy or activity against Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran".

I have found nothing in the text of the Constitution of Iran so far to support your claim that:

Therefore you admit that article 5 of the Constitution of Iran refers to a historical event still to come.

Now I ask you, what historical event is this, and why is it so central to Twelver theology?

Literally,

Article 5

During the Occultation of the Vali al-Asr (may God hasten his reappearance), the Velayah and leadership of the Ummah devolve upon the just (‘adil] and pious [muttaqi] faqih, who is fully aware of the circumstances of his age; courageous, resourceful, and possessed of administrative ability, will assume the responsibilities of this office in accordance with Article 107.

(from fis.iran.org).

"May God hasten his reappearance" strikes me as calling for "speeding up the coming of the last Imam", which is what I said. As I do not read Arabic, nor Farsi, I cannot be sure this version is 100% free of bias, and I've had to rely on this English translation.

About article 13:

Allow me as well to point out that,

"God does not forbid you to deal kindly and justly with those who have not fought against you because of your religion and who have not expelled you from your homes" implies that you can kill anyone whom you consider not to have fought against you. It's only that it is not forbidden not to kill them, not to rape them, or not to inject air in their veins, so they find a slow, painful death (as they have massively done recently). It's just not forbidden. You seem not to be that familiar with fard ayn and fard kifayah. (If others kill them and torture them, you don't have to). Fard ayn is praying five times a day: Nobody can do it for you. IOW: You must do it. Killing infidels, on the other hand, is another matter. That's fard kifayah. Somebody can do it for you. You don't have to kill an infidel today. Relax. That's what caliphates are for.

In dealing with Islamic law, it is of the utmost importance that you can read between the lines, otherwise, they're gonna get you with taqiyya. Here:

"Islamic justice and equity" = anything that Islamic law (Sharia) considers justice and equity, ie, treating politheists and atheists as scum that doesn't deserve to live, and monotheists as scum that only deserves to live under the Jizya. And be fair and just with all believers. One word can completely change the meaning of a paragraph.

Religions, all religions, are a cancer of society. Some are more lethal than others though. All of them should, at the very least, be neutralised.

I'm from a country that suffered 781 year of Islamic invasion. Sorry. We have (at least some of us do) a sixth sense to detect their BS.

2 hours ago, MigL said:

They had enough enriched Uranium to make approx. 11 bombs, but it was only enriched to 60%, not weapon grade: and that is a big step. They admitted this to the American negotiators.

I didn't know this. Thank you.

Edited Saturday at 10:36 PM4 days by joigus
minor correction

IMO the whole argument over Iran (or any country) building a missile and nuking the US with it is silly. Why would any entity able to refine uranium bother trying to put it on a missile when you can just smuggle it to wherever you want to set it off with likely a higher chance of success and lower cost. This is why I think a long term conflict with Iran is far more dangerous than most people wish to believe, especially if the materiel they have isn't fully secured.

12 hours ago, npts2020 said:

IMO the whole argument over Iran (or any country) building a missile and nuking the US with it is silly. Why would any entity able to refine uranium bother trying to put it on a missile when you can just smuggle it to wherever you want to set it off with likely a higher chance of success and lower cost.

Iran wants the leverage not the missile.

12 hours ago, npts2020 said:

This is why I think a long term conflict with Iran is far more dangerous than most people wish to believe, especially if the materiel they have isn't fully secured.

This is why it's not well thought out by Trump, his overwhelming power forced Iran into gorilla war tactics and just blow up the shit that matters to it's enemies, the number's will slow down, with time, but the relative impact will increase.

Boris Johnson wanted to give them one of ours, politically stupid, but not a bad idea...

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Boris Johnson wanted to give them one of ours, politically stupid, but not a bad idea...

Well, maybe Ukraine should be given back the nuclear weapons it gave up at the end of the Cold War in return for guaranteed sovereignty.

On 3/14/2026 at 5:48 AM, MigL said:

I'll have to agree with @joigus

Whereas The Iranian Religious leadership believes the fundamental crap about the 'end times', and tries to convert as many nutbars as they can to their apocalyptic views, The American leadership is only using the ruse of fundamentalist religion to influence as many American nutbars as they can.
But make no mistake, American leaders only pretend at religion, fundamental or otherwise; the altar they worship at is the almighty dollar.

( frankly, I'm not sure which is worse )

There are folks who think that while there are fundamentalists in Iranian leadership, their actions have a very rational, geopolitical core. There is a diversity of articles about it, but a recent transcript of a podcast was actually very good in synthesizing a fair bit of different opinions. I thin it is worth a read, if only to have a better perspective on things over there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ali-vaez.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TVA.VRxD.dL5_cBX2un2a&smid=url-share

22 hours ago, KJW said:

Well, maybe Ukraine should be given back the nuclear weapons it gave up at the end of the Cold War in return for guaranteed sovereignty.

I'm not sure how you think that argues my point?

If Ukraine wanted to guarantee sovereignty, all they needed to do, was shove a few secret shekles under the carpet for a rainy day; the threat of a mortal thing, in the animal kindom, is normally enough to restrict the violence to sabre rattling.

Imagine if we did give Iran a nuke, it would be like watching a petulant child who got their wish, with their justifiably inflated angry balloon, only to watch it deflate in a shameful smelly fart...

23 hours ago, CharonY said:

There are folks who think that while there are fundamentalists in Iranian leadership, their actions have a very rational, geopolitical core. There is a diversity of articles about it, but a recent transcript of a podcast was actually very good in synthesizing a fair bit of different opinions. I thin it is worth a read, if only to have a better perspective on things over there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ali-vaez.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TVA.VRxD.dL5_cBX2un2a&smid=url-share

Still getting a paywall, even with the unlocked url. Ezra Klein is usually a paragon of clarity. The Iranians do seem quite rational to me. Of course, almost any foreign government looks Spockian, set next to the current US regime.

5 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Still getting a paywall, even with the unlocked url. Ezra Klein is usually a paragon of clarity. The Iranians do seem quite rational to me. Of course, almost any foreign government looks Spockian, set next to the current US regime.

Strange. But a couple of passages I remembered to be interesting:

Bill Clinton is president in the United States for most of the 1990s, and his focus in the Middle East is on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

You’ve already had the Oslo Accords. Iran enters into this picture, funding terrorist attacks in Israel through Hamas and others meant to destroy the peace process, meant to destroy Oslo.

Why?

One has to understand that, again, going back to the Iran-Iraq war, Iran realized that one of the few ways that it could project power beyond its borders, as a Shia nation surrounded by Sunnis, as a Persian nation surrounded by Arabs and Turks, was to pick up a cause that would allow it to transcend all of these inherent limitations. And that was the Palestinian cause, which was left on the ground by the Arabs.

That’s why, as of the early 1980s, Iran became the champion of the Palestinian cause.

Is your understanding that the Palestinian cause for them was geopolitical? Was it a case of rational self-interest? Or was it ideological, and their ongoing support reflected values-based commitments, as opposed to geopolitical calculations?

I do believe that it had an ideological veneer, but deep down it was a geopolitical instrument — that the Iranians were willing to fight Israel to the last Palestinian or the last Arab, but they really did not care much about the Palestinian cause.

And this is why you see the rupture between Iran and the P.L.O., for instance, over the years. It was very clear that Iran was instrumentalizing the Palestinian cause for its own interests.

I feel like there is this tension that you see emerging here and also in the way we talk about Iran here.

There’s a vision of Iran you’ll hear from the American right and from mainstream Israeli society, which is that Iran is an Islamic theocracy. It is a society that remembers itself as an empire and is patiently and strategically plotting to find its way back to that level of power.

And the counter you’ll hear to that is: No, it’s a rational regime that is oriented toward survival. It calibrates its diplomacy, its projections of power, its actions in order to survive, to thrive, to protect itself. It should be understood as someone you can negotiate with.

And in consistently funding attacks on Israel, and to some degree against America, too, it is making itself the target of the world’s sole superpower military and the strongest military in that region — even as other countries in the region are cutting deals and beginning to moderate relations.

So how do you understand this tension between the vision of Iran as focused on regime survival and the Iran that is consistently making itself an irritant, an aggressor and a target for Israel and the United States by funding proxy attacks and terror?

It is a very pertinent point, Ezra. It’s a question of this double identity in Iran’s strategic thinking: On the one hand, it plays like any other chess player in a strategic manner, but there is also an ideological element.

A very good example is the story of its engagement, or lack thereof, with President Trump. A lot of other countries, including Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, figured out how to cater to President Trump’s ego — how it actually doesn’t take much to try to open up a channel of communication with him and change his perspective on the country.

And yet the Iranians were not able to do so because of that ideological rigidity.

I think one of the main criticisms of the Iranian regime is that there have been eras or episodes in the last few decades when it failed to capitalize on its leverage and doubled down in a way that actually ended up not only burning its leverage but also hurting itself.

There have been instances, for sure, that one can understand — during the Iran-Iraq war or when the U.S. had invaded their neighbor to the east, Afghanistan, and their neighbor to the west, Iraq — that they felt so insecure, that they were doing something that was destructive but that they saw as critical to their national security.

But then there have been periods when they were not that insecure. In the run-up to Oct. 7, they were pretty powerful and well-established in the region. They could have negotiated, for instance, with the Biden administration from a position of strength and found a way out of the deadlock. But they didn’t.

There is no doubt that what the Iranians might see as defensive could be seen as offensive from the Israeli point of view. There is no doubt that we are in a vicious cycle. Whatever Israel does deepens Iran’s threat perception and pushes them to double down on policies like their missile program or their support for proxies — which then deepens Israel’s threat perception. That, in turn, would then drag the U.S. further in and put more pressure on Iran to engage in covert operations and sabotage and so on. That, again, deepens Iran’s threat perception. And the cycle goes on.

The way that Israel and the West have largely treated Iran in the past four decades can really be summarized in one word, which is “containment.” The real question is: Has it resolved the problem or made it worse?

It’s a very simple question. And even by Netanyahu’s own metrics, the problem has become worse. The nuclear program he has been warning against for many, many years: When he went to war last year, he said it had become an intolerable, existential threat. In June last year, he said that he had set back Iran’s missile program. Eight months later, he’s back at war because the missile program is now an existential threat.

So again, it’s a question not necessarily of the concept — I’m not challenging that. I understand why the Israelis see Iran as an existential threat. I understand why the Iranians believe that Israel is a threat to them.

You mentioned the Iranian narrative that much of what looks as an offensive to the rest of the world to them is understood as a defensive. Iran does not understand itself as a threat to Israel. But Israel and — to some degree, particularly right now — America is a threat to Iran.

So if I were talking to a member of the Iranian government, and they were giving me their narrative of this or trying to persuade me that the Israeli narrative is wrong: How is the support for Hamas, the support for Hezbollah, some of the actions we see in this period, understood in the Iranian perspective? How is the race to nuclear weapons seen as defensive, as opposed to offensive?

It’s very simple. They would say: The proof is in the pudding.

When Hezbollah had hundreds of thousands of rockets and missiles aiming at Israeli population centers, Israel did not dare attack Iran. When Iran was powerful in Syria, there were no routes for Israeli fighter jets to come and bomb Iran through Syrian airspace.

So their argument is that actually this policy worked and protected them for a long time. And now that their regional deterrence has been degraded, this is why Israel is coming after them.

If you talk to Iranian officials, they would say that the reason they were locked into this pathway — there was basically a path dependency — was because they never saw a viable alternative. It is not as if they were willing to give up on their proxies or whatever Israel found threatening, whether it’s their missiles or their nuclear program, that the world would then recognize them, would allow this theocracy to thrive in the way that Arab gulf states have, that all of these were aimed at undermining and toppling them.

Nobody was willing to give them conventional weapons to be able to defend themselves. Nobody ever recognized that they had some legitimate security concerns. And so they had no choice other than to continue down this path. That’s the argument that they would make. And even in areas that they had compromised, like on their nuclear program, it resulted in the U.S. not delivering on its promises.

In a way Ali Vaez (the guest) paints a picture of weaponized fundamentalism. The pragmatism was evident from the moment Khomeini took power:

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was seen as a transitional leader, not as the leader of the country in the future. He was clever enough to portray himself as a transitional leader. He did say all the right things before assuming power. He said that women would be able to have equal rights in society. He banned the clerics from having any role in politics.

This is why we had this extraordinary situation in which you had leftists and Maoists and Communists and conservatives and religious people — everybody coalescing around him as the leader of the revolution.

But, of course, as soon as he touched down in Iran and there were three million people on the streets welcoming him, he realized that his power was basically unchallenged.

At that point, he started monopolizing power, eliminating and purging the coalition that came together. And he established an Islamic republic in the form of a theocracy.

18 hours ago, npts2020 said:

IMO the whole argument over Iran (or any country) building a missile and nuking the US with it is silly.

For them (the Islamic regime) it's not about nuking the US. They know that's out of their reach by a loooong shot. They will not nuke Vanuatu either.

The way they attack the US, and South America, and European countries, is by infiltrating different kinds of low-to-medium-level operatives (demonstrators, activists, terrorists, etc) and create havoc. "Strike terror in the hearts of the unbelievers", if my memory serves.

They will do as much harm leading to destabilising the world order as they can: Israel, UAE, international trade routes, etc, with missiles and drones. Getting ordinary people to shit their pants in terror wherever their missiles and drones don't reach.

6 hours ago, CharonY said:

that the Iranians were willing to fight Israel to the last Palestinian or the last Arab, but they really did not care much about the Palestinian cause.

See? This is the kind of ambiguous statements I honestly can't get past. Which Iranians? The minority in power since 1979, or the huge majority of Iranians whose culture is actually alien to Islam and had this parasitic culture imposed on them nearly 50 years ago? Looks like Ezra Klein is being deliberately disingenuous here.

Let's rather talk about what the ordinary Iranians would want, and not what a clique of religious fundamentalists and the hitmen in their payroll would have it be.

14 minutes ago, joigus said:

See? This is the kind of ambiguous statements I honestly can't get past. Which Iranians? The minority in power since 1979, or the huge majority of Iranians whose culture is actually alien to Islam and had this parasitic culture imposed on them nearly 50 years ago? Looks like Ezra Klein is being deliberately disingenuous here.

The context was the Iranian Government. Also the person making the comment was Ali Vaez. He worked on the 2015 nuclear deal. He also is Iranian, and in his discussion he has been discussing some common misconceptions on how folks see Iranians. But I am not sure where you think it is ambiguous. He said, that the Iranian government has taken up the Palestinian cause and funded multiple Palestinian groups, including Hamas, but when asked whether that is due to ideological alignment or a means to deploy a strategic threat to military superior enemies, he mentions that it is more the latter- they would happily sacrifice Palestinians if it strengthens their position. Again, a strategic, rather than ideological decision.

I will also add that the history of Persia/Iran with Islam is way older and one could probably point to the fall of the Sasanian Empire and the subsequent purge of zoroastrianism. By around the 10th century the majority of Persians would be Muslim. This would be a far cry from being alien to it.

He also does talk about the different between the leadership and the Iranians. I also found a video from the discussion, if you are interested (I just lack the patience when reading is so much faster).