Khamenei's Late Turn Toward a Path Once Taken -- and Lost -- by Saddam

The Islamic Republic of Iran has recently installed a replica of the Sasanian king Shapur I's relief in Tehran's Revolution Square and launched a new propaganda campaign featuring posters declaring, "You will kneel before Iran once again."

This symbolic move came soon after Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iranian positions, signaling an attempt by the regime to project strength and respond to recent humiliations on the international stage.

In a marked departure from its long-standing reliance on religious narratives, the regime's propaganda is now embracing imagery from pre-Islamic Iran.

A rare directive by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to replace a traditional religious elegy with the patriotic anthem "Ey Iran" at an official ceremony underscored this shift -- a stark contrast to his earlier denunciations of pre-Islamic glorification.
The installation of the Naqsh-e Rustam replica and the creation of quasi-ancient depictions of the Supreme Leader reflect an effort to link his image with the idea of Iran's "historical power."

Yet this strategy has a precedent -- and a failed one.
During the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein turned history into a propaganda weapon. He dubbed the conflict the "Second Qadisiyyah," cast himself as the heir of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, and even launched an ambitious project to rebuild Babylon to portray his regime as the continuation of ancient Mesopotamian glory.

Iraqi posters, state media, and schoolbooks of the era hammered home the message that the war was not a modern political conflict but a continuation of the Arabs' ancient struggle against Persia.

The parallel with today's Tehran is striking: both regimes used history as a political tool to conceal crises of legitimacy and mounting domestic failures.

Just as Saddam fused myth, antiquity, and Baathist ideology to distract from economic collapse and military setbacks, Iran's leadership is turning to Sasanian symbols amid deepening economic woes, water shortages, and widespread public discontent -- hoping to revive an image of "historic strength" to stabilize public perception.

But Saddam's experience proved that myth cannot substitute for performance. His propaganda managed to rally sentiment for a time, but political and military collapse ultimately stripped the narrative of its power.

Analysts now ask: Is the Islamic Republic retracing the same doomed path -- one that begins with the grandeur of ancient glory but ends with the collapse of the myth itself?