November 18, 2024: Iran has long been the Persian Gulf superpower. The name of the Gulf is an example of that dominance. One of the things all Iranians can agree on is that for thousands of years Iran was often its own worst enemy. It was internal squabbles that weakened the mighty Persian empire 2,500 years ago so that the Greeks, led by Alexander the Great could do the impossible and conquer the Persian/Iranian Empire. Same situation 1,500 years ago when the Arabs, inspired by their new Islaimic religion, did the impossible and conquered the Persian Empire. At that point the Iranians were still recovering from the Greek conquest. It took several decades for the Persians to abandon their ancient Zoroastrian faith and many pretended to accept Islam while continuing to quietly practice Zoroastrianism. Currently only about 40 percent of Iranians consider themselves Moslems and most adhere to other faiths, including the ancient Iranian Zoroastrianism. Iranians don’t care what their leaders, a religious dictatorship, think and the Iranian leaders quietly go along with this subterfuge.

Many Iranians believe Iran has not recovered from the Arab conquest and the Islam is more at fault than the Arabs. Many Iranians now believe that, without the internal squabbling, Iran could have avoided damage done by the Greek, Arab, Mongol and Western invasions. The moderates pay attention to history and the radicals don’t. But when radicals do look closely at the past, they often become moderates and that is how the moderates are winning.

Another reason is demographics. The generation that lived through the 1979 revolution and subsequent ruinous war with Iraq is no longer the majority. The current generation sees religious dictatorship for what it was, a coup by the Islamic radicals that were part of the movement that overthrew the Persian monarchy and used the Iraqi invasion as an excuse to replace the promised democracy with a religious dictatorship. The senior clerics and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/IRGC leaders know this is a threat because opinion polls have shown, for several years now, more Iranians are abandoning Islam and many are secretly adopting other religions or no religion at all. The clerics can label this as blasphemy, a crime punishable by death if done openly.

Iranian use of denial is not restricted to the current government, but is a national survival trait that makes sense in many situations. Fewer Iranians are showing up at mosques or religious schools. If pressed by a local cleric they plead poverty and the need to work more just to feed their families. The local clerics understand there is a lot of truth to this and that Islam is losing a lot of believers for very practical reasons. This is reported to senior clerics and eventually reaches the Council of Guardians. This group of elderly Shia clerics appear, on the surface, as wise and caring holy men. The reality is that the Guardians preside over a corrupt and incompetent bureaucracy and senior clergy, and Iranians are out in the streets calling them out on this.

Meanwhile Iran is consorting with Turkey and Russia, two ancient enemies, in order to maintain a position of power in the Middle East. This region has long been fought over and occupied by Turks and Iranians. It was a major achievement for Russia, which lost its own empire in 1991, to take on the Ottoman Empire that was destroyed in the early 1920s and the former Persian Empire. A century ago the growing economic importance of oil began changing the Middle Eastern political landscape. The Ottomans lost access to oil and the Iranians got a minority share of it. Most of the oil is now owned by Arabs, former subjects of the Ottomans and Persians. To defend their new wealth the Arabs made alliances with their biggest customers, the new superpowers in Europe, the United States and now China. Despite all that Russia, Turkey and Iran still want to play empire builders. This led to the three former foes becoming allies. It has been an unstable and unpredictable partnership but Russia still sees itself as the key player. Turkey and Iran quietly oppose these Russian plans.

Meanwhile Iranians continue to honor their Persian ancestors. In 2016 thousands of Iranians gathered in Pasargadae, 800 kilometers south of Tehran to celebrate the birthday of Cyrus the Great, considered the founder of the Persian Empire 2,500 years ago. The religious dictatorship that has run Iran since the 1980s quietly tries to discourage this sort of thing, without giving it a lot of publicity. That has proved increasingly difficult. This is a problem because this form of Iranian nationalism appeals to all Iranians to one degree or another but particularly to royalists and democrats who want to keep religion out of government.

The Greeks still honor Alexander the Great and want to celebrate the battle of Gaugamela with a monument outside the Iraqi city of Mosul. The battle took place 2,340 years ago when Alexander defeated a Persian army and destroyed the Persian empire that stretched from modern Turkey to modern Pakistan. The Iraqis were enthusiastic about the idea, even though the defeated Persian army contained a lot of Arabs. For the Iraqis, the big thing is that the battle represented a major defeat for Iran. Even though most Iraqis share the Shia form of Islam with Iran, the Iranians are not Arabs, but an Indo-European people related to Indians and Europeans. Iran has long menaced, invaded and generally beat on the Arabs, and is now threatening the Arab world again. So anything that celebrates anyone smashing Iranian power, is something to be encouraged. Eight years after Gaugamela, Alexander was dead, and what is now Iraq became part of a kingdom ruled by one of Alexander's generals. The Greeks soon left, and the Iranians didn't.