The Current Iranian Theocracy.

Iranian critics of the Tehran regime today say openly that when they call Supreme Leader Ayatollah (Iranian spelling) Ali Khamenei a "shah" they mean a dictator who represents neither God nor the people. The difference with a Safawid shah is that today all things are shown on TV everywhere. So in reality, after the reformists have been barred from politics with reformist President Mohammad Khatami succeeded by a figurehead of the supremacists, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, in the June 2005 elections, the Supreme Leader represents a conservative camp determined to keep controlling a state corrupted by power for as long as possible.

"Divine victory" was the description of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah of the 34-day war of July/August 2006 when a few thousand of his Hizbullah fighters brought Israel's vaunted military to a standstill. Lebanon's most renowned Shi'ite cleric stood before a sea of yellow Hizbullah flags on Sept. 22 in a rare moment of triumph; and it reverberated throughout the Middle East. Nasrallah is Khamenei's representative in Lebanon. His Hizbullah was established shortly after Israel's invasion of Lebanon in mid-1982 as an offshore of Iran's Ja'fari Shi'ite theocracy. At one time in the early days of Hizbullah, Nasrallah and some of his colleagues called for turning Lebanon into a Ja'fari Shi'ite theocracy, a branch of Iran's theocracy which was to become universal - i.e., ruling over the world - just before al-Mahdi's return to Earth.

Ja'fari Shi'ism now is suffused with a culture of resistance, an identity which finds spiritual meaning in fighting injustice and through martyrdom. The result is a Shi'ite-led "axis of resistance" with Iran and Hizbullah at its core, versus a US-led Western alliance which includes Israel.

Is a battle for a "new Middle East" under way? Khamenei seems to think so. In May, he declared that a "great war of wills" was taking place. He said Iran's standing up to the US and the West had "exploded a bomb in world politics which is a hundred times more powerful than the [atomic] bomb...exploded in Hiroshima".

Recently, The Christian Science Monitor began a two-part special report on the Shi'ite ascension - in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon - and its future. The following are extract from one of the Monitor's articles: "Nine hundred miles separate the front line of last summer's war in Lebanon from a vast Tehran cemetery where Iran has buried thousands of its martyrs. Relatives come regularly to reverently lay flowers and press their lips to faded portraits of soldiers who perished in the 1980-88 war with Iraq. But today, the graveyard also honors another war hero. Countless stickers, depicting the face of Lebanon's Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, now adorn one memorial after another. That admiration is part of the strong and growing connection between Shiite Muslims - a bond that crosses borders and unites the fraction of Muslims who are its adherents.

"Months after Israeli and Hizbullah forces fought in Lebanon, would-be Iranian martyrs still dream of taking up arms alongside their distant Shiite brethren. 'We were waiting. If we were needed, we would have gone to Lebanon to defend Shiites', says Manoucher Rasoulzadeh, an Iranian car salesman, during his weekly visit to the grave of his brother-in-law, a 1987 'martyr' of the war. While Sheikh Nasrallah's visage evokes pride among Shiites in Iran, it's another figure whose sacrifice defines and unifies this minority Islamic sect. Mr. Rasoulzadeh reaches for his cellphone to show off an image of Imam Hussein ibn Ali, the revered cleric who was martyred in AD 680, with his hopelessly outnumbered band of followers in battle in Karbala, Iraq. It shows a thickly bearded man with rays of light coming from his green-turbaned head.

"In the pantheon of Shiite holy men, none towers higher than Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad. The biggest Shiite holiday of the year, Ashura, honors that legend with reenactments, poetry, parades, and bloody self-flagellation. 'There is a saying', says Rasoulzadeh. 'It is the blood of Hussein that kept Islam alive'. This year, Ashura took on new meaning when it was celebrated in January. In Lebanon, it came after the country lost more than 1,200 people to the war with Israel. In Iraq, it became a show of defiance to the Sunni [Neo-Salafi] suicide bombers who continually attack Shiites' newfound power by blowing up their markets and mosques. And in Saudi Arabia, where Shiites are a 15 percent minority, the largest public commemoration in recent memory took place.

"Saudi security forces once cracked down on celebrants, but this year, Saudis mourned Hussein's demise openly and praised Nasrallah in public - a sign of how the Shiite leader's popular face-off against Israel resonates even in Sunni Gulf states. Indeed, recent events have only propelled the Shiite rise, says one woman in Beirut caught in the crush of an Ashura rally: 'Every time you see the blood of a Shiite, it makes him stronger'.

"A common fight against the West Last summer's war in Lebanon was cast by both sides as part of a wider struggle. On one side: Israel with the strategic support of the US. On the other: Hizbullah, backed by Iran and Syria, which along with Palestinian militants such as Hamas, form part of an increasingly cohesive 'axis of resistance'". Then the Monitor quoted Khamenei as telling Lebanon's Hizbullah: "What you gave as a gift from your resistance and jihad to the Islamic nation is beyond my capability to describe... You showed that through the help of God military superiority is not based on arms, weapons, fighter planes, tanks, or the Navy, but on the power of beliefs, jihad, and sacrifice'".

The Monitor added: "Shiite in character, but pan-Islamic, the axis stretches from Tehran, through Syria, to Lebanon, and into the Palestinian territories. It sees the flow of money and arms - and ideological inspiration - to fight Israel from Gaza and to counter Western influence in Lebanon. It also reaches from Iran and Hizbullah, with cash and training, to allies in Iraq.

"The Pentagon accuses Tehran of providing explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and training of militants of all stripes to fight against US forces in Iraq. On top of cash given for rebuilding projects, Iran spent $64 million upgrading Shiite shrines like those in Karbala, where Imam Hussein was killed.

"This new axis has partly grown from the seed of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, which Americans remember for a 444-day crisis when US diplomats were held hostage. Its paint fading, the old US Embassy wall in Tehran still carries these words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: 'We will make America face a severe defeat'.

"Some see Iran's full spectrum of influence in Iraq and 'soft' power in Lebanon and elsewhere as a belated realization of Ayatollah Khomeini's order to 'export' that revolution". The Monitor then quoted Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Hizbullah expert at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, as saying: "For Hizbullah, and even for Iran, [the] play for power in the region serves an ideological aim. Their influence over the Palestinians does not mean they want to spread Shiite Islam in Palestine. It's to confront Israel and the US. It's to spread resistance; that is the religion they want to spread".

The Monitor added: "She notes that most Sunnis instead often follow an "accommodationist model" in dealing with authority, though indeed many hundreds of extremist [Neo-Salafi] jihadis have blown themselves up in attacks against both Shiite and Western targets. By contrast, there have been very few Shiite suicide attacks in recent years. But it's Shiite theology, based on sacrifice and honed by centuries as an embattled minority and cradle-to-grave indoctrination, that makes Shiites natural leaders of this axis".

The paper quoted Ms Saad-Ghorayeb as asking: "When you look at powerful actors in the region today, who is rejecting American hegemony?", and then saying: "It's this new strategic axis: Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, and Hamas - and two of them are non-Shiite". Hizbullah is "fully immersed in this religious ideology", said Saad-Ghorayeb, adding: "There are people who have been raised by mothers who want them, encourage them, to sacrifice themselves. The medium is Shiite Islam - it's a very valuable mobilizing tool".

The Monitor quoted "Alireza Taraghi, a conservative politician and editor in Tehran", as agreeing, saying: "When Imam Khomeini said 'export the revolution', he didn't mean sending people to that country and by war converting people by force to their beliefs. He meant this idea [of resistance] should be expressed in the world". Indeed, that is how Iranian leaders cast current events.

President Ahmadi-Nejad has framed a more assertive anti-Western policy, from Iran's controversial nuclear programme to the capture of 14 British sailors patrolling Iraqi waters in April. Today, he echoes Khomeini, who said years ago that "the issues of Palestine and Lebanon [are among] our main goals", and "we consider Lebanon ours". Iran and Lebanon are "limbs of the same body", Ahmadi-Nejad said in February, praising Hizbullah's fight last summer. He said: "The spectacular resistance of your nation against military aggression of the Zionist regime was unique and totally unmatched. With its resistance, the Lebanese nation became the flag of resistance, piety, and pride for all nations".

The Monitor continued: "...And where Iran and Lebanon lead, Shiites in Iraq - at least some of them - follow. Since modern Iraq was created in 1921, Sunnis have ruled. But the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the arrival of an imperfect democracy has put the 60-percent Shiite majority in control for the first time. Mr. Hussein outlawed Shiite rites and forced thousands of Iraqis with Persian roots to leave. In 1991, his security forces slaughtered tens of thousands of Shiites after an uprising.

"Ayatollahs who resisted the dictator's rule were assassinated along with their families. But even as Shiite rituals today are freely practiced, the country is being torn by severe sectarian violence that takes up to 3,700 lives in a single month".