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Iranwire – In the year 260 A.D., along the dusty plains of Edessa in what is now Turkey, the Persian Empire was victorious.
Valerian, emperor of Rome, fell to his knees before Shapur I, the Sasanian King of Kings.
The capture of a living Roman emperor – a humiliation without precedent – sent shockwaves through two empires and echoed across centuries.
Persian artisans immortalized that moment in stone at Naqsh-e Rostam, inside Persepolis, just meters away from where Darius the Great is laid to rest.
Carved into the cliff face is an enduring image: the Persian emperor mounted and triumphant, the Roman emperor prostrated and defeated.
This week, a towering replica of that sculpture was installed in Enghelab Square in Tehran.
Across Iran’s capital, posters emblazoned with the defiant message “You will kneel before Iran again” mark a pivot in the Islamic Republic’s propaganda strategy.
The imagery represents more than mere nationalist symbolism. It signals a fundamental shift in how Iran’s leadership seeks to rally public support.
The Islamic Republic is moving away from four decades of strictly religious messaging toward embracing the pre-Islamic Persian heritage it once rejected.
The transformation began in earnest after the 12-day war in June.
In his first public appearance following the conflict, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 86, made an unprecedented request during a religious ceremony honoring Imam Hussein, the third imam of Shia Islam.
Instead of traditional religious lamentations, he asked a eulogist to perform “Ey Iran,” a nationalistic anthem with lyrics by Touraj Negahban, popularized by pop singer Mohammad Nouri.
The eulogist modified the lyrics to include religious themes, but the gesture resonated as official permission to deploy Iranian historical symbols in service of the Islamic government.
For Khamenei, who spent decades condemning celebrations of ancient Iranian history and even blocking Nowruz festivities at Persepolis in the 1990s, the reversal is remarkable.
Political analysts and historians see parallels between Iran’s current propaganda shift and the tactics used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988.
Both leaders, facing domestic instability and external pressure, turned to ancient civilizational imagery to shore up legitimacy and rally nationalist sentiment.
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq pioneered the modern authoritarian use of ancient history as a weapon of mass persuasion.
The secular Arab nationalist Baath Party in Iraq fused ideology and archaeology to build a powerful propaganda machine.
From the war’s start in 1980, Saddam branded the conflict as “Qadisiyah al-Saddam” or “the Second Qadisiyah,” referencing the 631 A.D. battle between Arab Muslim and Persian forces.
Iraqi state media, schools, posters, and speeches carried a single message: the current war was not a modern political dispute but an eternal struggle between Arabs and Persians.
A famous 1986 poster showed Saddam with his soldiers beneath the slogan “Saddam’s Qadisiyah: Arab Victory Over the Enemies of History.”
The propaganda elevated the war from politics to civilizational destiny, positioning Iraq as the defender of Arab heritage against “Persian resurgence.”
But Saddam’s historical appropriation extended beyond Islamic history into the deeper past of Mesopotamia.
In the 1980s, he launched an ambitious reconstruction project at ancient Babylon near Hillah.
On newly laid bricks at the restored palace complex, inscriptions declared, “In the era of Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon was revived.”
The symbolism was unmistakable. Saddam positioned himself as the direct heir to Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar, and Ashurbanipal – the kings of ancient Mesopotamia.
Propaganda posters juxtaposed his image with the Lions of Babylon and the Tower of Babel, fusing ancient glory with modern power.
Iraqi schoolchildren were taught that they were “descendants of history’s first civilization.”
Documentaries interwove footage of modern warfare with reconstructions of Babylonian splendor. The regime’s message was clear: Iraqi soldiers weren’t just fighting Iran – they were fulfilling a 2,500-year-old mission.
The dual historical appeal – Islamic conquest and pre-Islamic civilization – allowed Saddam to speak to both religious conservatives and secular nationalists.
For devout Muslims, he continued the legacy of Arab conquerors who brought Islam to Persia. For nationalists, he embodied Mesopotamian greatness.
This ideological flexibility proved crucial for wartime mobilization. Unlike the pan-Arab nationalism of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, which emphasized Arab unity across borders, Saddam’s localized nationalism placed Iraq at the center of the Arab world.
Iran’s current deployment of ancient Persian symbolism follows a similar pattern, though the circumstances differ significantly.
The Islamic Republic was founded explicitly on Shia religious identity, with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rejecting nationalism as un-Islamic.
For decades, celebrations of pre-Islamic Persian culture were viewed with suspicion or actively discouraged.
Khamenei himself embodied this religious orthodoxy. His repeated denunciations of ancient Iranian commemorations reflected genuine ideological conviction, not mere political calculation.
The Baath Party was always nationalist – Khamenei’s movement was always religious.
That makes his current embrace of figures like Shapur I all the more striking and potentially hollow.
By replicating this image in Enghelab Square with the message “You will kneel before Iran again,” the government seeks to connect contemporary conflicts with ancient glory.
Yet unlike Saddam, whose Arab nationalism was central to Baath ideology, Khamenei’s turn to pre-Islamic Persian identity appears opportunistic rather than organic.
Since Khamenei’s “Ey Iran” moment, supporters have begun portraying him in the style of ancient Persian kings.
The propaganda apparatus stops short of directly comparing him to Cyrus the Great or Darius the Great – that would be too obvious – but the visual language is unmistakable.
The strategy aims to attract Iranians alienated by the Islamic Republic’s religious conservatism. By pivoting to nationalist themes, Khamenei hopes to tap into widespread pride in Persian civilization and expand his base beyond religious hardliners.
Both historical precedent and current conditions suggest Iran’s propaganda shift faces significant obstacles.
Saddam’s mythmaking temporarily maintained wartime unity but ultimately couldn’t obscure political and economic failures. When U.S. forces toppled his regime in 2003, the carefully constructed historical narrative collapsed.
Iran faces even steeper challenges. The Islamic Republic is confronting mounting domestic crises: water shortages, electricity blackouts, air pollution, and economic hardship.
These realities affect millions of Iranians daily, making propaganda appeals increasingly ineffective.
The use of ancient history for contemporary political purposes is hardly unique to Iraq and Iran.
Nazi Germany invoked Germanic tribes and Roman imagery. Fascist Italy claimed direct descent from the Roman Empire. Modern authoritarian regimes regularly use archaeological sites and ancient symbols to bolster legitimacy.
