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Why Iran will try to prolong the war: Praying for spiritual regime change in an ancient land · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining us for Dinnison Forum's Daily Article Podcast.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today is Thursday, March the 5th, 2026, and today's Daily Article is authored by our co-founder, Dr. Jim Dinnison.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, narrator.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Last night, the Pentagon released the last two names of the six soldiers killed in a Kuwait attack a day after the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other four Americans had earlier been identified.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: A military official said of the soldiers, quote, We honor our fallen heroes who serve fearlessly and selflessly in defense of our nation.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their sacrifice and the sacrifices of their families will never be forgotten.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Iran has its way, they will only be the first of many American deaths to come.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: As the New York Times reports, quote, the Islamic Republic of Iran's first priority is to survive.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: To do that, its leaders will want to drive up the cost of the war for President Trump in terms of American casualties, energy costs, and inflation to try to persuade him to declare victory and go home."
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote,
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason the Iranian regime wants to survive this war at all cost is not just personal, as selfish as it was for them to massacre thousands of civilians who protested against them.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their larger agenda is ideological, until we understand it, we will be unequipped to win this war in ways that will matter long after it's over.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: For an expanded explanation of this,
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: A link to them are in today's podcast episode notes.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Around 85% of Muslims are Sunnis.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Around 15% are Shiites.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: The latter, though, are the majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those sizable populations also live in Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Kuwait.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can think of the two groups somewhat like Catholic and Protestant denominations,
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: with historic and significant differences, but still part of the larger faith.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their divergence goes back to the death of the prophet Muhammad in 8632.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sunis, that name comes from Sunah, meaning habit or usual practice, believe that the callives or leaders who followed Muhammad were his
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: proper successors, Shiites translated partisans or part of Ali, this agree, claiming that Muhammad's son-in-law Ali, the fourth Khalif, was the rightful heir.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Approximately 80% of Shiites are 12 versions.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: They believe that the 12th Imam, the Shiites Supreme Spiritual Leader Abu Al-Qasam Muhammad,
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: was hidden by God in AD 872 and then transported to a transcendent realm in AD 934.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: This event is called the Acculation.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: In their theology, this 12th Imam is still alive and waiting to reappear at the end of history as the muddy, meaning the guided one, a kind of Muslim Messiah, many Shiites, voice and right prayers to him daily.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many twelvers also believe that a time of great chaos will proceed the coming of the body.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are the military that dominates Iran's politics and society, Israel must be destroyed before the body will reappear.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why the possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is an existential threat to Israel and the West.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This also explains why negotiations to prevent Iran from permanently acquiring such weapons have never succeeded.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: We should add that for many geodists dying in a geod, meaning holy war, is their only certain guarantee of a place in paradise.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now that senior clerics in Iran have declared this conflict to be a geod, this element should not be overlooked.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: This ideology explains why, following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has been the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has supported proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah in their atrocities against Israel and repeatedly inside violence against the West.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their purpose is not geographical.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Iran does not seek to conquer the land of Israel in the way that Putin seeks to conquer Ukraine and Hitler try to conquer Europe.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rather, it is ideological.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: They believe that their theological worldview is the only proper version of Islam and want to export it across the Muslim world.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as we have seen, they're even higher purpose is to prepare for the arrival of the body who will then dominate the world for Islam.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Iranian regime believes that it exists in the service of these agendas and that it is serving Allah in doing so.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Accordingly, Israel and the US are encouraging a regime change by which the Iranian people revolt against their leaders and take control of their country.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, what Iran needs most is a spiritual regime change.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Its population has become dramatically more secularized in recent years.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, only 15% agree that the hijab should be mandatory in public.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: As the Christian population in Iran grows exponentially, this is a crucial time for the gospel in this historic country.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The ancient land of Persia, as Iran was called prior to 1935, is mentioned some 30 times in the Bible.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, the Persian King Cyrus liberated the juice from their Babylonian captivity and able them to return to their homeland as recorded in 2nd Chronicles 36 verses 22 and 23, and helped them rebuild their temple, cited in Ezra 6 verses 3 through 5.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many historians believe that Magi referenced in Matthew 2 verses 1 through 12,
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: or Persian as well.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Christians can therefore stand with this ancient people by praying for a transforming spiritual awakening to sweep their land.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The more Iranians and their leaders turn to Christ, the more they will seek peaceful relations with other nations, referencing Hebrews 12 verse 14, and the more they will help to advance such transformation across the world to the glory of God.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is enormous urgency in our spiritual response to this spiritual conflict, not just for the sake of those for whom we intercede, but for ourselves as well.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: In his famous sermon, learning in wartime, CS Lewis himself, a veteran of World War I, observed, or makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm inclined to think that they were right.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And quote, rather James Custer of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston, therefore notes, if we don't believe that the end is near, then it doesn't matter how we live.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: After all, whatever mess as we have made, we can claim them up tomorrow or whatever.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: as the case may be.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if the end is coming, if it is near, then how we live, and the mess we've made in our own lives, and in the lives of others, needs to be cleaned up, not whenever, or tomorrow, or even later today.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: But right now, in quote, do you have some clean up to do today?