Iran’s dominant form of Islam, which the ayatollahs adhere to, is the Twelver Shia Islam. Twelver Shia Islam believes in a prophecy that the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mehdi or al-Mahdi (“the Guided One”), is alive but hidden, and that he will one day return.
According to their belief, no one knows when the Mahdi will return, but there will be signs. Elements of the Twelver Shia believe that to harken in the Mahdi’s return, there will be widespread oppression and corruption, political collapse or instability, conflicts, wars and violence in different regions, and bloodshed and social breakdown.
Once the Mahdi returns, it will bring forth a Shia version Utopian world.
The problem with Utopian ideologies is that because these are self-righteous, they are often dangerous as they can result in incredible devestation and death. For example, Nazism, communism, and Islamism are all Utopian in nature. Needless to say, look at the destruction and bloody results of Nazism before and during WWII, all in the name of that Utopian ideology. Understand that the men and women who carried out the atrocities against Jews, Poles, Russians, etc., and other “undesirables” during Hitler’s reign did so because they were self-righteous, firmly believing that what they were doing was right and good. Look at the death toll of Utopian communism in the 20th century, estimated to be between 60 million and over 100 million. The mass killings, forced labour (Gulags), famines, and deportations were all driven by the “righteousness” of their cause, compelled by those who firmly believed they were just, that what they did was for the greater good.
Islamism is a little more unique from the other political ideologies because it is a religiopolitical ideology, it is as dogmatic as Nazism and communism, but divinely and religiously motivated; this takes things to a different level. (Mind you, IMO, communism, for example, is a replacement for religion.)
Islamism has many forms, past and present; Shia Islam and Sunni Islam are the two base examples. Within Islam’s 1400-year history, there is a varied history of Islamist groups coming and going (Re: Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Almohad, etc.), fighting one another, violently conquering lands, creating caliphates and slaughtering and subjugating peoples throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. (The Shia vs Sunni divide is fundamentally a 1400-year-old civil war within Islam.) The terrorist movement ISIS is a modern Sunni Islamist endeavour that also believes it is creating a Utopian society.
Like all Utopian movements, ISIS believed their caliphate would be around a long time; the Nazis thought they’d have a thousand-year Reich, and wherever communists ruled, the thinking was they were so perfect and righteous that the system would be forever. The Nazis and their thousand year Reich were destroyed in 1945 after almost 6 years of war. Communist dictatorships collapsed in on themselves, but not all; for example, Cuba and North Korea have held on (while some communist countries changed to more capitalist economic policies to survive but kept “communism” on paper, e.g. China, Laos, Vietnam, while maintaining the one-party state). The ISIS Utopian caliphate lasted 5 years.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Shia Islamist regime has lasted, so far, for almost five decades, but it believes its Islamic Utopia is yet to come, and many of the religious leaders believe they have a responsibility for paving the way for Utopia and the return of the Mahdi.
The goal of the present US (and Israel) attack on Iran is to destroy the Iranian military, its military infrastructure, ballistic missiles and drone systems, and, especially, to destroy the regime’s nuclear capabilities for a very long time to come. Should this US-Israel-Iran war lead to a homegrown regime change in Iran, to a form of government system more liberal and friendly to its neighbours… Bonus. (In my opinion, killing the Iranian leadership is a definition of ‘regime change’, as the US and Israel are literally changing the regime’s top people.)
The Iranian regime’s fanaticism has its clerics preaching destruction and its citizens regularly chanting “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”, and death to whatever other country they were in the mood to curse that particular day. Such threats and malicious desires, expressed in their sermons, speeches, and chants for almost 50 years, are not empty words; the words are backed-up by a profound belief that the US (the great Satan), Israel (the little Satan), and the West should be destroyed, and that Shia Iran, believers in the return of the Mahdi, are destined to help lead the way.
Twelver Shia Islam contains eschatological (end-times) traditions and beliefs regarding a final victory of Islam. However, this is not exclusive to Twelver Shia Islam.
Meanwhile, both the Sunni ISIS form of self-righteousness and the Iranian Shia form contain supremacist religiopolitical stances. Anyone not them, not of their cult, is beneath them. (Wherever ISIS terrorists found Shia or Alawites in Syria and Iraq, these people were often outright murdered for who they were.) As we have seen, both Sunni and Shia Islamists will go out of their way to target Jews, i.e. Israel and Israelis, where indiscriminate bombing of Israel is acceptable and nothing to be ashamed of; this has a religiopolitical self-righteous basis.
Most of the eschatological believers foresee the conquest or transformation of major Western cities, including Rome. For some, the destruction of Israel, the US, the West, and Rome is a holy obligation; it is dogma. For many in the Iranian regime, getting the bomb would be important to implementing those divine end-times plans– I would say that this is the Iranian regime’s raison d’etre. Perhaps some people in the US finally clued into this religious driven facet (along with other factors and intel), and realized that Iran’s religious leaders are not whistling Dixie. The result is what is happening today: after attempts to find a peaceful solution, the US and Israel struck Iran and continue to strike it, and are not letting up (much to the contentment of other regional Arab and predominantly Sunni states).
Was Iran’s stubbornness on continuing the nuclear program, their obvious intent in building nuclear weapons (by any means, including deception), their emphasis on manufacturing ballistic missile systems, their self-righteous and supremacist loud declarations for the destruction of nations, all for the sake of a self-fulfilling prophecy to initiate the return of the Mahdi?
While Iran gets a smackdown by the US and Israel, as Iran’s entire armed forces are being destroyed and put into disarray, to the theocrats in Tehran, where does the return of the Mahdi fit in all this, if at all? What are they thinking? Are some holding out and praying for the Mahdi to come to the rescue?
By lashing out and irrationally bombing their neighbours, and thereby provoking them, are some of Iran’s religious and military leaders not only trying to create chaos in the region, but by doing so also clinging to some small hope that this will spark the return of the Mahdi and the dawn of their Utopian world?
I wonder.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
–RdM
Addendum (19 March): This is worth noting:
‘Iran entered 2026 with 440kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity – enough, if further enriched, for as many as 10 nuclear weapons. Before the June strikes, Tehran was less than two weeks away from enriching enough uranium for one nuclear bomb, according to US intelligence assessments. At that time, the International Atomic Energy Agency acknowledged that Iran’s accumulation of near-weapons-grade material had no clear civilian justification.’
Al Jazeera: The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why, Every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being successfully degraded, 16 Mar 2026, Muhanad Seloom: See: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/3/16/the-us-israeli-strategy-against-iran-is-working-here-is-why
