Date: Tuesday, 24 March 2026
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/shia-islam-irans-religion-is-based
https://theduran.com/shia-islam-irans-religion-is-based-on-anti-imperialism
Shia Islam, Iran’s religion, is based on anti-imperialism — thus anti-U.S.
23 March 2026, posted by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
In the following two articles (one of them being a video plus its transcript)), I make my comments [italicized between brackets] and I have added links to sources — the original provided no sources:
“Fire and the Word: Why Iran’s War Defines the Fate of Civilization”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 12, 2026
In the year 680, a man named Hussein rode towards Karbala knowing he was going to die. He was accompanied by 72 men. Facing him, an army of thousands.
Today, over bombed Tehran, that same spirit is rising again. Because the war that the United States and Israel have unleashed against Iran is not just a war for oil or shipping lanes. It is a war for the survival of a way of being in the world.
This Hussein — Husayn ibn Ali, according to Shia tradition — is not a figure of the past. He is a living presence in the consciousness of contemporary Iran. For Shia Muslims, Hussein is “Sayyid al-Shuhada,” the Lord of the Martyrs, the one who taught that true triumph lies not in merely surviving, but in bearing witness to the truth to the very end. In Karbala, a military battle was not fought; a battle was fought over the meaning of leadership within the Islamic community, a battle between justice embodied in a man who refused to compromise with tyranny and oppression disguised as caliphal legitimacy [Mulawiyah I (or “Mu’awiya the first”) the founder* of Sunni Islam in the sense that he was the proponent of imperialism (a master-slave relationship between an imperial nation and its colonies) and his anti-imperialistic enemy, Ali, who refused to perform the slave-nation role, or ANY role within an empire — he insisted on national sovereignty), but both Sunnis and Shia have the same ‘holy book’, the Quran, which came from Mohammed, who had no position, at all, on imperialism].
The aggression unleashed by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic is, at its core, not very different from that faced by Hussein in 680. The names have changed, missiles have replaced swords, drones now fly where once there were only horsemen. But the essence remains intact: an arrogant power that demands unconditional submission and a people who, against all strategic logic, refuse to yield.
The orphanhood of international law
Nothing reveals the rottenness of the contemporary international order more starkly than the recent vote in the United Nations Security Council. On March 11, thirteen of the fifteen members of the body that is supposed to safeguard international peace and security approved a resolution drafted by Bahrain that “strongly condemns the flagrant attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the territories of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan.”
The text demands that Tehran immediately cease its attacks and condemns Iranian actions that obstruct navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. But in its 135 words of condemnation, there is not a single mention of the US and Israeli bombings that, since February 28, have massacred thousands of Iranians, assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and killed several key figures in the Iranian leadership.
The hypocrisy is so monumental that it doesn’t even try to hide it. Thirteen countries voted as if the war had started spontaneously, as if Iran had woken up one morning and decided, without any provocation, to launch missiles at its neighbors. The resolution constructs a parallel reality where the aggressors are invisible and the victims magically become the perpetrators.
It is worth noting that Russia and China abstained. They did not exercise their veto power, but at least they had the decency not to participate in the charade. The Chinese representative, Fu Cong, clearly explained Beijing’s reasons: “The United States and Israel acted without authorization and, in the midst of negotiations, launched an attack against Iran, which constitutes a violation of the UN Charter. This conflict has no legitimacy or legal basis.”
His Russian counterpart, Vasily Nebenzia, was even more caustic, saying that “anyone who reads this resolution will believe that Iran attacked without reason, while the real aggressors are left out of the text. And the Security Council has just endorsed it.”
Russia and China’s abstention in the UN vote should not be interpreted as disinterest or calculated indifference. It should be seen for what it is: the realization that both Eurasian giants are trapped in their own wars — one in Ukraine, the other in an existential race for technological supremacy — and cannot, without strategically committing suicide, open a direct confrontation with Washington at this time.
But to conclude that they have abandoned Iran is a leap only simplistic analyses can make. Their silent support — in intelligence, defense, technology, and the nuclear field — is as real as it is opaque. And most importantly, both sides know that the Iranian resistance is their greatest asset today.
Pezeshkian’s calculation and the nature of resistance
In the midst of the storm, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has had the foresight to surgically establish the conditions for a ceasefire. In contact with the heads of government of Russia and Pakistan, Pezeshkian declared that “the only way to end the war started by the provocation of Israel and the United States is to accept Iran’s legitimate rights, pay reparations, and establish a firm international obligation not to commit further aggression.”
Note the intelligence of the formula. Pezeshkian is not calling for a military victory (knowing the enemy’s nuclear capabilities and the folly of its leaders). He is not demanding the unconditional withdrawal of enemy forces. What he is proposing, in essence, is a vindication of international law, which the UN has just trampled upon: the recognition that Iran has legitimate rights, that the aggression must be redressed, and that there must be credible guarantees of non-repetition. These are the three pillars of any genuine peace architecture, precisely what the Security Council denied when it issued a unilateral condemnation.
But Pezeshkian’s message also has a deeper dimension. By setting such clear conditions, the Iranian president is telling the world, in other words,
“We do not seek war, but neither do we accept surrender. We are willing to negotiate, but not to submit.”
It is the same attitude that Hussein embodied in Karbala when, faced with the demand to swear allegiance to Yazid, he replied: “I will never submit like a slave.”
That phrase resonates today with chilling relevance, because what the United States and Israel are demanding from Iran is not simply a tactical concession or an adjustment to its nuclear program. It is, as retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn shamelessly put it, regime change that would allow Washington “to have a positive relationship with a new Iranian regime, whatever regime may emerge from the ashes,” with the ultimate goal of weakening China. In other words, what is being demanded is Iran’s existential surrender, the surrender of its sovereignty, the erasure of its history [going back to being a colony of America, as it had been during 1953-1979].
And it is here that Pezeshkian’s calculations intersect with Hussein’s spirit.
Because a nation that has spent centuries negotiating its identity between empires knows that there are lines that cannot be crossed. It knows that accepting humiliation is not a price paid once, but a perpetual sentence.
It knows, as the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, bluntly put it, that “the map of the country represents everything that every Iranian is proud of and for which they are willing to sacrifice their life to protect it.”
Why Iran cannot be defeated
There is one question that Western military strategists cannot answer: How is it possible that Iran, subjected to decades of sanctions, targeted assassinations, systematic sabotage, and now an open war that has decapitated its political and religious leadership, is still standing? How can a country that has lost its Supreme Leader, several Revolutionary Guard commanders, and hundreds of its scientists and engineers continue launching missiles and drones against US bases in the region?
The answer lies not in arsenals or military technology. It lies in something that Pentagon manuals fail to codify: the historical density of a culture that has made resistance [to imperialism] its defining characteristic. From the “Ten Thousand Immortals” of the Achaemenid dynasty to the fighters of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, and including the epic of Karbala, Iran has forged a relationship with death and martyrdom that the West cannot comprehend.
In this sense, the assertion that Iran “is about to fall” reveals more about the illusions of its aggressors than about the reality of the conflict. Those who today predict the imminent collapse of Tehran are the same ones who years ago foretold that sanctions would break the regime, that internal protests would bring it down, that international isolation would suffocate it. And yet, Iran remains, resisting, adapting, finding loopholes in the encirclement, building alternative alliances with Russia and China, and developing its own defense industry.
The history of Iran, from the Arab invasion of the seventh century to the war imposed by Iraq between 1980 and 1989, is the story of a people who have learned to survive empires. Persian is still spoken fourteen centuries after the Islamic conquest. Iranian culture remains a touchstone in the Muslim world. Shiism, with its emphasis on martyrdom and justice [including national sovereignty and independence], continues to be a mobilizing force. To pretend that all of that vanishes with a few bombs is the kind of arrogance that has led the United States from defeat to defeat, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, from Iraq to Syria.
The Global South in the mirror
What makes this war different, what elevates it above the endless list of conflicts plaguing West Asia, is its civilizational dimension. It is not simply about who controls which swathe of territory or which oil pipeline. It is about whether the world that emerges from the crisis of the unipolar order will be a world of respected sovereignties or a world where the strongest imposes their will without checks and balances.
Iran is waging a battle today that is not its own alone. It is waging the battle of the Global South against imperial arrogance.
It is demonstrating that a middle-sized country subjected to the fiercest siege in living memory can stand up to the superpower and its main regional ally [Israel] without surrendering. And in doing so, it is sending a message to all peoples who aspire to sovereignty: empire is not invincible, dignity has a price but also a reward, and surrender is never the only option.
This should not be interpreted, however, as a hasty judgment against Russia and China. Those who, from the comfort of simplistic analysis, rush to condemn the “ambiguity” of Moscow and Beijing forget a basic fact: both operate on chessboards with millions of pieces, with checks and balances that far exceed the bilateral equation with Iran.
Aid doesn’t always have to be visible to be effective. Russia, despite waging its own existential war against NATO [the American empire in Europe and North America] in Ukraine, has maintained a silent strategic cooperation with Tehran that spans multiple dimensions: shared intelligence, air defense, technology transfer, and, above all, support in the nuclear and scientific fields that is as crucial as it is opaque to the Western eye.
China, for its part, is playing its own cards in a region where it also has vital interests — including its relations with the Gulf countries — but that has not prevented it from maintaining a position in multilateral forums that at least refrains from condemning Iran, denying Washington the legitimacy it seeks.
Not all solidarity is displayed in headlines, and the geopolitics of the major Eurasian powers are not decided in tweets or bombastic declarations. What appears lukewarm to the untrained eye may, in reality, be the form that support takes when measured in centuries rather than news cycles.
The anti-culture of cancellation
There is one aspect of this war that deserves separate consideration: its cultural dimension. It is no coincidence that the American and Israeli bombings have targeted not only military installations but also sites of profound symbolic value to Iranian identity. It is no coincidence that the Supreme Leader was assassinated. It is no coincidence that Trump’s threats include the possibility of redrawing Iran’s borders, as if the country were a plot of land in a real estate transaction.
What is at stake, ultimately, is the survival of a civilizational experience that refuses to dissolve in the homogenizing crucible of Anglo-Saxon globalization [the U.S. empire]. Iran represents, for better or for worse, the possibility of a non-Western modernity, of technological and scientific development that does not entail renouncing its own cultural and religious roots. This possibility is heresy to the dominant ideology, which conceives of only one path to the future: the one that passes through Washington, London, and Tel Aviv.
The “cancel culture” we were talking about is nothing more than the attempt to erase any historical experience that doesn’t fit the mold. Just as inconvenient statues are torn down in the name of an impossible ideological purity, Tehran is bombed to break the backbone of a civilization that has resisted for centuries. But what the Pentagon strategists fail to grasp is that cultures aren’t annihilated by bombs. They transform, adapt, retreat, but they never disappear.
The future of civilization
At this point, it is necessary to ask the question bluntly: what would happen if Iran fell? What would the defeat of the only regional power that has dared to openly challenge the unipolar order mean for the Global South?
The consequences would be catastrophic, and not only for the Iranians.
An Iranian defeat would send a terrifying message to all peoples aspiring to sovereignty: empire always wins, resistance is futile, the only sensible course is to negotiate surrender on the best possible terms. The axis of resistance would crumble, Hezbollah would be isolated, Hamas would be annihilated, and the Houthis would lose their main support. And then, with Iran subdued, Washington could concentrate all its resources on the real target: China.
Michael Flynn stated it without hesitation: “We have to allow Israel to finish the job. When it does — and it’s going to take some time — it will allow the United States to focus entirely on China. We must focus on the primary adversary of the 21st century, and that is China.” The war against Iran is not, from the American strategic perspective, an end in itself. It is a necessary step to complete the encirclement of Beijing, to deprive China of a key energy partner, to demonstrate to Asian allies that American deterrence remains credible.
Iran is not fighting only for itself. It is fighting for the possibility of a world where many voices, many stories, and many ways of understanding life and politics can coexist. It is fighting against the notion that there is only one path, one truth, one way to organize societies. Ultimately, it is fighting for the diversity of the world, for the right to be different without being crushed.
Because there is an uncomfortable truth that conventional geopolitical analyses refuse to acknowledge: if Iran falls, the path is clear for the next act. Washington will not stop at Tehran. With Iran subdued, the noose around Russia and China would tighten to the point of suffocation.
Moscow, amid its conflict in Ukraine, would see its fronts multiply without a strategic ally in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Beijing, deprived of a key energy partner and witnessing the growing credibility of US deterrence, would face a scenario where its options are dramatically reduced: negotiate from a position of weakness, withstand an increasingly suffocating blockade while its margins shrink, or risk a direct confrontation that could escalate to levels no one wants to name.
That is the true meaning of what is at stake in Iran, in what we maintain is not a remote war between a Persian country and a Western coalition. It is the trench where it will be decided whether humanity enters a spiral of unstoppable destruction or whether, on the contrary, a breach opens up, a window of time, a respite from the imperial offensive.
Paradoxical as it may sound, Iranian resistance is what is preventing the conflict from escalating into a confrontation where the nuclear powers would face each other with no room to maneuver. Every missile Iran launches, every day it resists, every facility destroyed that forces the United States to deplete its arsenal, is a day Russia and China gain to regroup, strengthen their own defenses, and build alternatives.
From this perspective, the war in Iran is not an avoidable catastrophe. It is the price paid to contain a greater catastrophe. And in that trench, the Iranians are not fighting only for their homeland. They are fighting for the possibility that the multipolar world—the one we so often invoke in our analyses—will not be a pipe dream, but an achievable horizon. They are fighting so that there will be a future.
The lesson of Karbala
Shia tradition recounts that, before departing for Karbala, Hussein delivered a speech to his followers. He told them that those who wished to stay should do so; he did not expect anyone to accompany him against their will. And then he added a phrase that has been immortalized through the centuries:
“Death is inevitable, and life after death is eternal. Whoever joins us on this journey will share our reward. Whoever stays behind will not be condemned.”
Hussein knew he was going to die. He knew his army was insignificant compared to Yazid’s. He knew that, militarily, the battle was lost from the start. But he also knew that there are victories that are not measured in terms of casualties or territory. Hussein’s victory was planting a seed of dignity that has germinated for fourteen centuries. Hussein’s victory was demonstrating that truth does not need to win to be true.
Today, in the streets of Tehran, in the mosques of Qom, in the makeshift hospitals of Isfahan, thousands of Iranians, perhaps unknowingly, are embodying that same logic. They know the missiles are still falling. They know their leaders have fallen. They know the world is looking the other way. But they also know that surrender is not an option, not because victory is guaranteed, but because there are things more important than victory.
The question that lingers above the dust of Karbala, above the ruins left by the bombings in Tehran, above the conscience of the Global South, is whether the world will rise to the occasion. Whether, when the time comes, there will be those who take up Iran’s mantle and say, as he did, “I will not submit like a slave.” Whether the civilizational future of humanity, which we discuss so often in our geopolitical analyses, will be a future of shared dignity or simply an updated version of the same old domination.
Iran is fighting that battle now. The outcome will define not only the map of Western Asia, but the soul of the world to come.
—
[
* Muslim scholars reject this formulation, because they say:
. Mulawiyah I was not the founder of Sunni Islam in any meaningful sense.
. Ali was no anti-imperialist rejecting empire.
. The conflict wasn’t between imperialism vs. anti-imperialism.
. The divide is fundamentally about legitimate leadership and authority, not colonial or anti-colonial ideology.
The reason for this reality-denial among Muslims is that Mulawiyah won the military slaughter and so no Muslim wants to say that this was anything more than a “disagreement about authority and justice.” However, that disagreement between Mulawiyah and Ali WAS the fundamental POLITICAL disagreement: pro-imperialism versus anti-imperialism. Imperialism is, on the international level, the master-versus-slave relationship on the interpersonal level. This is what separates Shia from Sunni. Prior to that, there was no such split (i.e., about imperialism). Whereas Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr as-Siddiq was the first Sunni Caliph and created the first Islamic empire during his brief rein, 632-634, and he was thus the first Sunni leader after Muhammed, Shia don’t accept him, but the creation of Shiism itself occurred actually decades later, over the ideological issue of imperialism, in 680 (in the Battle at Karbala, 10 October 680 — that link is to the CIA-edited and written Wikipedia, which blacklists — blocks from linking to — sites that aren’t CIA-approved; thus, it’s a Sunni account, because the U.S. regime is Sunni-allied against Shia). Imperialism is the international version of interpersonal slavery, which is considered acceptable in all religions, but the Sunni-Shia split originated specifically about imperialism — Sunnis in favor, and Shia opposed. Muslim scholars say it was only about who should be the leader. But for Husayn ibn Ali and his followers, it was much more important than that. It was about the issue of slavery, specifically international slavery. Whereas Sunnis accept international coercion, master-nation versus slave-nation, Shia are committed to fight to the death, if need be, in order to resist it.
Of course, no Muslim wants to believe that the author of the Quran failed to condemn slavery. To admit that would be to disqualify the Quran as being the guide for ethics; so, no Muslim can accept this fact — just as no Jew or Christian can accept the fact that the Torah and Bible likewise failed to condemn slavery. What sets Shiism apart from all the others is its rejection of empires. On that issue, Muhammed, like all religious founders, was ambiguous — a blank. All religions base their ethic upon falsehoods and ambiguities that allow even blatant evils to be perpetrated by its believers, and all claim themselves to be the only religion that is 100% true. So, all are at odds against each other, and all are based on falsehoods — but each has its own falsehoods, and that is where they differ. No religious believer accepts this fact.]
——
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DVbD0kgEwn-/
00:00
Death to America doesn't mean what you think it means.
00:03
And the fact that you think it does, is by design.
00:07
So right now there's a massive media campaign happening across the world
00:11
trying to frame Iran and Shia Muslims as terrorists.
00:14
As if Iran woke up one morning and decided,
00:16
okay, let's kill all American citizens.
00:19
Even people like Larry Johnson, who's a former CIA analyst,
00:23
or Scott Ritter, or Judge Napolitano, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson,
00:27
and everyone's woken up like we've reached a point where
00:30
all of these people are saying it clearly.
00:32
They're saying death to America is not about American people.
00:36
And it never was about American people.
00:38
It's about the system.
00:39
It's about the system that's been bombing Muslim countries and lands
00:43
and dividing our countries and installing dictators for decades.
00:48
Taking our wealth, taking our possessions.
00:51
But you'll never hear that on the news.
00:53
Because the news is the system.
00:56
So the question is, why is the Shia Muslim the main target today?
01:01
Why not just Muslims in general? [Or why not Sunni jihadists?]
01:03
And the answer is because of what we believe.
01:06
We believe in Imam Hussain.
01:07
A man who stood up against the most powerful tyrant of his time
01:11
with 72 people and said,
01:13
I will never give my hand in humiliation.
01:16
I will never submit like a slave.
01:19
And this story isn't just history for us.
01:22
Speak to any Shia Muslim.
01:23
It's in our DNA.
01:26
It's merged within our blood.
01:29
It's why we just don't bend.
01:31
We believe in Marja'iyah,
01:33
which is a system of religious leadership
01:36
that keeps 300 million Muslims [Shia] around the world united
01:39
under qualified scholars.
01:41
Not divided, not scattered, united.
01:44
And that terrifies empires.
01:48
And we believe in a saviour, the Mahdi.
01:51
An awaited leader who will return to this world
01:54
and fill the world with justice
01:56
after it's been filled with oppression.
01:59
See, you might not understand these beliefs,
02:02
but we have been nurtured with these beliefs.
02:05
And the thing is that we don't just sit around
02:08
and wait for the Mahdi to come.
02:10
We build, we prepare, we resist.
02:14
So the real question isn't why is Iran fighting?
02:19
The real question is why is the entire Western world
02:24
trying to destroy Iran and has been for almost 50 years?
02:29
Think about it.
02:30
Iran is the only country on earth
02:32
that said no to the global banking system,
02:36
no to the IMF,
02:37
no to bowing to Israel,
02:40
no to the American empire,
02:43
no to the Epstein class,
02:45
no to genocide in Gaza.
02:47
And instead of collapsing,
02:49
they built their own missiles,
02:51
their own technology,
02:53
their own networks of allies
02:54
from Lebanon to Yemen to Iraq.
02:56
A resistance that's not built on money,
02:59
but on belief,
03:01
on worldview.
03:03
And that's the real threat.
03:05
Not nuclear weapons.
03:06
Iran has openly stated
03:08
that we are never going to develop a nuclear weapon.
03:10
The one that they just murdered
03:11
a couple of days ago,
03:14
his stance has always been
03:16
no to nuclear weapons.
03:18
It is against our religion
03:20
to create nuclear weapons.
03:22
It is unlawful to create nuclear weapons.
03:25
It is inhumane
03:26
because we will never use this type of weapon.
03:29
And they know this.
03:30
They know this.
03:32
The threat is the idea.
03:34
The idea that you can survive without the system [imperialism].
03:38
That you can stand on your own.
03:40
Because if Iran proves
03:42
that it can stand on its own
03:44
and that it can work
03:45
through decades and decades of sanctions,
03:48
then others will follow them.
03:49
And the whole house of cards
03:51
comes crumbling down.
03:53
Now look,
03:54
I'm not here to recruit you into anything.
03:57
I'm a,
03:58
you know,
03:59
Aussie born,
04:00
regular guy.
04:02
I coach kids.
04:03
I run a business.
04:04
I have a family.
04:05
You know,
04:06
I also have a platform.
04:08
And with everything happening right now,
04:10
with the bombs falling
04:11
and the media lying,
04:12
and I feel like
04:14
I have a responsibility
04:15
to say something.
04:16
Because the people of Iran
04:18
are not terrorists.
04:20
They're mothers and fathers
04:22
who are burying their children
04:23
as we speak.
04:25
Over 150 young girls
04:28
killed in school.
04:31
The people of Lebanon
04:33
aren't extremists.
04:34
They're families
04:35
who have been bombed
04:37
in their own homes
04:38
for decades.
04:39
04:40
04:42
We're the ones
04:43
who've been fighting
04:43
the same tyranny
04:44
that you're just waking up to today.
04:47
Accidentally,
04:47
you heard about the Epstein files.
04:50
This system that
04:51
Imam Khomeini came and said
04:53
death to America
04:53
was to that system
04:56
takes advantage of young girls and then kills them in school.
05:00
Death to America means death to the system that profits from war.
05:05
Death to the system that thrives on division.
05:09
Death to the system that cause resistance terrorism and cause bombing civilians self-defense.
05:17
It was never about American people.
05:20
And it was always about the machine that was behind them.
05:26
The question is, are you going to keep believing this machine?
05:29
Or are you going to wake up like the millions that are waking up?
05:33
Are you going to start asking why it's so desperate to silence the Shia Muslim?
05:39
And who really is the Shia Muslim?
05:44
It's time that you ask.
05:46
And don't believe their BS.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
