Why do states and groups fight? Is the "only" reason competition and conflict over material interests and resources?
These interests take the form of land, oil and gas wealth, minerals, and agriculture, or, in the past, water and grazing lands, or seas, straits, and passages.
That is certainly one reason, but is it the only one?
Speaking of water, seas, and straits, the Iranian Supreme Leader in hiding, Mojtaba Ali Khamenei, recently boasted, as he claimed, about his regime and its Guards' control over the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea.
Leaving Mojtaba's boasts aside, I paused at these passages because of their relevance to today's discussion. The statement was issued on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. In it, Mojtaba, who has remained out of public view, said verbatim that "there are those today who consider us the fourth great power in the world." He then qualified this by saying that Iran is "the first power in the world" according to "divine calculations." That was not all. Khamenei also boasted about the nighttime gatherings sponsored by the state to mobilize his supporters in major squares in Tehran and other Iranian cities. He said that more than 30 million Iranians had declared their readiness to "sacrifice themselves."
He predicted that "the coming days will be far more glorious than these days." Whether Khamenei's claims are true or whether he intended to mislead is not the point. But imagine how he must relish saying that more than 30 million Iranians will die for the regime.
Has life become this cheap to him? Is he really, as is rumored, one of those ideologues who believe that the end of time is near? Does he see the world the way everyone else does? The man did not settle for ranking himself as the fourth great power in the world, meaning after the United States, Russia, and China. That was not enough. By God's reckoning, he is the greatest power in the entire world.
That is why it is necessary to understand and look deeply into the mindset of Iran's ruling regime. The Supreme Leader is the heart of the system, the center of its nervous system, and the force that drives it. Understanding this mechanism, how it operates, how it thinks, and how it sees the world is a necessary condition for formulating policies appropriate to it.
It may be said that the man makes such flights of fancy as a form of psychological warfare and to boost morale. But anyone who delves deeply into the literature of the Khomeinist-Mojtabist current, named after Mojtaba, will recognize that we are dealing with an established system of ideas of this apocalyptic and epic nature.
Yes, they create their own world, even though Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared publicly since the killing of his father at the beginning of the US strikes in late February, and no verified audio or video recording of him has been released since he was chosen as Supreme Leader on March 8.
Even Masoud Pezeshkian, the president, said earlier that communication with Khamenei is "very difficult at the moment," and that only a limited circle of senior officials meet with him directly. Even amid these images of defeat, fear, and anxiety, and even as deprivation and the collapse of services and the economy worsen, there are still particular lenses through which the regime and its Supreme Leader view the world.
In conclusion, returning to the opening question: Do states and groups fight only for direct material reasons?
The answer is no. Perhaps people fight, and even collectively perish, for abstract ideas. These are the most dangerous kinds of wars.
