Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, and American President Donald Trump have both called on the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his Mullahs (theocratic religious leaders) to surrender. They have made it clear that they will not stop the attacks on Iranian military and nuclear sites until the Iranians basically agree to give up completely any and all efforts to build nuclear weapons. That means that the U.S. and Israel will destroy everything the Iranians have that can possibly be related to making war.
Right now the Israelis are bombing Iranian targets with impunity and there is simply nothing the Iranians can do about it. So any rational person would think if the Iranian leaders had any common sense they would see the futility of continuing to resist.
The problem is, as we have pointed out in this website on many occasions and as the Israelis certainly understand, the Iranian Mullahs, who control that country’s government and military, are not rational people. They live under the illusion that at some point in this battle with the “Little Satan” (Israel) and the “Great Satan” (the United States) they will be rescued by Allah, They believe he will bring his all powerful previously hidden Mahdi (“The Rightly Guided One” or Savior) to lead them to victory. Probably at this moment they are deep in prayer to Allah begging him to send his promised deliverer to save them from destruction. And they believe he will!
I know this all sounds incredible. But we can’t look at it from our perspective. For nearly half a century the Iranian elite military, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG), and the Iranian government, has been indoctrinated from their birth with this theological and political dogma so that they are convinced it is true. Most of them will fight to the death as martyrs believing it will assure they wiil go directly to paradise.
So what will happen when it is all over and the Mahdi doesn’t show? For many devout Shiite “Twelver” Muslim Iranians it will be a great crisis of faith. They have no knowledge of anything else. For them, if this is not true, then nothing can be true. Who knows what the effects in Iran society may be. It could lead to a mass civil war or insurrection. The IRG could go wild with rage. In any case, Iran will not get nuclear weapons and, at least for that, the world can be glad!
For more on the Twelver Shiites go to this article: https://www.marketfaith.org/2015/08/the-atomic-bomb-and-the-religious-fanatics-of-iran-another-look-at-shiite-islam/