trump is threatening to destroy iranian civilization.
the truth is that the iranians have already been completely wiped out several times and bounced back and that tearing down the islamic state would aid in the return of iranian civilization, which is currently in a period of submission to arab colonialism.
- there are no clear records to explain how the persians destroyed the elamites, but elam disappears from history after an assyrian campaign against them. when the persians and medes reappear, they are a new ethnic group in control of a devastated elamite state. they are initially seen as elamites.
- the greeks wiped the persians out and set up a new greco-persian empire called seleucia to replace them.
- the seleucids, who were seen as greek colonizers, were overthrown by the parthians, who were a new iranian tribe from the plateau and not persians.
- the parthians were badly defeated by the romans under trajan and septimus severus and while the romans did not annex persia because it was seen as outside of the greco-roman cultural sphere, it did not ever recover. the parthians were overthrown by the sassanids, who were persians, like the achaemenids.
- the sassanid state was demolished by the romans under heraclius, but he again refrained from annexing it, despite nearly sacking the capital. the romans at this stage believed that history was over and wanted to maintain territorial integrity. really. they just wanted things to go back to how they were.
- however, the roman victory in the last roman-persian war (along with the plague) left the persians so weak that they were completely wiped out by the barbarian arabs, who completely toppled the persian state and converted them to islam.
- unlike the romans, the arabs began to aggressively colonize mesopotamia and western iran (the plague had recently depopulated it). western iran was then slowly kurdified and the kurds emerge as the dominant cultural and ruling power. but, a series of persian dynasties did slowly emerge in the east and reconstitute itself, including the saffarids and the samanids.
- the persians were then again wiped out by invaders, this time by turks invading from the east, who set up the ghaznavid empire and then were replaced by the seljuk turks, who invaded western iran and reunited it. they were replaced by mamluk turks, who created khwarazm, who were assimilated deeply into persia, but were turks.
- the mongols completely destroyed the turks, and in the process recreated persian identity, but that required killing millions and millions and millions of people. a mongol controlled persian state called the il khanate emerges, which falls apart and reconstitutes as the timurid empire, before beng replaced by the safavids, an iranian dynasty. even after 500 years of rule by turks and mongols, the persians still re-emerge.
- however, they are destroyed by the turks a second time in the mid 1700s, and the turks manage to maintain control until the early 1900s, when the persians re-emerge yet again.
- many people in and outside iran consider the 1979 islamic revolution to be a return of arabic colonialism in iran, and consider the struggle against the islamic republic to be a struggle for persian nationalism. overthrowing the islamic state means bringing back persian identity, once again. if the islamic state is defeated, it will allow for a return of persian civilization, not signal the destruction of it.
my language has been very careful.
the iranian state - the mullahs. the islamic republic - has no future. it is a matter of time before the state is destroyed and functionally erased from history. nobody will remember much from this period, when it is over. it will be a blip in time - a failed state.
but this is not the destruction of iranian civilization, but rather a pre-requisite for it's return, as the islamic state is holding iranian identity and iranian culture hostage and in submission, and abolishing it will allow them to reassert themselves and rebuild.