Why Iran Is Different
The Case No One Wants to Make
Ever since the American B-2 bomber flew from Whiteman AFB in the USA on a round trip to the Iranian mountains, I have been hearing one question from my colleagues and family. This question got even more amplified during the recent escalation in Iran - US tensions and I saw the same question on Reddit, news channels and from family again.
The question is this:
“Why can the US, Israel, Russia, China have nukes but not Iran? Isn’t this just imperialism?”
It’s a very good question, but a very bad rhetorical question.
Yes, the USA talks a lot about freedom. But in the shadow of their freedom lurks some ugly memories and blood. A lot of blood. They have ruined countries and theatres even, in the wake of finding “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. Till date, they are the only nation to have used the nuclear bomb. Hypocrisy runs deeply entrenched in their rhetoric.
But Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution is a different beast. Even though this regime has treated India better than the Shahs that ruled prior, we can’t shy away from some hard facts.
Every Other Nuclear Power Wants to Survive
Whenever you see any strategist, including the North Koreans, talk about their nuclear weapon stockpile, they talk about deterrence. It is THE deterrence for any sort of danger that can devastate a country.
As Indians, we understand this very well thanks to our poor neighbours.
Normally when we think about nuclear deterrence, we think about a military conquest or territorial gains. But it also covers economic sanctions, trade blockades, decapitation strikes, withholding of natural resources and many other extremities.
It’s a way of defence, to guarantee the nation-state or a civilisation survives in the case of a probable mass annihilation. The use of nuclear weapons are discussed as doomsday scenarios. There are treaties that require these nations to make some parts of their nuclear arsenal public. Not being responsible in stating their nuclear doctrine and stockpile strength will cost them in global relations. You can’t really survive in today’s world, absolutely cut-off from global trade and commerce. Except Pakistan, no nation publicly speaks about using tactical nuclear weapons in a war.
The possession of nuclear weapons is therefore a way of assuring mutual destruction in case someone gets a little too cocky.
In the case of Iran, it’s a wee bit more complicated. Unlike other nations, they are ruled by an Islamic theocracy who care about their prophecy more than caring about their citizens’ ability to have sufficient sewage and paper to clean themselves with dignity.
The Mahdi Eschatology
The ruling Iranian theology has time and again invoked this eschatology. I’m definitely not the best person to explain this as there are many interpretations of the same. All religions have a “saviour at the end of time” hero, but again for the third time in this article, Iranian theocracy has it a little different.
Imagine a nuclear bomb at the disposal of someone who takes decisions based on a prophecy where, the world as we know it ends with Jesus rolling up with the Twelfth Imam, defeats the Antichrist and his evil army to establish a new world with the Twelfth Imam ruling over ONLY the “true believers”.
In other religions and sects of Islam, this end of time is in a time far away. In the case of the Iranian theocracy, it’s any time now. He may come at the end of this Fiscal Year. And when he comes, it marks the end of the world as we know it. The twelfth Imam will only come when the Shias are hurt and will then establish a world order where there are only Shia believers left.
Osama bin Laden formed a movement based on teachings from Egyptian Salafi “scholars” which basically said Jihad is the way to take the society to the 8th Century where “pure Islam” was being followed. I don’t think he’s the sort of guy any of us would invite to dinner on a Sunday night. But his Iraq in-charge brought forward a similar eschatologic belief romanticising the end of time, which later became ISIS. The barbarians who were part of ISIS, were encouraged to chop more heads than carrots fueled by such an ideology.
Thinking whether all Iranians believe in this doomsday scenario is a futile exercise because Iran is not a democracy. In fact many reports suggest there are fewer believers now than in 1979. It may be the primary reason they weren’t very welcoming of the currency collapse. They protested in mass and the Supreme Leader was no different from the dictator in the movie Dictator. Thousands were killed in 2022 and in January 2025.
Another evidence of the Supreme Leader not giving two shits about the welfare of Iranians is the fact that such huge economic sanctions exercised by the West bore absolutely no results. No reforms. No attempts to stop the economic collapse. The most glaring problem is the water crisis. Even there, there is no real attempt to solve the problem.
The Ayatollah isn’t concerned about all this because it falls perfectly into his prophecy. Thirst and hunger are the easiest things to romanticise into a prophecy coming true. This sounds straight out of the movie Dune, but you can see the speeches given by Ayatollah Khamenei as evidence of their attitude towards suffering. If you remove the fear of death from someone and convince him to die for a cause, martyrdom is no more the ultimate sacrifice, it’s a tool. The Jihadists and the chaos they’ve brought upon the people of the middle east is evidence of this.
Every other nuclear power can be deterred because they fear annihilation. But if your regime’s legitimacy comes from preparing for the apocalypse, if suffering fits the narrative, if martyrdom is the goal, then the normal calculations don’t work. It’s very hard to control the use of such a weapon after someone has a red button at their disposal.
“It’s hard to put a leash on a dog once you’ve put a crown on its head.” - Tyrion Lannister
Big, Beautiful Guards
The IRGC is not the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, they are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. That tells us a lot about why they exist.
It is not only an army, it’s the military arm of the Supreme Commander. After the Islamic Revolution, they realised the Iranian Army, Artesh (army in Persian) will be hungry to revolt and bring the Shah back. So the IRGC was made to keep the Islamic Revolution safe.
Yes, Iran has two military factions, the IRGC and the Artesh. Both these factions have an army, a navy, an airforce and the works.
Not to anyone’s surprise, the Artesh starved while the IRGC got big and beautiful, just the way Trump likes it.
The huge arsenal of ballistic missiles, Russia’s saviour in the Ukraine invasion - the Shahed drones and all the other fancy weapons are wielded by the IRGC.
Our imagination of the army of a nation state or even a monarchy ends here. But we’re just getting started with the IRGC.
As time went on, the Supreme Commander wanted to be more “Supreme”. They formed a separate intelligence agency for the IRGC. There was a whole new judiciary structure. It was very smart. Because they left the democratic and republic set-up intact. They just hit pause on them. Everything went through the IRGC from the Supreme commander.
It doesn’t end here. All these agencies they created were filled with ex-IRGC men after a point. From 2005 to 2013, the President was an ex-IRGC and its paramilitary wing head. The politics were dictated by the IRGC because a gun pointing to your head is more powerful than money or any other materialistic temptation. The judiciary is also filled with IRGC men who are specially intoxicated by the prophecy. These are the guys who passionately deny the Holocaust and openly call for Israel’s removal from the world as a form of ethnic cleansing.
I’m sorry, we’re still not done. IRGC also holds the highest amount of land and also the most valuable land. It’s not like the defence land that the Indian military uses. They are involved in the business of real estate. They get the biggest contracts for civil construction. Tehran Metro was built by them. They are also involved in telecommunications business. That’s why internet blackouts in Iran are so fierce and accurate. In fact, almost 20% - 40% of Iran’s GDP is at the mercy of the IRGC. They also have management contracts for the oil fields. The contracts are given by the Supreme Commander and the IRGC gets them. The media is also controlled by them. They are not dependent on a state. They are a state within the state.
After the brutal economic sanctions from the West, the IRGC grew stronger, because the private sector and the old public sector competition was wiped out. The only people who struggled from the sanctions were the taxpaying citizens, the local, small businessmen and the Artesh soldiers. They have suffered chronic inflation (ranging 33% to 54% over the last 5 years), currency collapse (lost 90% of its value against the dollar since 2018) and mainly the oil revenue. Add to this the water crisis, which as already mentioned, gets abysmally less attention than it deserves.
If it were a democracy, even if it’s collapsing, we would’ve seen change in regimes. So, public pressure doesn’t work. Global pressure strengthened the wrong people. The protests, by the people who are suffering from this mess, have been brutally curbed by the IRGC. They have the glorious reputation of killing more of their own civilians than any soldiers of any army facing them on the battlefield. Something they share with our dear neighbours.
Power resides where men believe it resides. The rise in their power is sharp and swift. We shouldn’t be befuddled if they become the Supreme Leader makers in the future.
When the Supreme Leaders and the Twelver Shia clerics wanted to ship the Islamic Revolution to other countries in the Middle East, because obviously, the prophecy required it, they chose the IRGC to do it. From this, the Quds force was born.
Quds Force Conundrum
We all know by now that the Quds force is the corporate office which manages the different Shia terrorist branches. Hezbollah, Houthis and militias in Syria and Iraq are the direct products of the IRGC’s Quds force. Hamas was born as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which is a Sunni movement. But, the Quds force adopted them for their mutual love to finish the Israeli Jews.
They don’t just fund and equip these cuties. They give them training and knowledge. The IRGC has a lot of experience in war and terrorism. Most of their commanders have seen the Iran-Iraq war and have been active proponents in the Islamic Revolution. The similarities of how the terrorist infrastructure is set up in these outfits are evidence to the training they get in the mountains in South Iran. They all have knowledge of building underground tunnel networks. During war time, they make bases under running schools and hospitals and operate out of them without stealth. It reminds me how Osama’s filthy life ended with him holding his wife as a human shield.
This is where it truly gets crazy. The IRGC has some very capable ballistic missiles, game-changing Shahed drones and precision guided missiles. There are reports of them transferring all these military assets to these proxies. Houthis have used Iranian ballistic missiles against the Saudi oil fields. They have also used drones to practically shut off the Red sea and therefore the Suez canal. Hezbollah have used Iranian missiles against the Israelis sitting in the Golan Heights. These aren’t even irresponsible autocratic state actors. These are terrorist non-state actors who don’t hesitate to slit pregnant bellies and kill infants.
If Iran can make tactical nuclear weapons, there is a high chance it will reach these barbarians. After that, the entire middle east hangs by a thread. The risk is not only of them hitting the Arab oil infrastructure. These proxies don’t just follow the Quds force commander. They have leaders of their own and objectives that suit their realities. There is a risk of these weapons also reaching the African terrorist outfits who have broken all the limits of humanity in their atrocities. The Houthis have been in an active civil war for decades. There is a chance of them using these weapons to gain control over more Yemeni territory as well.
Worst Case Scenario
The highest form of escalation would be a strike on desalination plants in the Arabian Peninsula. There are no rivers flowing in the region. There is almost no rainfall. These desalination plants are the only sustainable source of water for the entire region.
The strike can come from the IRGC or their proxies. It doesn’t necessarily have to come from the Supreme Commander. Any IRGC commander who believes the prophecy and wants to become a hero by triggering the end of times can take the call. The proxies can take the call purely based on their situation without any nudge from the Quds force commander.
It doesn’t need to be a sophisticated nuclear tipped ballistic missile. It can be a simple ballistic missile with a conventional warhead with nuclear contamination. These detonations don’t even need to be precise. Even if the sea water gets contaminated, life gets very difficult very fast for the civilians dependent on the water.
The economic ramifications climb the ladder of chaos. The damage can be endless. Oil production and trade can be halted. The dollar might collapse taking with it the entire world economy. Worried civilians across the world can trigger a bank run leading to defaults of prestigious banks.
There is no bigger risk than the loss of human lives in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East. The retaliation of such an attack won’t care about collateral damage.
The Middle East and its innocent civilians have suffered enough from American and Israeli adventurism, Shia - Sunni divide, the rampant spread of Jihadist movements and terrorism with 80-90% victims being Muslim. Nuclear weapons in such a volatile area are nothing short of apocalyptic.