POISED though he may be to unleash a deadly barrage of bombs and missiles on Iran, Donald Trump finds himself questioning why Tehran has not yet “capitulated” in the face of his military build-up in the Middle East. The US president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News on Saturday that Trump was “curious” about Iran’s resolve to resist his warnings if a deal was not reached on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
There are straightforward reasons to explain Iran’s refusal to surrender as Trump wants. But they may not make much sense to the world of pelf and plunder that the US president subscribes to like an addict. Let’s say the answer, if the so-called ‘most powerful man on the planet’ is indeed interested in one, lies in defiant deaths people throughout history have preferred to abject surrender.
One need not go too far from US shores to observe an instance in 1775 when an American patriot, for goodness sake, Patrick Henry, gave the world the slogan: “Give me liberty, or give me death.” Henry eventually succeeded in persuading Virginia to join the American war of independence against colonial Britain. Around 80 years later, Patrick Henry’s call was picked up by a host of Indian rebels against British rule and gave rise to a metaphor: 1857.
More recently, again not far from America, Trump and Witkoff should be able to understand Iran by simply reading about the life of 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie. While in Rafah on March 16, 2003, the activist-diarist joined other International Solidarity Movement volunteers in efforts to non-violently stop Israel’s demolition of Palestinian property; she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer that crushed her. The list only grows.
Trump and Witkoff should be able to understand Iran by simply reading about the life of American peace activist Rachel Corrie
The Vietnam war, the occupation of Afghanistan and the ignominious escape of the American forces from Kabul are worthy examples at par with the regime change effected in Iraq. They bear witness to the fallacy of the invincibility and problem-solving capacity of American military might. As for the current state of play underway in the Gulf — once described by Lord Curzon imperiously as a “British lake” — one would do well to revisit the circumstances and the ideological moorings that propelled the success of the 1979 Iranian revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini’s watch. The Islamic revolution was not an Islamic revolution when Iranians first began to rock the throne of the Shah of Iran.
The revolution was actually framed and led by the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party and the pro-China Mujahideen-i-Khalq, both secular radicals who saw the rural Shia populace as their mass base. It was an error of judgement they did that. Remember that Khomeini arrived in Tehran on board an Air France flight from Paris, that too after the Shah had been kicked out. A Soviet defector, meanwhile, gave away the file on Tudeh activists to London. It was duly passed on to the Shia clerics manning the upheaval.
When I met Tudeh chief Noureddin Kianouri in Tehran, he was lodged in the notorious Evan prison where he had turned into a calligraphist of religious texts. Pro-West leaders like president Abolhassan Banisadr fled to Europe, while others like foreign minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh were executed. In walked Ronald Reagan with the treasures of Contra arms package as a reward for Khomeini’s help in not releasing US hostages before the results of the 1980 presidential elections. It was thus that Iran enabled the Republican candidate to defeat Jimmy Carter whose chequered political career it abruptly ended.
Secularism or religiousness of Muslim leaders was never the West’s concern. It toppled secular regimes in Libya, Syria and Iraq and it now wants a secular autocrat to supplant the clergy as rulers. The West has backed a religious autocrat like Ziaul Haq and aligned with a secular dictator like Pervez Musharraf. It courts a religious revivalist like Narendra Modi after blackballing him when ties were flourishing with the secular Manmohan Singh. The common thread between the CIA-led coup against Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953 and the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in a murderous assault on his home in Caracas are of a piece with the West’s all weather backup plan for faltering finance capitalism: colonial plunder.
Above all, the most important clue to answering Trump’s anxiety about Iran’s refusal to surrender to his bullying lies in the 680 AD battle of Karbala from where Shia Islam draws its main inspiration. The martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali and his family by the forces of Yazid ibn Muawiya holds the key. Indian nationalist leader Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar put the equation succinctly in a verse that seems to nicely describe the leitmotif of the current rulers of Iran. “Qatl-i-Hussein asl mein marg-i-Yazid hai/ Islam zinda hota hai har Karbala ke baad.” (The killing of Hussein in fact marked Yazid’s demise/ Islam thus became the martyr’s prize.) How does Trump hope to defeat a people whose battle cry craves martyrdom? Has the CIA not translated the Persian chant on the streets of Tehran and Qom to him: “Hussein Hussein Shah-i-ma/ Shahaadat iftekhar-i-ma!” (Hussein rules my heart and soul/ martyrdom fills my spirit’s bowl!)
Years ago, in the middle of an eight year-long lacerating war in which the West backed Saddam Hussein against Khomeini, a 13-year-old Iranian boy became the hero of his nation by standing his ground (not unlike Rachel Corrie) against Iraqi troops in Khorramshahr.
Hossein Fahmideh, according to Iranian lore, saw an Iraqi tank advancing. Having run out of ammunition for his RPG, he wrapped himself in a grenade belt, jumped under the Iraqi tank, and blew it up. Upon hearing of the event, Khomeini said: “Our leader is that 13-year-old child who, with his small heart, far greater than hundreds of our tongues and pens, threw himself with a grenade under the enemy tank… .” Does that make sense to Messrs Witkoff and Trump?
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2026
