I strongly suggest reading this WHOLE blog entry and to share it to enlighten EVERYONE!
Intro:"Who is the author and his qualifications?"Tim Orr is a religious studies scholar who has been teaching and doing research for almost 20 years. He focuses on Shia Islam and working with people of other faiths. He has six degrees, including an M.A. in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College in London. He is also working on a Ph.D. in Interreligious Studies at Hartford International University. He served as a Research Associate with both Hartford International University and the Center for Religion and American Culture, and has spoken widely in Shia institutions in the UK.
Here are the astutue words of Tim Orr:
"I did not learn about why Iran is so hostile towards Israel from reading think tank papers or intelligence assessments.
Instead, my knowledge came from being a student in a Twelver Shia institution, the Islamic College in London, where I attained an MA in Islamic Studies.
There, I was trained by Muslim scholars, immersed in Shia theology, and introduced to the eschatological framework that quietly but decisively shapes Iran’s worldview.
What became clear as time passed was that Iran’s posture towards Israel is not primarily strategic or reactive. It has theological roots. And once that theological structure is seen, much of what otherwise appears irrational once suddenly becomes coherent.
In the West, most analyses of Iran always filter what they know through secular categories such as sanctions, regional rivalry, historical grievance, or regime insecurity.
This framework assumes that Iran is like other nation-states, acting out of motives of deterrence, survival, and leverage; that is, until we take Iran’s own ideological commitments seriously.
Then, the assumption collapses. Western analyses overlook the reality that, to Iran’s leadership, Israel is not merely an adversary, but also a theological problem that threatens a religious narrative about history, justice, and the end of time.
"Twelver Shia eschatology"* is at the center of this narrative, with theology that solidifies belief in the return of the Mahdi, the Hidden Imam.
According to this theology, the Hidden Imam will appear in a moment of profound disorder, to establish divine justice.
Chaos, therefore, is not a failure of history, but a prerequisite for redemption.
Violence, martyrdom, and upheaval are not signs of a failed foreign policy, but proof that that history is headed in the right direction.
This "Twelver Shia eschatology" is a compelled by an entirely different moral logic than the one assumed by modern diplomats and negotiators.
From its revolution in 1979, Iran’s Islamic Republic’s self-understanding is as a theological movement first, and secondarily a political movement. Iran’s current Supreme Leader oversees an international multi-faith religious cult centered around Shia doomsday calculations of the return of the Hidden Imam and its patrons are required to be decent Muslims citizens.
The IRGC and special forces of its Quds (Jerusalem) division believe they are commanded by God either to provoke or respond to chaos or war, a necessary precondition for the apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam.
Within this narrative, the United States is the “Great Satan” and Israel is the “Little Satan,” justifying the destruction of the state of Israel as a divine act of purification – in an echo of the Nazi scapegoating of Jews as the source of the world’s evil needing purification to usher in an era of final redemption and paradise.
Embracing this narrative, Iran’s Islamic state is trying to bring about the end of the world.
This is the prism through which all its actions should be assessed.
Israel, after truth in advertising and stated in the Quran as the “chosen people,” occupies a theological position with Islam’s sacred geography.
Hence, Iran’s hostility is inextricably intertwined with the anti-Jewish ideologies in mainstream Islamic teachings and within Islam’s sacred geography. A return to the land of the Quran’s “chosen people” will result in its total destruction and is justified as a cosmic act and perpetual obligation.
Obliteration of the state of Israel not only offers hope for Iran’s Islamic revolution, but also substantiates an obligational narrative that Islam will be whoever is standing at the end – as the Islam who kills the Jewish “false messiah”.
Any negotiation or normalization of the sovereign Jewish claimant on Islamic land, as a legitimacy of a people that was supposed to die at the end of time, is already interpreted in the language of the Mahdi as a death sentence, and Iran will remain at war with Israel, in a cosmic battle to the finish.
In place of strategic rationality, for Iran, its obligation to purge the Jewish interlopers from Islam’s holy land "Dar al-Islam" entails a solid belief unparalleled by Western theorists of deterrence theory, that the Mahdi cannot return until end-times and chaos exists in the land and Middle East.
The prospect of future mass death is not a threat that needs managing, it is a requirement for Iran’s proxy arm extended in the Middle East is not a tool of statecraft but a tool of faith, not to defend the state but to speed the advent of the Mahdi.
Iran’s “axis of resistance” is selected for its Christian, Jewish, and Sunni geography, on a path to accelerate Islamic history to the end of days, with mutual state and non-state actor proxies as the vanguard force.
In this way, Iran’s victory in enabling chaos and mass death does not matter if it has no rational calculation involved; it is a sign that the Mahdi is coming, or soon to be.
A theocratic regime rooted in millenarian Shi‘i Muslim messianism armed with nuclear weapons would have no normal two-man rule or physical barriers and could easily bypass built-in U.S., Russian or Chinese dual-control nuclear safeguards.
Iran’s military and proxies are not rational actors in the Western conception of rationality.
What began as Islamic apocalyptic warfare against Israel to accelerate the end of time, could combine with its stated nemesis, the United States.
Therefore, the prospect of an Islamist apocalyptic regime armed with nuclear weapons is the single most dangerous threat of the next decade.
What is necessary for policymakers to temper irrational optimism about Iran’s ability to moderate is that future deterrence prospects with Iran must take account of what “rationality” means in modern Iran, understanding its culture of defeatism, victimhood, and the longing for redemption.
As Israel plays a central role in this apocalyptic narrative, Israeli analysts are less optimistic than US and European counterparts in Iran’s “rational” ability to self-restrain."
In conclusion:
Orr’s thesis relies on several core concepts of Twelver Shia theology that he argues are misread by Western secularists:
1. The Role of the Mahdi (The Hidden Imam)
In Twelver Shia Islam, the 12th Imam entered "occultation" in the 9th century. His return is expected to bring absolute justice to the world. Crucially, Orr emphasizes that this return is predicated on universal chaos (fitna).
Western View: Chaos is a sign of state failure.
Orr's View of the IRGC: Chaos is a "liturgical" requirement to hasten the Hidden Imam's appearance.
2. The Redefinition of Deterrence
Traditional deterrence theory (like MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction) assumes both parties value national survival above all else.
The Conflict: If a regime views martyrdom and apocalyptic upheaval as a "redemptive" necessity, the threat of "mass death" loses its power as a deterrent. It becomes, instead, a milestone.
3. Sacred Geography vs. Political Borders
Orr argues that Israel is viewed not as a neighboring state with a border dispute, but as a theological anomaly.
Dar al-Islam: The concept that once land is under Islamic rule, it must remain so.
The "Chosen People" Paradox: The presence of a sovereign Jewish state in "sacred geography" contradicts the narrative of Islamic supersessionism, making its removal a cosmic obligation rather than a strategic choice.
The Nuclear Question
The most chilling aspect of this analysis is the application to nuclear weapons. If a state views the "end of the world" as a desirable religious event (the ushering in of paradise), the standard safety protocols and "dual-control" safeguards used by secular states might be viewed as obstacles to a divine mandate rather than protections against catastrophe.
*Twelver Shia eschatology centers on the return of the twelfth and final Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who is believed to be in occultation (hidden) and will reappear at the end of time to establish justice and peace on Earth, ending a period of spiritual darkness, with his arrival signaling the end of the world and divine judgment. This doctrine is a core aspect of Twelver Shia belief, focusing heavily on the Mahdi's redemptive mission, rather than solely on the general Islamic concepts of resurrection and judgment.
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