World Arrogance and the Folly of Towers

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 24 January) – Make no mistake about it. The downing of Starlink would only delay but never deter the US attack on Iran. That, in itself, is not strategy. It is anthropology. It is the inherent nature of what the Sage of Jamaran called istikbār-e jahānī—World Arrogance.

History has always had a tragic sense of repetition. None deterred Nimrod from building his tower and symbolically “shooting” at the God of Abraham. None was able to dissuade Pharaoh from pursuing a people that was already crossing into freedom, not even when the sea moved against him.

None restrained the people of Thamūd from slaying the she-camel, in spite of its being a living Divine Proof before their eyes.

None daunted Qarun, intoxicated by his wealth, from believing that his treasures were a sign of divine favor.

None deterred Abu Jahl from kufr (disbelief), even when the reality was right in front of his very eyes.

Arrogance does not learn. It escalates.

Thus, when Trump speaks of Greenland or Iran, or when he treats Venezuela as a playground for imperial muscle-memory, this is not aberration. This is pattern. This is sheer istikbār (arrogance) following its own tired script. The actors change. The hubris does not.

The Founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran was not a conventional statesman, nor a technocratic foreign-policy analyst. Imam Khomeini’s compass was something far deeper: an ‘irfānī understanding of human nature itself.

The Last Messenger (ṣ) already named the disease with surgical clarity: “The son of Adam will never be satisfied until his mouth is filled with earth.” (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, 6439; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, 1048) Imam Khomeini had also repeatedly reminded that the issue of arrogant powers is not a political one, rather a question of existence.

He reminded us that the power of this world is animated by an inner emptiness, a spiritual hunger that will never be quenched by territory or gas and oil fields or military bases. The more they take, the more entitled they feel to take. The further they dominate, the more their own identity becomes one of domination.

This is not geopolitics. This is pathology. As such, whenever Trump finally commits his colossal folly, whether soon or later, we should not imagine a tidy, traditional war with clear borders and diplomatic offramps. What lies ahead is protracted, asymmetrical warfare that has no geography.

It will be aggression against Marja‘iyyah, an authority that does not command tanks but commands hearts. And hearts, history teaches us, are far more dangerous to empires than missiles.

This will be a folly that will awaken a deeper echo: the reverberation of Imām al-Ḥusayn’s cry, “Hal min nāṣirin yanṣurunā (Is there anyone to help us)?” across a world already saturated with

injustice. It will turn ‘Āshūrā’ into kullu yawm and Karbalā’ into kullu arḍ. Every day will become ‘Āshūrā’. Every land will become Karbalā’.

Meanwhile, some local Wahhabi-Salafi voices, parroting their counterparts abroad, already reveal their quiet excitement not to take side in the ensuing showdown but to spectate it. To sit on the sidelines, polishing ‘aqīdah and manhaj, as if neutrality in the face of oppression and genocide were a theological virtue. A prototype of Syria under Jewlani: purity of creed paired with acquiescence to Tel Aviv.

But history is unforgiving to comfortable spectators. Whatever unfolds, we fully submit to the Lord of Sha‘bān and Ramaḍān—the Lord of Karbalā’ and Uhud, the Lord of Moses and Muhammad, the Lord who humiliates tyrants not only through armies, but through the slow, grinding exposure of their own arrogance.

World Arrogance always builds towers. And every tower, sooner or later, becomes a monument to its own collapse.

#InternationalRelations #MiddleEast #WestAsia #Iran #USForeignPolicy #WorldArrogance

[MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Mansoor L. Limba, PhD in International Relations and Shari‘ah Counselor-at-Law (SCL), is a publisher-writer, university professor, vlogger, chess trainer, and translator (from Persian into English and Filipino) with tens of writtenand translation works to his credit on such subjects as international politics, history, politicalphilosophy, intra-faith and interfaith relations, cultural heritage, Islamic finance, jurisprudence(fiqh), theology (‘ilm al-kalam), Qur’anic sciences and exegesis (tafsir), hadith, ethics, andmysticism. He can be reached at mlimba@diplomats.com and http://www.youtube.com/@WayfaringWithMansoor, and his books can be purchased at www.elzistyle.com and https://ift.tt/PY5l1AV.]