Iranians have turned against the mullahs’ empire building

Iran’s protestors are showing immense courage. That is a given. But the reasons why are worth spelling out.

Not only do they have the bravery to demonstrate against a theocratic dictatorship which has veiled women against their will for over forty years; they also protest in the full knowledge that the regime has already killed many thousands of activists in Iran and across the Middle East.

The protestors face a leviathan. They are up against the very heart of an expansionist empire.

From the very beginning, the leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, which took power in 1979, conceived of their mission as a world-wide one. It was their job to spread the faith – a particularly aggressive version of Shia Islam – across the region. And woe to their enemies: Israel, Britain, the United States, the Sunni Arab monarchies, and much of the rest of the world.

The backbone of this permanent revolution is the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – a formidable reactionary force within Iran, and a deep threat to the enemies of the revolution worldwide.