Tim Anderson
Source: Al Mayadeen English
Tim Anderson argues that, despite opposing religious states, solidarity is due with Iran on the grounds of self-determination, social development gains, and resistance to Western imperialism.
The FIRST and most obvious reason to support Iran is that solidarity is due to any independent people under attack by the imperial power. That much, most people understand. Imperialism has always been the great social evil.
SECOND, and fundamental to the first, since the Iranian people chose a revolutionary path based on Islamic principles, we should respect their right to self-determination, whether or not that is a path we would have chosen for ourselves. The right of a people to self-determination is the key human right, before all others, placed in international human rights law (the ICCPR and the ICESCR) by the former colonial states, with grudging acceptance from the former colonial powers.
It is plain from the recent huge rallies in Iran (January 12, 2026 and February 2026) and surveys - the UNDP reported in 2018 that 71% of Iranians trust their national government (almost double the figure for the USA), while University of Maryland polls in 2019 showed 82% support for murdered Iranian anti-terrorist commander Qassem Soleimani and strong majority support for other political leaders - that the great bulk of the Iranian people in Iran support their nation, especially in face of the new waves of US and Israeli aggression.
The Iranian revolution of 1979 expelled the US-backed dictatorship (of the “Shah” or “Emperor” Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) installed by the Anglo-Americans after they overthrew an elected social democratic government in 1953. After decades of political repression, resistance to this despised regime came to be organised mainly through the mosques. As a result, contemporary Iranian self-determination has been attached to Islamic Shia values which stress the need for sacrifice in opposing unjust regimes and tyrants.
Well before I came into contact with the Arab and Muslim world, I had developed my own spiritual understandings and moral reasoning from other cultures (mostly from India and Latin America). I am not at all closed to learning from other cultures, but similarly not open to adopting a new religion; indeed my spiritual path turned me away from many common elements of organised religion. While respecting the Shia tradition of sacrifice and resistance, and conscious of the tremendous examples of Shia leaders like Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Haj Qassem Soleimani, tremendous ambassadors for their nations and their religions, I maintain a deep conviction that no culture has a monopoly on decent human values. Indeed, I was struck by the common features I saw in indigenous communities of the Pacific Islands and in those of the Arab world. That helped convince me that many traditional and decent human values (e.g. hospitality, reciprocity and inclusivity) developed independently in many parts of the world.
The lessons I learned from Islamic scholars in Syria reinforced this view. Seeing that Quranic scholar Muhammad Said Ramadan Al-Bouti was murdered by Western backed Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists in his Damascus mosque, along with 40 of his followers, taught me the great difference between conservative Sunni Muslim scholars and extremists. And on hearing that I was publishing a book on the resistance (Axis of Resistance, 2019), Syria’s former Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun was quick to tell me that resistance (to Imperialism and Zionism) should never be the property of any particular religion; further, that no state should be based on any particular religion. Even though pluralist Syria (when Assad was president) was closely allied to both Hezbollah and Iran, I appreciated his point.
THIRD, the Islamic Republic of Iran has, for the most part, done the right thing by its people. This is not just a matter of opinion. UNDP reports from 1999 and 2018 show that, between 1990 and 2017, Iran was second only to the People’s Republic of China in making outstanding advances in its Human Development Index. Iran’s HDI grew on average 1.21% per year over those 27 years, mainly due to improvements in mass education and maternal and child health. I discussed this in my 2019 book Axis of Resistance (Chapter 14).
Contrary to much of Western propaganda, average living conditions in Iran were very poor in the pre-revolution period. Yet between 1980 and 2017, average life expectancy in Iran rose from 54.1 to 76.2 years. Average years of schooling more than quadrupled, from 2.2 to 9.8 years. According to a 2022 report by the Washington-based World Bank, the expected years of schooling for children in Iran by 2020 was 11.9 years for boys and 11.8 years for girls. Those tremendous advances in education and health laid the basis for the technical and industrial development pursued by successive Iranian governments, away from a simple dependence on energy reserves, which characterises many oil rich countries.
FOURTH, the Islamic Republic of Iran has provided tremendous support to the Palestinian and other independent peoples of the West Asian region, besieged and attacked as they are by imperial powers and the Zionist enemy. No other state or entity has provided the means for these people to defend themselves. Since 1979, Iran’s support for the Palestinian people and their various Resistance groups - falsely derided as “terrorist” by imperial regimes - has been consistent and strong. This support includes cultural events such as International Quds Day, at the end of Ramadan, to remind Muslims to support the oppressed people of Palestine. Indeed, Iran’s firm support for Palestine is the main reason why the nation has been targeted by the Israelis, Washington and their hangers-on. In response to this, Iran has tried to build regional cooperation and regional resistance to foreign occupation.
A Palestinian academic colleague resident in Iran has taken regular measure of Iranian public support for the government’s backing of the Palestinian resistance; he says that support increased after Trump’s January 2020 murder of Qassem Soleimani and again after the Israeli attacks on Iran in June 2025.
In recent years, Washington has tried to roll the clock back, through hybrid wars consisting of incessant propaganda, direct attacks, economic siege, and contracted terrorism. Some of that propaganda has successfully fooled Western populations into supporting yet another “color revolution”, even though it is obviously orchestrated by Washington and the Israelis.
Much of the propaganda has been anti-Islamic, such as the depiction of Iran as anti-woman, through enforcement of the hijab or head scarf dress code for women. I have to admit I am also against a state imposed dress code aimed at women. However, the Western campaign has been dishonest and ignores the reality of women in Iran.
First of all, hijab or modesty is a religious requirement (not the same as a state mandate). Second, the massive Western campaign claiming that in 2022 Iranian police beat to death a young woman - Mahsa Amini - for improper head scarf was completely false and contrary to the public evidence of CCTV and a coroner’s report. Third, while it is true that many young Iranian women do not like the head scarf rule, they have also subverted it, so that the practice in most Iranian cities is that many Muslim women just wear a loose scarf over their shoulders, raising it when they pass a shrine or a mosque. As a result of this practice, Iranian women have probably the most relaxed hijab custom in the Muslim world.
Finally, while Iran’s leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei strongly supports the hijab as a religious requirement, he has also called for tolerance and respect for women with “inadequate hijab”, saying that “those who do not fully observe the hijab should not be accused of being irreligious or against the Revolution … why do you accuse such people? … [who] are covered in different ways … and are shedding tears [at religious and national events] … they are our own children, they are our daughters.”
Nevertheless, it is difficult for any non-Muslim to accept the principle of religious guardianship (Velayat-e Faqih in Iran), which is the foundation of Iran’s hybrid democratic system. Indeed, there are even some important Shia leaders who opposed this doctrine, such as the late Lebanese Marja Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. Yet as I said above, religious guardianship is not my choice, it is that of the people of Iran. Further, we can often see greater democratic processes at work in Iran than in the Anglo-American world, which is mostly subject to oligarchic rule.
As an independent observer I have to recognise that the Islamic led Iranian Revolution kicked out a foreign power, then the Islamic Republic invested in its people, making massive advances in the health and education of its boys and girls, building a strong and resilient nation and playing the most important regional role in supporting the Palestinian people and the other independent peoples of the region.
Iran’s consistent firm adherence to principle is not a coincidence but rather a result of its strong and mature leadership since the revolution. For the most part, it has been the liberal wing of Iranian politics that has, at times, weakened the nation, in a fruitless pursuit of some crumbs for ingratiating themselves with Western elites. Without Iran’s principled leadership, there would have been greater concessions to that voracious monster that is Anglo-American imperialism and its bastard Zionist child.
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