Iran Zamin (Part 1): Shi’ism as Sovereignty and Geopolitics in the Middle East

Iran Zamin (Part 3): The Anti-Western Bloc and Hispanic – American Resistance

Against the model of Shi’ism discussed in the first part, which is widespread in the Middle East, the Tigris-Euphrates Basin, and the Eastern Mediterranean, and has been able to organize a block capable of withstanding the onslaughts of Israel, we find the Sunni block of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates (Salafism, Wahhabism), and Turkey competing with Iran in this region, as well as in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan. We encounter another imperial model for Iran: Iranianism.

Iranianism represents a strategy that does not always align with religious sentiment, as it highlights the importance of the cultural, linguistic, and ethnic heritage of the Iranian peoples, of which the Islamic Republic of Iran considers itself a direct heir of the Iranian empires and, at the same time, as the central axis, protector, and promoter of this culture.

It is essential to understand that the Iranian empires extended from the steppes of Central Asia, specifically south of the Syr Darya River, to Yemen or the Mediterranean, leaving a Persian imprint in the form of Shi’ism. However, in other regions, Shi’ism was secondary as the cultural element prevailed. When the empires that dominated the territory through hard power, meaning political-military force, collapse, this power, unable to control the massive territory, becomes relegated to the ethnic heart of the empire (in this case, the Persians) but leaves behind a fertile ground through soft power—namely, culture and a blend (sometimes clear cultural syncretism) in its regions.

Numerous examples illustrate this, such as the fusion process between the remnants of Turkic-Mongol Timurid culture and Persian-Islamic elements in literary-legendary forms, cultural practices like the Nowruz festival, or in everyday architecture and culture. This also includes purely Iranian ethnic-cultural elements, such as the Tajiks (scattered beyond Tajikistan and being an important minority in Afghanistan or Uzbekistan), the Pamiris, or the Pashtuns of Afghanistan or Pakistan, who speak and have Iranian culture even if they are not necessarily Persian. On the other hand, there are the Dari speakers, the Persian of Afghanistan.

One of the scenarios where this ideology has functioned best has been, precisely, in Afghanistan, where through Shi’ism they became strong as natural allies of the Hazara (a Shiite group that speaks Persian and is ethnically Turco-Persian). As Iranians, they also became protectors of the Pashtuns and Tajiks, which resulted in stable and friendly relations with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban), despite experiencing a serious crisis in 1998 with the attack on the Iranian consulate in Kandahar. Due to their dispersion and the large number of native Pashtuns from Pakistan, the Pashtun is closer to Pakistan than to Iran, although because of migration due to the many wars in Afghanistan, there are more than 3 million Afghan Pashtuns born in Iran as second or third generation refugees, a topic addressed, for example, in the acclaimed film «Baran» by Persian director Majid Majidi.

Iran protected Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hezb-i Islami (a radical Sunni group), and other regional elements. This is because, despite Pashtuns and Tajiks speaking languages closely related to modern Persian, the urbanization process in the country attracted many other non-Iranian ethnic groups to the cities, and they became «Iranianized» in their customs, traditions, and language by adopting Dari (the Persian language of Afghanistan).

Let’s not forget that, in fact, in the 20th century, there were two Shahs: the Shah of Persia (the last of whom was the famous Mohammed Reza Pahlavi) and the Shah of Afghanistan: Mohammed Zahir Shah, both of whom had a deep cooperative relationship between their dynasties.

This has translated into a very powerful influence in Afghanistan that ranges from fraternal closeness to more aggressive distancing, but it also gives Tehran the ability for deep penetration in the region, which has sometimes been a source of stability by easing relations between Afghan Sunni Islamist radicals and the Hazara Shiite population when Iran holds a moderate influence in the region. However, both excessive and insufficient influence in the region have led to altercations and anti-Shiite displays, causing particular harm to the Hazaras. Therefore, Iran’s role in Afghanistan is that of a crucial actor without which regional stability cannot be achieved. In fact, Afghanistan is a country whose stability depends as much on Tehran as on Islamabad, another country with a significant influence of Iranian culture (through the Pashtuns, as previously mentioned, and which has had Imran Khan, a Pashtun, as Prime Minister).

At the same time, it is Iran, of which Afghanistan has been a historical part, that has earned the sympathy of Afghans through culture by conducting a massive social engineering campaign promoting traditional Iranian festivals (Nowruz, Yalda) and highlighting the shared history of the country, as narrated in the Shahnameh, where the great hero Rostam (national hero of Iran) is the son of Zal (a Persian) and Rudabeh (an Afghan princess from Kabul). Let us not forget that both countries have invaded each other… from the Persian invasions of Afghanistan to the invasions of Afghans into Iran, creating the ephemeral Hotaki Empire, a case similar to that of the Zand Kurds, who ruled a short dynasty from the city of Shiraz and fell before the Qajar dynasty, their great enemies… of Turkish origin.

Looking back, this rich history allows for Iranianism, which has deeply rooted itself in Tajikistan—a region that suffered a jihadist onslaught in the 1990s and is under significant influence from Russia and Iran—to take a turn starting in 2014 when Tajiks began changing their surnames from Russian to Persian (Iranianizing them) as a nationalist element.

Tajikistan, former Soviet republic in Central Asia, is the last Persian frontier before entering the Turkic world of Central Asia. However, Iran’s role here is not religious, as Tajiks and Pamiris, despite being Sunni Muslims, do not have a special identity marker in religion following more than seventy years of state atheism. Therefore, Iran’s influence in this region is merely national and identity-related.

In parallel, the influence over Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, despite being a Turkic region linguistically and ethnically, and a natural area to which Turkey is dedicating significant diplomatic efforts, is, however, a region very closely linked to Iran culturally and historically. In fact, these former Soviet republics, where radical Islamism has hardly made an appearance, possess a mixed Turkic-Persian identity that Tehran is leveraging, as mentioned earlier, due to the syncretism that occurred in the twilight of the Timurid Empire, merging with cultural elements that had resided in these regions since time immemorial.

Iran takes advantage of this by promoting historical stages of unity (especially under the Timurid Empire) at a cultural level, once again highlighting traditional Iranian festivals such as Nowruz and Yalda.

Among the Kurds, the strategy is similar to that of Afghanistan. This community, despite being problematic for Iran due to its secessionist attempts, is viewed as the most western Iranian people, which is why it has a high cultural influence from Iran concerning the aforementioned traditional festivals, but also at a social and cultural level. In fact, Iran supported the Kurds (and Syrians), but directly the Kurds when Turkey invaded northern Syria in 2019.

Iran operates as a significant balance between the Syrian Baath regime of Bashar al-Assad, before the fall of President in 2024) and various Kurdish militias in northern Syria, wich who they want to maintain strategic links since 2025. Let us not forget that now the Kurds of Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan have a vast degree of self-determination, which the Iraqi Kurds are trying to reinforce through a cultural revolution offensive (not in a Maoist style, but in an identity-promoting sense) advocating for Kurdish identity in Irak. This movement has resonated among nationalist groups that promote the Yezidi religion like Yezidi party but as well the Yezidi as part of ancestral identity of kurds. In fact, a tendency of promotion of this identity from mayority islamic society has been noted (probably in response to the horror of ISIS and Turkey’s increasingly religious stance) but we can not to forget that kurds has a big influence of XX secularism and socialism that help, after the nightmate of ISIS to work on they traditions from this view.

In any case, we see how the axes of the Iranian model configure a large space in Central Asia and the Middle East capable of energizing an entire Iranian engine. This bloc would aim to turn Iran into a major regional power in the central regions of Eurasia, maintaining a vital space for geopolitical, commercial, and financial development that would help its economy establish and implement the principles of advanced borders where it can combat its enemies (who would have moved from its own border (in the case of Iraq until 2003) to the Syria-Lebanon border with Israel or from the Persian Gulf with Saudi Arabia to the Bab el Mandeb Strait in Yemen).

At the same time, this bloc would provide diplomatic density to engage in perfect bilateral relations and on equal terms with other blocs such as the Arab Sunni-Israel alliance in the Mashriq and Maghreb (Middle East and North Africa) or the Turkic alliance with Turkey-Azerbaijan-Central Asia, enabling agenda coordination with Russia or China.

Not to mention the Armenians. This Iranian Christian people, who have a nation-state (Armenia) and a large Armenian-Iranian community, have suffered an internal revolution in recent years that has removed them from the sphere of Russian influence, putting them in a position of vulnerability against Turkey and Azerbaijan, where they controlled an unrecognized Armenian territory, which was the Armenian Republic of Artsakh, that, since 2020, has been gradually consumed by Azerbaijan, leading to its total downfall and pressuring Armenia for the cession of the Zangezur corridor on the Armenian-Iranian border.

This results in several problems: first, Azerbaijan is an ally of Israel, and it would have a corridor that would allow it to increase its oil power against European markets. On the other hand, Israel and members of the Mossad, who have Azerbaijan as a strategic priority, could operate in Turkish and Azerbaijani territory without issue. Now the Israelis can move their agents through Azerbaijani territory in exchange for oil and military collaboration. Thus, the Israeli and Turkish bloc pressures Iran from the north.

Israel aims to make a move in its proxy war with Iran and Turkey to energize its dream of penetration into Central Asia and the revitalization of its own cultural space in Central Asia—a route from Edirne to the borders of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with China. This dual agenda would not only invigorate a purely Turkish trade (which Davutoglu and Erdogan have been promoting through agreements, cultural forums, Turkic organizations, and significant investments… extending even to Mongolia), but it would also open the pan-Turkic route as a link between China and Europe, allowing Turkey to reclaim its inherited position from the Old Ottoman Empire. This is something Iran cannot allow, as much is at stake; thus, Tehran has once again sought to protect its younger brothers by leveraging affinities and phobias, friends and historical enemies.

We must not forget that one of the greatest dynasties in Armenia, the «Arsakhuni» (66 AD with Tiridates I – 428 AD with Artaxias IV), was a minor branch of the Persian imperial dynasty of the Arsacids, under whose rule Armenian identity was further solidified with the conversion of Tiridates III under the preaching of St. Gregory the Illuminator. Therefore, the justification for an Iranian space is ethnically warranted in Armenia (despite being Christian) in the same way that it is religiously justified in Azerbaijan (as it is the second Shiite country in the world), even if they are Turkic in ethnic and linguistic terms.

However, just like the historical Persian empires, the regional, diplomatic, administrative, and territorial framework of this «empire» or Greater Iran is visibly strengthening and is capable of withstanding significant blows and severe crises. In fact, Iran-Zamin is not the Islamic Republic of Iran, nor does it respond to the exclusive interests of Tehran; rather, it is a proto-empire. Hence, this geopolitical process can be defined as the dawn of the Fourth Persian Empire.