Power of the Islamic Republic: Evoking the Might of the Ancient Persian Empire

The Islamic Republic has no need, as the Pahlavis did, to tie its political legitimacy to the ancient Persian Empire.

Guest Note - Hojjatul Islam Daoud Mahdavizadegan, head of Islamic Revolution Science and Education Research Institute: The autocratic and dependent Pahlavi regime was always struggling with the crisis of historical and cultural legitimacy since it came to be with the help of the British and westernized intellectuals. Therefore, the Pahlavis tried to show themselves as an extension of the world empire of ancient Iran through archaism.

In order to solve the crisis of ideological legitimacy, they held expensive theatrical celebrations of two thousand five hundred years and said to Cyrus that he should sleep peacefully because we are awake.

But the world did not feel this awakening. Because they did not see any sign of the great empire of ancient Iran in the dependent Pahlavi system, so they suspected the awakening of the remnant of the empire of ancient Iran. Pahlavi's power was so superficial that it was not even reminiscent of the power of a third world country, let alone the great empire of ancient Iran.

But when the biggest power in the world today attacks Iran with the idea of occupying it for a week, but faces the strong and steely power of Iranians, then it remembers the great empire of ancient Iran. For this reason, his foreign minister Marc Rabiot travels thousands of kilometers across the wire to Athens to warn the West about the resurgence of the great empire of ancient Iran.

The two wars imposed by the United States against Islamic Iran in the past year left no doubt that the memory of the great Achaemenid Empire came alive in the mind and tongue of the American foreign minister from seeing the power of the Islamic Republic and not the fantasy show of ancient Iran in the celebrations of two thousand and five hundred years. With a show of glamorous fantasy that cannot be declared as the heir and extension of that glorious empire.

Of course, in order to prove its political legitimacy, the Islamic Republic does not need to be attributed to the ancient Iranian Empire, like Pahlavi. Such an attribution comes from the enemies who consider the power of the Islamic Republic to be reminiscent of the power of the great empire of ancient Iran. But the power of that ancient empire is part of the power of the Islamic Republic. Because the sacred and religious roots of the Imamiyyah political system are much deeper, firmer and higher than the political philosophy of ancient Iran.