Iran: New leader Mojtaba is “obsessed with the end of days & has a complete disregard for the value of human life”

If Mojtaba has no problem killing thousands “of his own people” he also “has no problem killing” thousands in Tel Aviv, Israel.

“If he can kill 13,000 of his own people, then he has no problem killing 100,000 in Tel Aviv, because if you don’t care about the lives of your own people, why would you care about the lives of others in Tel Aviv?” Rajabi added.

Twelver Shia belief holds that the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who is believed to be in hiding, will return at the end of times to establish a period of global justice in which oppression is eradicated. Islamic apocalyptic traditions also describe major conflicts preceding this era; in Sunni hadith literature, one such event is the Malhama al-Kubra, a great battle sometimes interpreted as a confrontation with Western powers.

The clerics who rule Iran are not afraid of death and believe God Allah is on their side…

Mojtaba is “obsessed with the end of days”:

Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is described as being “more dangerous,” according to a report.

Carrick Ryan

In my last article, I explained how the religious clerics of Iran effectively hold the nation hostage through rigid constitutional controls that affords extraordinary veto powers to the Ayatollah and his hand-picked Guardian Council.
 
The consequences of this post-revolutionary reality is that any attempt by the Iranian people to elect politicians that might steer the country in a vastly different direction are prevented from ever running for office.
 
But it’s worth taking a closer look at what these clerics actually believe, because while the regime may form a part of an “axis of resistance” against Western hegemony, their motivation and objectives are very different to their allies.
To unpack this, I have no option but to discuss complex religious theology in broad highly simplified terms, otherwise this post will be a book. So by all means add additional context in the comments, but understand the need for brevity on my part.
 
Essentially, the Sunni/Shia split began in 632 CE after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, when Muslims disagreed over who should lead the community: Sunnis supported the election of a political leader (the caliph), while Shias believed leadership belonged to Muhammad’s family, starting with his cousin, with these descendants were known as Imams.

Shia believe that the 12th of these Imams entered “occultation” in the 9th century, which meant he was effectively hidden by God (but definitely didn’t die), and that he will one day reappear as a kind of messiah, restoring justice and true Islamic rule before the end of times.
 
The theological divisions between Sunni and Shia may seem marginal, but they’re hugely consequential, with extremists on both sides believing the other to be heretics because of how they practice their faith. This is why ISIS (Sunni) would inflict barbaric cruelty on any Shia they captured, they saw them as knowingly defying the commands of Mohammad.
 
Around 90% of the world’s Muslim population is Sunni, but around 95% of Iran is Shia. It’s important to appreciate that Shia fundamentalists (like most religious extremists) don’t see themselves as a sect of Islam, they see themselves as the only true Muslims. This has seen them engaged in a 1400 year long war with Sunnis not dissimilar to the way Catholics and Protestants tore each other apart for centuries.
 
So when the Islamic clerics usurped a popular revolution in Iran in 1979, they saw their rise to power as part of a broader supernatural struggle for the salvation of humanity. In their eyes, the revolution was not only for Iran. It was meant to inspire all Muslims, particularly Shia minorities, to overthrow their western backed governments.
 
To this end, the clerics who drafted the 1979 constitution actually embedded multiple clauses that compelled Iran to support those it saw as “oppressed”, such as Article 154 that states that the Islamic Republic: “supports the just struggles of the oppressed against the oppressors in every corner of the globe.”
 
In theory, this language applies to any oppressed people, not just Shia Muslims (such as the Palestinians). In practice, however, Iran’s strongest and most consistent support has gone to Shia miltants closely aligned with Iran’s ideology. Ironically, for many nations with a Shia minority population, this is seen as Iran perniciously interfering across the region to promote regime change.
 
Importantly, these clerics sincerely believe that martyrdom is rewarded by God. To be clear, most Iranians are quite secular, well educated, and altogether less religious than the population in surrounding countries, but the fundamentalists who control the regime do see moral virtue in holy war, and that does matter.
This is particularly relevant as Trump now begins to declare the war he started is “complete”. The Iranian regime has been decimated, but not defeated. Just because Trump decides he wants to shop fighting doesn’t mean the new Ayatollah automatically will.
 
The clerics who rule Iran are not afraid of death and believe God is on their side… this is a very different adversary to the Venezuelan regime, and I’m not sure Trump has quite figured that out yet.