Is Tehran rational?
By Jim Fletcher
Not much of this world makes sense anymore. Just one bit of craziness is the reaction of the terror state Iran’s to the international community. Specifically, now, the United States.
For weeks now, an American-led attack on the leadership in Tehran has proceeded amazingly well. Militarily speaking.
What is odd though is the reaction of the mullahs. With much of the leadership “decapitated” (sometimes literally), they seem unwilling to play the game they’ve so long played with other administrations: delay until things settle back in their favor. This time, the saber-rattling seems real. Not that Iran can win a war with the U.S. They can’t, in the traditional sense. But why are they not stringing out negotiations or even conceding certain things until Trump’s term expires?
We could say that Trump is being proactive and that would be correct.
But is it possible the mullahs actually believe their eschatology, that their version of the messiah is coming soon?
Apparently so. Get a load of this Jerusalem Post headline and tag line from this week:
“Iran’s leaders may welcome chaos instead of fearing collapse - opinion
“As the West gauges damage and deterrence, Iran’s ideological core may see war as a divine test, preparing the world for a messianic era.”
I think this is a major key to understanding the present conflict. Iranian leadership actually is made up of true believers. No one really thinks Saddam Hussein was a true believer in Islam. It just provided him cover for dealing with his enemies. The same with Anwar Sadat, Hafez Assad, and many others.
As Dr. Benyamin Yakovian writes in the Post:
“As Operation Roaring Lion (Called by the Pentagon: Operation Epic Fury) unfolds, a profound cognitive gap has emerged between Western strategic thinking and the reality of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“In Washington and Jerusalem, analysts interpret strikes on regime assets through the lens of traditional deterrence, searching for signs of an impending collapse. But in Tehran, the leadership – now centered around the newly selected Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei – is reading a completely different map.
The new ayatollah (we don’t even know if he’s still alive), Mojtaba Khamenei, has a name ripe with meaning. Mojtaba it is the title of Hasan ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the second Shi’ite Imam. Iranian leadership understands geopolitics through the lens of eschatology, and they feel the successor to the previous ayatollah is in line with an ancient imam dedicated to conquering the world for Allah. This to them is a religious command.
This is why their chaos is really a stable, rational reaction to a brutal apparent defeat.
Remember, the Soviets were rational. Other enemies are rational. But we correctly see the Iranians as irrational, at the same time their view is the opposite.
They believe that prior to the appearance of their “messiah,” the Mahdi, there will be a period of world upheaval. The Mahdi must arrive to set that all right. Islam also borrowed heavily from our Bible, so you can see some similarities. The difference of course is that Islam is a religion of death, while Christianity and Judaism value human life.
While this is an admittedly apples and oranges comparison, Hitler and some of his minions like Himmler felt that even when things were darkest for the Nazis in 1945, some type of “divine” providence was going to save them. That didn’t happen thankfully, and neither will it for Iran.
That doesn’t mean they will wake up to that fact.
According to an article by A. Savyon, Y. Mansharof:
“Shi’ite senior clerics are considered to be the representatives of the Imams, and thus have the authority to handle the affairs of the Shi’ite community, mainly in the religious and judicial spheres, until the Hidden Imam returns to lead the Shi’ite community and deliver it from its suffering.
“According to Shi’ite belief, during the period of the Mahdi’s absence (termed ghaibat or ‘occultation’), no one but God knows the hour of the Mahdi’s return, and no man can presume to foresee when this hour will come. Upon the Mahdi’s reappearance, all wrongs will be righted, divine justice will be instated, and the truth of Shi’ite Islam will be acknowledged by the entire world.”
Again, we see the borrowing from our sacred Scripture. Yet it explains so much about just why Iranian leadership is behaving as it is in early 2026. Evil might be intelligent and clever, but evil also makes catastrophic mistakes. By this I am referring to Satan himself.
Hitler made several catastrophic mistakes during World War 2. His high-water mark came in the spring of 1940, when Germany took over almost all Western Europe. Had he developed his own nuclear program, and not made stupid mistakes such as Dunkirk, he might well have achieved the global dominance he promised.
In the same way, it does very much appear that Iran is making serious miscalculations.
Things are not going to end well for them.
But we can understand their apparent embrace of chaos.