Unmistakably Portuguese

Updated April 13, 2024 at 11:45 p.m.*

-Analysis-

Iran places great importance on ordinary citizens' willingness to die for their religion. Yet, following Israel's bombing of the Iranian embassy in Syria on April 1, the regime that touts martyrdom appears to be weighing how strongly to respond. If the response is ultimately seen as modest, it will undermine a major political pillar of the Islamic Republic.

Reports late Saturday say that Iran had launched some 100 drones and missiles toward Israel in an unprecedented direct attack by Tehran aimed at Israeli soil. Earlier, Iranian troops reportedly seized a commercial ship with links to Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer. The MSC Aries was boarded by Iranian special forces as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz about 50 miles off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to a statement from the vessel's operator MSC. This comes amid reports that Iran wanted to avoid a response that would provoke a full-fledged war spreading through the Middle East.

A theme of the regime since it took power in 1979, this culture of martyrdom has its origins in the unjust killing of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn in the 7th century. Shia clerics tell congregations that the objective of martyrdom is to hasten the return of Husayn's descendant, the absent Mahdi or imam of "true" believers.

Following Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran and during the subsequent war, the regime used this tradition in its call to defend the homeland, sending thousands of ill-trained youth (some barely in their teens) to the front (and to their deaths) when the country was short on arms and materials.

Even long after the Iraq-Iran war's end in 1988, the regime continues to evoke this martyrdom whenever it wants Iranians to "grin and bear" the country's dismal economic problems that are rooted in the regime's own policies. Talk of martyrdom helps the regime maintain a "war footing" that serves its interests; it is easier to make arrests or execute prisoners if the enemy is forever at the gate.