WhatsappThe Iranian ayatollahs are the modern-day Circumcellions whose time is up.
The path to the Mahdist mullahs’ ‘unconditional surrender’
When U.S. President Donald Trump stated that he expects this war with the Islamic Republic to end with an unconditional surrender, it set off a debate over what that might mean and how it will happen. To answer these questions, one needs to understand the nature of the Iranian regime.
Some believe that the regime’s bottom line remains the preservation of the Islamic Revolution. And that any compromise could be entertained if it were to help secure the longevity and resilience of that revolution.
Indeed, there is the precedent of 1988, when the regime used that argument to justify agreeing to an obnoxious ceasefire to the Iran-Iraq war. But some never accepted that ceasefire and issued an objection to it from a different foundation—one suggesting a suicidal end to the regime.
All strands of Iran’s Islamic Revolution are rooted in Shi’ism, which generally believed in quiescence detached from mundane power until the return of the12th Imam—a very long time in coming, given that he already has been absent for well over a millennium. This has worked, as evidenced by the fact that Shi’ism endured as a minority across the region. Like other minorities, Shi’ites navigated survival through quiescence, invisibility when possible, groveling when necessary and adoption of political trends to fit in when opportune.
But the Shi’ites of Iraq became a majority a century ago, and saw a shot at power. Their compatriots in Iran lived intertwined with power as the majority there. Both were forced to confront the issue of reconciling faith with possessing mundane power.
New thinking on the matter thus emerged: If, indeed, the 12th Occulted Imam does not return soon, then perhaps a “grand ayatollah,” versed more than any other in his age in jurisprudence, informed by his wisdom, can operate in his stead, if not enjoy direct communication with the Imam himself.
This was an Islamic version of Plato’s “philosopher king,” or Rule of the Jurisprudent—the Valiyat e-Faqih. When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in 1979, he established himself as absolute ruler under this system to install the totalitarian reign of Islam.
This “rational school” of reigning Shi’ism was extreme, repressive and sought global revolution and Islamification. It entered a war to the death with the United States, the “Great Satan.”
But the system of the Islamic Revolution was essential; it was the embodiment of the Imam’s rule on earth until his return. So, its preservation remained paramount, even at great tactical cost, if necessary. Hence the decision to save the revolution and sign a ceasefire with Iraq in 1988.
Yet there were others who believed not in this Persian version of the Greek Platonic system of absolute rule, but rather that the collapse of the cursed Shah and the rise of Islam in government heralded the imminent return of the Hidden (Occulted) 12th Imam.
They were called Mahdists, since they believed these were end times, when the faith of Muslims was being tested—on the eve of the great conflagration and final eschatological battle. This was when, against all mundane odds, true believers would be led by a resurrected Muhammad, and his army of martyrs would join the returning Imam to defeat the forces of heresy, apostasy and non-belief.
Moreover, their faith, they believed, was no passive test; it drove the return of the Occulted Imam, the Mahdi. For them, the Islamic Revolution was a mere vehicle to drive the world to the ultimate test of faith and apocalyptic showdown.
While Khomeini placed a premium on preserving the system at all costs, this crowd’s focus on triggering the great conflagration and universal destruction threatened the system, and even welcomed its destruction. So, Khomenei repressed this group.
The Mahdists were thus forced into the shadows, becoming subversive and violent in the revolution’s early years, culminating in an attack on none other than Ali Khamenei. After being crushed by Khomeini, Mahdists largely had retreated into the ranks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces fighting the Iran-Iraq war, and followed the more “mystical” school of Shi’ite thought in Mashhad, rather than the “rational “schools of Qom, biding their time, plotting their future, cultivating their bitterness and steeling their determination.
Meanwhile, Khamenei recovered from his assassination attempt, but lacked a genuine base of power to feed his ambition. So, he tapped the very crowd that had tried to kill him, cutting a deal to be their protector in a hostile system, in exchange for their becoming his posse.
In some ways, it was natural; Khamenei hailed from the area of Mashhad, as well. The Islamic Revolution for all its high-mindedness ultimately was a collection of competing posses and mafiosi competitions over political, institutional and even economic turfs.
Therefore, when Khamenei assumed leadership upon Khomeini’s death in 1989, in part because of the strength of his posse and its popularity in the IRGC, the Mahdists had finally found their haven and launchpad. The Islamic Revolution itself underwent a quiet revolution.
Once in power, and borrowing throughout the ranks of the IRGC, these believers—inured to death and destruction by their time in the hellfire of the Iran-Iraq war—had become the power underpinning the throne. They now have been in power for 37 years of the regime’s 47. They define its top ranks and maintain an iron grip. In varying shades, they are all the most soulless and desensitized veterans of the Iran-Iraq war, and are infused with varying degrees of Mahdist thought.
For this crowd, the Islamic Revolution remains a vehicle to trigger an eschatological war to test the true faith of the followers—and the worse the reality they face, the greater the test—and bring about the final battle. Khamenei is now dead, but the survivors still hold the power. And they chose his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, not because he was Ali’s son, nor because they lacked other ideas. They chose him not despite his extreme nature and clear adherence to apocalyptic views, but precisely because he holds those views.
For this clique, the current war is the final eschatological apocalypse for which they had been preparing. The greater the odds, the more certain the victory and sooner the return of the 12th Imam.
When we talk of unconditional surrender, thus, we are not likely going to encounter an orderly governmental surrender like that of Japan in 1945. None among this crowd sees surrender and self-preservation as a value; most see their impending doom as the greatest opportunity to test faith—the best gift they could be granted.
As such, this regime will not surrender; it must be dismembered. And the only way to do that is to weaken it so severely that Iranians will simply seize the reins of government themselves—grip the helm forcefully, to avoid going down with these apocalyptic maniacs.
This war will be won by boots on the ground—Iranian boots. The people of Iran are the missing army that has to join the United States and Israel to bring this twilight struggle to total victory. At the end of the day, they are the most potent weapon. And they appear willing and able to raise to the challenge, provided the focus of the war is on their future.
The Iranian ayatollahs are the modern-day Circumcellions, an extremist Donatist Christian cult in North Africa in the 4th–5th-centuries CE who so valued martyrdom that its members attacked and challenged armies and voyagers to kill them in order to satisfy their desire to purify their souls through death. As the great scholar of Byzantium, George Ostrogorsky, noted, this cult survived only a short while.
The same fate is in store for the Mahdist Islamic Revolution, whose time is up.
