When the defeat of a regime is accompanied by a staged religious passion play for a disgraced dictator, it ceases to be merely a political event. It becomes a moment in which the decay of power is performed through the language of ritual, mourning, and spectacle.
In such circumstances, a government no longer relies on public trust; instead, it turns to theatrical performance, political stagecraft, and the engineering of fear and official narratives in an attempt to conceal its defeat beneath a veil of sanctity.
History, however, is never written by spectacle. In the end, it records the collapse of the very falsehoods upon which power sought to sustain itself.
Today, the regime in Tehran has transformed every state-controlled media outlet into an instrument of propaganda, attempting to manufacture an image of national unity and political stability through carefully orchestrated displays of mourning and artificial solidarity for the cameras of the world. Yet this empty theater is less a demonstration of strength than a confession of the profound anxiety gripping the Shi’ite clerical regime.
To maintain control over public opinion, reproduce its official narrative, and manipulate the country’s psychological environment, it resorts to every available instrument of propaganda, reducing public discourse to the promotion of mourning, tears, and the cult-like glorification of political authority.
Behind this carefully staged spectacle, an operation of psychological consolidation is underway, built upon the construction of an artificial and grotesque image of unity. At the same time, the deep fractures within the ruling establishment and the vulnerabilities surrounding the transfer of power become more visible every day.
These divisions recall the succession crises that marked the decline of exhausted caliphates throughout history, revealing that this system stands not upon genuine cohesion, but upon political fragility. The regime seeks to dominate public opinion in Iran through its propaganda machine, while also influencing international media abroad. This is an attempt to create a manipulative, psychological atmosphere for its authoritarian, corrupt, and repressive government.
The regime’s intelligence, security, military, and political institutions have now been mobilized to transform the funeral of a notorious, bloodstained, and disgraced dictator into a fabricated religious spectacle and an instrument of sectarian power projection. The funeral procession is being deliberately infused with an artificial religious character, intended to serve not as an expression of public grief, but as a demonstration of power and an assertion of the Islamic regime’s political ambitions.
The objective is not mourning; the objective is to manufacture false legitimacy and project an artificial image of stability in the midst of a profound crisis. A regime that no longer enjoys a genuine social base is compelled to clothe itself in sanctity and transform the death of a criminal into a stage for eulogy, ritual, and political canonization.
Yet such spectacles cannot conceal the truth. This ideological caliphate rests not upon faith, but upon lies, manufactured hysteria, and relentless propaganda. The Islamic caliphate of Velayat-e Faqih (“Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist” – the founding political theory of modern Iran) survives through falsehood, agitation, and propaganda, governed by brutality that has pushed Iran back 14 centuries over the past 50 years.
The ruling establishment and its criminal sect turn the death of a criminal into a competition of praise and glorification. The funerals of ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei have become the pretext for a spectacle orchestrated by Shi’ite clerics who wield a fabricated interpretation of religion as a sword against Iranian society.
Propaganda narrative
Public opinion cannot be guided through fabricated narratives, especially in a country facing a crisis as deep as Iran’s. The most despised and discredited self-proclaimed “Government of God on Earth” no longer possesses either legitimacy or a meaningful place within society. Corrupt and criminal ayatollahs now seek to convince the public that their rule remains sacred and divinely ordained. Such empty claims hold no credibility for Iran’s younger generation.
During these days of state-imposed mourning, not only Iran but Iranian civilization itself has become a victim of the political culture promoted by the Shi’ite clerical establishment. For decades, they have sold deception by manipulating religion and sectarian belief, and have been willing to kill in its name.
They have created a predatory, repressive, and destructive regime founded upon fabricated stories and superstition – a non-national, mafia-like political order that has brought despair and suffering to the Iranian people while producing a tragedy for humanity in the 21st century.
The humiliating death of Khamenei is a bright turning point for Iran. The religious dictatorship established by Khomeini and sustained by Khamenei imposed upon the Iranian people a life marked by humiliation, injustice, and dishonor despite belonging to one of the world’s oldest civilizations.
Today, Iran has become a country where murderers rule. The current passion play surrounding Khamenei’s funeral is itself another manifestation of systematic falsehood and the irrational logic of political fanaticism, and it is deeply insulting.
When a government sacrifices everything to stage the funeral of a dictator, it reveals that the country’s future no longer matters to those in power. Their only concern is the construction of a propaganda narrative. This fragile, spiderweb-like mafia structure has taken refuge in controlling the fabricated narrative as the final bastion of its apparent legitimacy.
Governments do not bury the past through funerals; they merely attempt to manage the future. Legitimacy cannot be manufactured through state-sponsored ceremonies before a population that has turned away from its rulers. The larger the security apparatus, propaganda machine, and military presence become, the more obvious one truth becomes: the current rulers of Iran fear Iranian society itself.
The regime’s legitimacy is already dead, and no theatrical mourning ceremony can resurrect it. History is never judged by spectacle, and the legacy left behind by Tehran’s fearful and deranged dictator will ultimately be judged with unforgiving severity. Iranian society silently proclaims its hatred of this spectacle.
Iranians are confronting a national tragedy while watching the regime’s desperate search for sanctity and public attention with indifference. Yet the religious mafia of Khomeinism, together with the chaotic marketplace of Velayat-e Faqih, continues its competition in empty boasting, while the culture of professional eulogists and Shi’ite clerics remains one of idol-making.
No matter how loud, expensive, or elaborate Khamenei’s funeral spectacle becomes, it cannot fill the void left by the death of legitimacy. A government that fears its own society inevitably seeks refuge by engineering official narratives, yet that very fear is itself an admission of its internal decay. A power sustained by propaganda ultimately collapses before the truth, and a political system built upon lies and fear becomes even more fragile with the death of its leader.
Sooner or later, Iran will emerge from behind this curtain of ritualized spectacle and political theater to confront its own reality. When that day arrives, history will not write about the ceremony, but about the collapse of a legitimacy that had died many years earlier.
The writer is a Middle East political analyst. His latest book, Tehran’s Dictator, examines the theocratic era of Ali Khamenei (1989-2026). @EQFard