There is a great mystery at the heart of Iran, a land rich in oil and civilisational wealth of language, culture, architecture. It is the kind of place where people think deeply, read widely, weave carpets and magical tales. In the modern age, they make beautiful films exploring the human condition. Since 1979, Iran has also come up with a political-theological doctrine that has driven them to take on the might of the US and Israel for nearly half a century, facing decades of economic blockades and serial wars, overt and covert.

Currently, as parts of the Iranian capital Tehran are reduced to rubble and the US and Israel claim over a thousand strikes, how has this theocratic state absorbed the hits and still managed to strike back, bringing the entire region, and probably the world, into the theatre of war? What lies behind its high pain threshold? The answer is not just strategic but possibly also historical, emotional, and religious.

I have travelled to Iran twice as part of Indian delegations, and on both occasions stepped beyond official itineraries to explore the country unscripted. Tehran, Qom, Isfahan, and Chabahar, each revealed a different facet. One common thread was the extraordinary warmth of the ordinary people and their desire to connect with people interested in them.

The Shi’ite faith is obviously at the heart of Iran’s response. For many, the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson, Imam Hussain, and the legacy of a small group taking on a mighty empire at the Battle of Karbala is the inspiration to endure a thousand cuts and fight on for their cause. Such people would say injuries from an unjust tyrant do not break them; they inspire them to keep fighting.

Hence, the Supreme Leader, also the religious head of the Shi’ite world, would not hide in a tunnel as Iraq’s former President Saddam Hussain did when the US invaded. Saddam was captured by US troops and later hanged, a picture of humiliation. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei opted to die in his office, so that the faithful would see him as a martyr.

Shi’ite faith and anti-imperialist ideology

How the Shi’ite faith has merged with anti-imperialist ideology is key to understanding the psyche of the Iranian republic and its longevity. Stakeholders in the Islamic state believe the nation has survived because they blocked out the US and realised that Israel was an outpost of the West. The region, they say, is dotted with vassal states of the US, all with American military bases, which are now under Iranian fire.

The day after the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, I connected with a religious scholar in Qom, who analysed the fracture in the Muslim world where elites live under US protection, thereby neutralising opposition to Israel: monarchies and kingdoms who manage people and wealth but do not seek justice or honour.

The scholar said, “From its very foundation, the Islamic state has prepared for war and built structures and an ideology of resistance. If one line of fighters dies, another takes over. It’s a resistance state and a resistance economy.” The end game, therefore, is unknown, but ideologically speaking, Iran fights to the end and seeks a new world order.

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In 2017, when I was in Qom, I met Haj Abul Qasim, then a member of the Assembly of Experts, an elected body voted in for eight years that is also tasked with choosing the Supreme Leader in the event of his passing—as has now happened. Qom is the centre of Shia scholarship in the world. Qasim told me then that, historically, the strategy of imperialist powers towards Iran has been to take over its resources and instal puppet regimes, like the Shah’s. They talk of freedom, he said, but bring war. The Shia-Sunni divide is emphasised, he said, but there are many things that unite us and many Sunnis also fight against imperialism.

When asked if Iran, as some Iranians argue, should not support regional militias fighting for Palestine, he replied that the Iranian system considers itself tasked to challenge the borders established by imperialist powers. “If a Muslim hears a cry for help from another human being and does not rise to help him, he is not a Muslim,” he said. This ideology seems to be driving Iran’s capacity to fight back fiercely even against the world’s best-equipped military powers.

During that trip, I had also broken the official itinerary to visit the US embassy in Tehran, abandoned since January 20, 1981, when American diplomats, held hostage after the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah, were allowed to leave. During the Shah’s rule, Iran was America’s single largest arms purchaser. But the anti-West feelings in Iran predate the Revolution and have their roots in the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, which is believed to have been orchestrated by the US and Britain because Mosaddegh nationalised Iran’s oil industry.

It is worth reflecting that nations from Iran to Venezuela who nationalised their oil industries have seen relentless Western hostility. In 2026, both nations have been on the radar of Donald Trump, a businessman and property developer who is clearly aligned with big money. He kidnapped Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro at the beginning of this year and killed Iran’s Supreme Leader in February 28.

The former US embassy in Tehran is now a sort of museum of American “espionage and imperialism”. It is called 13 Aban Museum, marked in the Islamic calendar as the day when the embassy was seized by Iranian students. When I visited, Persian signs on the walls stated: “Oh Amrika, we will crush you.” In the badly maintained garden there were English posters that mocked the US: “Human rights only for Whites?” and “United States of Israeli America”.

Inside, the most popular display is the CIA strongroom, reportedly used for phone tapping and surveillance. As bombs rain on Tehran, I wonder if that building and overgrown garden will also be destroyed.

Not a homogeneous society

The Iran trip was official, organised by the foreign ministry, and included a meeting with Masoumeh Ebtekar, then one of Iran’s four Vice Presidents and, in 2017, the most powerful woman in the government. She was the main spokesperson for the students who took over the US embassy and held 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981.

She had no regrets. She spoke fluent English—her father had studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and she had lived in the US for six years. Returning to Iran, she was influenced by Ali Shariati, an important Iranian intellectual of the 20th century. Ebtekar covered herself with a chador revealing only her face and joined the revolution. But on the same trip I also trekked in the mountains that ring Tehran, where I met several Iranian women trekkers wearing smart shoes and sports clothes, their headscarves tied loose or often falling off entirely.

Iranian women are among the most educated in West Asia, with an 83 per cent literacy rate. Women participation in STEM is among the region’s highest, with 60 per cent of seats in universities filled by women, who also make up half the faculties. The Iranian regime, therefore, is not like the Taliban, although it is clearly a patriarchal regime that gives women no choice in dress code. But women are very much part of the workforce. Data, in fact, shows that adult female literacy in the interiors grew rapidly after the Islamic Revolution.

But the Iranian news agency IRNA had a floor full of women journalists in black chador. I wondered how many of them wanted to be rid of it. My translator-guide, a strong, independent woman who loved jogging, was hoping to leave Iran. Iran has many layers and contradictions and certainly there is resistance and exhaustion with the regime, but there is no organised alternative. Many hate the Islamic state, but many are also loyal to it.

City of four springs

I had arrived in Chabahar after a 2.5-hour flight from Tehran in an ageing Fokker 100. This is the port where India went on to make long-term investments but later backed off under US pressure. The port could have been a major strategic asset for India. Chabahar did not quite feel like Iran—the men wore salwar suits, spoke Urdu, and watched Hindi blockbuster films.

Chabahar, meaning “four springs” in Persian, lies in Sistan and Baluchistan province near the Pakistan border. Its population is largely Baloch and predominantly Sunni, unlike the Shia majority elsewhere in Iran. Across the border, Pakistan’s Balochistan province is vast, resource-rich, and troubled by insurgency and a sense of marginalisation. This is where the former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav was alleged to have operated. Indian authorities claim he was based in Chabahar, kidnapped by Pakistan, and charged with spying in Balochistan. Since 2016, he has been jailed in Pakistan.

Urdu, Balochi, and Persian are widely spoken here. In such a terrain where identity itself straddles borders, narratives of espionage and intrigue feel plausible. The recent Hindi film Dhurandhar, that tells the tale of an Indian spy infiltrating Baloch gangs in a fuzzy, fantasised way, unfolds in the sort of terrain in which Chabahar exists.

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Yet, for locals, the border is not an abstract line. My escort in Chabahar was a Baloch man whose name, Pesh Bahar, literally means “before spring”. He said he crossed into Pakistan frequently for weddings and family gatherings. “We have better roads here [in Iran],” he said, “and religion is more extreme there [in Pakistan]. But the Baloch are the same.”

Isfahan, which I visited next, was magical. A carpet-seller there named Hamid still messages me. After the US bombings last year, he messaged: “Airport Isfahan is close to bomb. Hi my friend, we are safe here. Come visit again.”

Isfahan was repeatedly targeted by US and Israeli strikes as they claimed that it had tunnels for storing enriched nuclear material. After these latest strikes, I tried messaging Hamid and Pesh Bahar, but they remain unreachable. Hopefully, it is just an internet shutdown and not a bomb strike.

Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.