Debunking The “Rally Around The Flag” Argument About Iran
Peymaneh Shafi
As tensions continue to rise in the Middle East between the United States and Iran, various voices are heard warning about the possibility of a new war ravaging the region.
Along this line, a slate of Iranian regime apologists and lobbyists go as far as basing their claims about the mullahs relying on the “rally around the flag” theory of the Iranian people defending their regime, according to Arab News.
Anyone making such claims is either blindly pushing Tehran’s talking points or just utterly naïve.
A look back to the early days of the mullahs’ rule in Iran provides an understanding of the abovementioned arguments.
During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Khomeini’s regime tapped on the Iranian nation’s Islamic beliefs in their manipulative practices to encourage, especially the youth, into the war.
Tens of thousands of Iranian men were literally used as cannon-fodders in the mullahs’ devastating methods.
Even small children were sent to the battlefields, all with “keys to heaven” around their necks, to clear minefields for the regime’s ground forces.