Imagine if these weren't there in the morning."
Monday, July 20, 2026
By Cyrus Kangerlu
Philosophy and Sociology Researcher
This is not just a slogan; it is the will of a nation. Sometimes history writes itself not in the halls of politics, but on the forgotten walls of an alley.
A short, unsigned and unassuming sentence, but so weighty that it can summarize half a century of suffering for a nation. “Think of it in the morning, if these people were not here.” On the surface, it is just a slogan; but in its depths, it is perhaps the most concise expression of a wish that has been living in the minds and hearts of millions of Iranians for years.
A desire born not of hatred, but of fatigue; fatigue from endless crises, from wasted opportunities, from generations that, one after another, spent the best years of their lives waiting for a better tomorrow. Throughout all these years, the Iranian nation has been more of a spectator than an actor.
A spectator of decisions made behind closed doors; wars that were never started; sanctions that the people paid the price for; and negotiations that had Iran’s name on them, but in which the Iranian voice was rarely heard.
In recent months, as military tensions between the Islamic Republic, the United States, and Israel have increased, many Iranians have come to feel more than ever that their country has become a battlefield for powers that are each pursuing their own goals and calculations.
In such a situation, the question arises more than ever: where do the Iranian people stand in this equation? Should they only pay the price for decisions they had no role in shaping? From the perspective of many critics, the continuation of confrontational and erosive policies carries the risk that Iran will increasingly be on the path of economic weakness, capital flight, elite migration, infrastructure erosion, and a decline in social capital.
For many, concern about the future of the country is no longer a theoretical debate; it is a daily concern about the fate of the land they call home. On the other hand, there is a reality that history has taught us time and again: global powers, regardless of political slogans, make decisions based on their national interests.
No foreign power, no matter how much it talks about freedom, democracy, or security, will replace the will of a nation to determine its own destiny. The future of Iran, if it is to be sustainable and legitimate, must ultimately be shaped by the will and participation of the Iranian people. Perhaps that is why that short sentence is not just a protest slogan; it is the testament of a generation that has lived for years between war and peace, sanctions and negotiations, hope and despair.
A generation that dreams of one day living in a country where the first news is not crisis but progress; not threat but opportunity; not emigration but return. “Think of it, if only they weren’t here” can be interpreted in many ways, but what stands out most is the wish for an end to a cycle of crisis and the beginning of a new chapter for Iran; a chapter in which the people are not spectators but the main decision-makers of their country’s future.
Perhaps one day this sentence will no longer be written on walls, not because it has been forgotten, but because there is no longer a need to shout it. The day Iranians can shape the future of their country with the ballot box, accountable institutions, law, freedom, and civic participation, the walls will be silent, because the voice of the nation will be heard from within society, not from cement and brick.
Perhaps that morning will be the one that successive generations have been waiting for; the morning when Iran, after years of conflict, will once again become a home of hope.
Cyrus Kangerlu
Philosophy and Sociology Researcher
Dedicated to the Araj Family, who are no longer among us
Thursday, July 2, 2026
By Cyrus Kangerlu
Philosophy and Sociology Researcher
Dedicated to the Araj Family, who are no longer among us that our eyes may one day be illuminated by another reunion.
They hanged the father upon the gallows, and the mother surrendered her soul to the Creator. From that moment on, the homeland was stained with blood. How lonely we became without a father. How lonely we remained
without a mother beside the homeland. Mother Iran became our mother,
as a father became our strength. Within our hearts grew an unyielding anger, and within our clenched fists, determination.
The streets became a battlefield of fire,yet every day we carried your memory, beloved homeland. Your spirit lived within our hearts and souls;
our eyes longed only for another glimpse of you.
When “Didar” cried out one final time, the streets erupted into flames.
His voice was silenced by a storm of bullets. The light within my eyes turned suddenly to darkness. The streets themselves became the final resting place of Didar. I ran toward him in desperation, hoping to shield him. But bullet after bullet struck, and Didar’s soul took flight. And from that moment,
nothing of Araj remained upon that tragic scene.
But perhaps the most painful aspect of this story is one that has received far too little attention:
the question of the systematic destruction of Iran itself.
This question must be asked openly and without hesitation:
Those who, over more than four decades, have participated in the repression, killing, and destruction of Iranians—whose interests have they ultimately served?
When we speak of killings, we are not referring only to officially recorded executions or documented deaths. We are speaking of a continuous process of physical, psychological, economic, and cultural elimination—a process that many observers describe as the systematic erosion of the Iranian nation.
When, within a short period, tens of thousands—or, according to some estimates, even hundreds of thousands—lose their lives during violent crackdowns, and when over forty-seven years millions of Iranians have suffered through direct violence, forced migration, economic collapse, addiction, imprisonment, political repression, and the destruction of life’s opportunities, it becomes increasingly difficult to explain the situation merely as an internal political crisis.
Here, a deeper philosophical question emerges:
Are we confronting only an authoritarian government, or a far more complex structure in which hidden regional and global actors also benefit from Iran’s weakening?
History demonstrates that great powers do not always need to occupy a civilization by military force in order to dominate it. Sometimes it is enough to weaken its historical memory, erode its educational institutions, scatter its intellectual elite, and deprive its younger generations of hope for the future. From this perspective, the issue extends beyond any single government. It concerns the very survival of Iranian civilization.
Within what many political theorists describe as the ongoing restructuring of the international order, the Middle East has once again become the center of geopolitical transformation. Experience across the region has shown that while national borders often remain unchanged on maps, sovereignty, resources, and political independence are frequently redistributed among competing foreign powers. For Iran, however, this danger carries far deeper implications. Iran is not merely a modern political state.
It is one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations. The loss of even a portion of Iran’s territory whether on land or at sea is not merely a geographical loss. It represents the loss of a part of a nation’s historical memory. Even more troubling is the fact that, in most negotiations concerning Iran, the Iranian people themselves are absent from the negotiating table.
The world speaks about Iran. Rarely does it speak with the Iranian people. Even if a new agreement were signed tomorrow, fundamental questions would still remain unanswered.
Who will speak of restoring the wealth that has been lost?
Who will address the unequal agreements, the depleted resources, the damaged borders, and the historical costs imposed upon the Iranian nation?
Peace that ignores justice often becomes nothing more than the institutionalization of injustice.
Today, perhaps more than ever before, the Iranian people understand that no political agreement, no economic transaction, and no geopolitical settlement can erase a nation’s historical memory.
Indeed, this may be the defining transformation of our era. The Iranian nation is no longer the silent nation it once appeared to be. Its collective memory has awakened. Its people observe. They compare. They remember. And they judge.
They know what has been taken from them from oil and natural wealth, to opportunities for life, from personal security, to national dignity.
For this reason, the message of today’s Iranians is unmistakably clear:
We shall not forget.
Neither what befell this nation from within, nor what was negotiated over this land from beyond its borders.
Iran in the Mirror of Negotiations: Peace for Whom, and at Whose Expense?,
Whenever negotiations, agreements, de-escalation, or peace become the subject of public discussion, attention is naturally drawn toward negotiating tables, political leaders, and the major powers shaping world affairs. Yet amid all these diplomatic conversations, one fundamental question has remained unanswered for years:
Who has truly paid the price for these negotiations?
If we answer this question honestly, only one name stands above all others:
The people of Iran.
Not the global powers bargaining behind closed doors.
Not the governments speaking the language of diplomacy.
Nor the authorities who claim to represent the people.
Rather, it is the Iranian nation that, over decades, has borne the cost of every delay, every crisis, every bargain, and every compromise—with its lives, its youth, its wealth, its security, and its future. One of the greatest analytical mistakes in recent decades has been reducing the Iranian question to nothing more than a conflict between the Islamic Republic and foreign powers. Such an interpretation obscures the deeper issue. The question is not merely who prolongs the negotiations.
The more profound question is:
Who benefits from prolonging this condition?
Is the Islamic Republic truly the only force responsible for the endless cycle of negotiations, or has this prolonged uncertainty also generated enormous advantages for other global powers?
When a nation is kept in a state of chronic crisis, its economic independence gradually erodes, its bargaining power weakens, and its national capacity diminishes. A weakened, isolated nation under continuous pressure becomes far easier to transform into an arena for great-power competition.
Under such circumstances, a country ceases to function solely as an independent nation; it gradually becomes a field upon which competing interests are divided and pursued. During these years, Iran has endured a multilayered plunder.
This plunder has not been confined merely to underground resources such as oil, natural gas, minerals, gold, and other natural wealth—resources that have either been extracted or committed through unequal agreements at minimal value.
Even more devastating, however, has been the plunder above the ground:
the loss of human capital, the erosion of social trust, the departure of scientific talent, the depletion of productive labor, the destruction of youthful hope, and the gradual erosion of one of the world’s oldest civilizations.
Perhaps no group has suffered more profoundly than Iran’s younger generation.
A generation that could have become the architect of one of the Middle East’s most advanced societies now finds itself trapped between repression, forced migration, despair, and psychological exhaustion. Sociology teaches us that the destruction of a nation does not always begin with military occupation. Sometimes it begins by stealing the future from its youth.
Cyrus Kangerlu
Philosophy and Sociology Researcher
Nations May Be Ruled by the Sword and Force for a Short Time
Saturday, June 20, 2026
(30 Khordad 1405 – Persian Calendar)
By Cyrus Kangerlu
Philosophy and Sociology Researcher
Among the thousands of verses of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, there are moments when we encounter lines that seem not to have been written a thousand years ago, but rather for the present day.
In one of his teachings on leadership and governance, Ferdowsi speaks with such clarity and simplicity about the secret of a government’s survival that one cannot help but wonder how these words have remained relevant after a millennium.
He first reminds us that the essence of every religion and every moral tradition is justice. This statement may appear simple, but beneath its surface lies one of the greatest truths in human history.
Nations may obey through the sword and force for a limited time, but what truly keeps them united is their sense of justice.
People who believe that fairness exists between themselves and those who govern them can endure hardships and challenges. But when injustice takes root within a society, the first cracks begin to appear in the foundation of every power.
The history of the world is filled with governments that possessed overflowing treasuries, powerful armies, and magnificent palaces, yet because they abandoned justice, they eventually became hollow from within.
The collapse of many states began long before the battlefield—it began in the minds and hearts of people who no longer viewed their rulers as just.
Ferdowsi then points to another disease, one that may be more dangerous than any foreign enemy. He warns that when the unqualified and incapable are elevated while people of knowledge, art, and competence are pushed aside, decline has already begun.
No society is built through flattery.
No nation advances by removing its most capable people.
Civilizations have always been carried forward by a small group of creative, thoughtful, skilled, and responsible individuals.
Whenever such people have been given the opportunity to contribute, culture has flourished, economies have grown, and societies have progressed.
But whenever jealousy, fear, or personal interests have replaced merit and ability, societies have gradually lost their creative strength.
This is why Ferdowsi considers removing the “skilled and talented person” not merely an administrative mistake, but a threat to the very existence of a government. A government that fears capable people is, in reality, a government that fears its own future.
The third warning Ferdowsi offers concerns excessive attachment to wealth.
He criticizes rulers who dedicate all their efforts to increasing their treasures and possessions. Wealth itself is neither good nor evil. However, when wealth changes from a tool for serving society into a goal for preserving power, it slowly destroys the foundations of a nation.
Throughout history, rulers who viewed wealth as a means for development, education, security, and public welfare have left honorable legacies.
But those who valued their treasures above their people, even if they remained on their thrones for a time, were eventually remembered by history as symbols of greed.
In the end, Ferdowsi points to three essential qualities that every society needs for survival:
Generosity, wisdom, and truth.
Perhaps the most important of these is wisdom.
Wisdom teaches humanity that:
- power without justice cannot endure,
- wealth without responsibility becomes dangerous,
- and governance without competence is destined to fail.
Wisdom is the light that guides people away from the noise of power and toward truth. Alongside wisdom stands truthfulness. A lie is not merely a moral failure; it is an enemy of understanding. A society that loses its connection with truth also loses its ability to recognize the correct path.
No sound decision can be made upon false information, and no government can rely forever on a foundation of illusion and deception.
Cyrus Kangerlu
Philosophy and Sociology Researcher
Iran, the West, and the Silence of the World in the Age of Collapsing Trust
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
(6 Khordad 1405 – Persian Calendar)
By Cyrus Kangarlu
Los Angeles, California
Researcher in Philosophy and Sociology
The world has entered an era in which geographical borders alone are no longer the defining forces. Instead, the deepest divide has emerged between two different visions of humanity:
Between a world built upon freedom, and a world governed through fear.
Today, the possibility of the United States withdrawing from NATO is not merely a military or economic issue for Europe. The real question concerns the future of trust in the Western world:
Can Western democracies still unite around a shared understanding of freedom, human dignity, and security?
Or is the world moving toward a new era of fragmentation, isolation, and cold transactions among competing powers?
Europe may be able to compensate for part of the loss of America’s military capacity through billions of euros in investment. But what will be far more difficult to restore is the loss of strategic unity within the West.
Because in today’s world, power is not only measured by tanks and missiles. Power is also the ability to preserve trust among nations that believe in freedom.
On the other side, authoritarian governments have spent years exploiting exactly these divisions. From Moscow to Beijing, and from Tehran to other governments that see the weakening of the free world’s unity as essential to their own survival, these powers have invested in expanding global fractures.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, as well, has for more than four decades attempted to benefit from every division between Europe and the United States—sometimes through the nuclear issue, sometimes through sanctions, and sometimes through regional crises.
Because the more fragmented the free world becomes, the greater the space for ideological governments to survive and maneuver.
Yet amid all these major geopolitical struggles, one painful truth has almost been forgotten:
The greatest victim of these conflicts has been the people of Iran.
Forty-seven years of negotiations, sanctions, agreements, and tensions but the thing that became smaller every day was the people’s table. What became exhausted was the spirit of society. And what was crushed under pressure was a generation trapped between the dream of freedom and the reality of survival.
The world has repeatedly spoken about the “Iranian issue,” but far less often has it spoken about the “Iranian human being.”
Amid the noise of security calculations, a nation was gradually pushed to the margins a nation that was once one of the pillars of global culture.
A nation that offered the world not an ideological empire, but poetry, music, philosophy, and the timeless principles of: Good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.
The tragedy of Iran today is not only political or economic. The deeper tragedy is the erosion of human dignity. Perhaps the most dangerous sign of our era is this: That the world is slowly becoming accustomed to the suffering of nations. When the pain of a people becomes merely the “news of the day,” humanity has entered a dangerous stage. Today, the central question is not only whether Europe can defend itself without America.
The deeper question is:
Does the free world still possess enough moral unity to distinguish between political interests and the destiny of human beings?
Because if democracies focus only on maintaining balances of power and ignore the voices of nations such as Iran, then the true danger is not merely the collapse of a political order. The greater danger is the collapse of the moral meaning of Western civilization itself.
Iran is still alive. It lives in Hafez. It lives in Ferdowsi. It lives in Khayyam. And it lives in a people who, despite all pressures, have not yet buried their dream of freedom. Perhaps one day history will ask all the world’s powers:
When a nation with thousands of years of culture was slowly being weakened under the weight of ideology, sanctions, political bargains, and silence—were you merely observers, or did you still believe in humanity?
The World’s Silence in the Face of the Death of Iran’s Youth
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
(6 Khordad 1405 – Persian Calendar)
By Dr. Cyrus Kangarlu
Los Angeles, California
Researcher in Philosophy and Sociology
Throughout the history of nations, certain moments are more than political events. They become wounds that eventually form part of a people’s collective memory—days remembered not only for what happened, but also for the suffocating fear, the desperate cries, and the heavy silence that followed.
For Iranians, the bloody days of nationwide protests and the killing of young people in the streets represent one of those defining moments. It was a time when an unarmed generation stood before a system that feared nothing more than the freedom of the human mind.
More than a thousand years ago, Ferdowsi expressed a timeless truth in the Shahnameh—one that continues to shape the destiny of societies today:
It is almost always the younger generation that becomes the victim of the prejudice and rigidity of those who came before them. When Sohrab is killed, it is not merely the death of a great warrior. It is the destruction of a future that might have offered the world another path.
Rostam’s grief is not only the grief of a father. It is the sorrow of a human being who realizes too late that the ideology of war destroys even the people we love most.
Today, when we look at the images of Iran’s slain youth, we witness that same tragedy unfolding once again—not in mythology, but in the streets of a wounded and exhausted nation.
During the protests, many of the young people who entered the streets were neither political leaders nor armed militants, nor members of organized movements. They were simply a generation that no longer wished to live in fear.
A generation that longed to laugh like young people elsewhere in the world, to listen to music, to travel, to love, to choose freely, and to determine its own future.
Standing before them, however, was a political structure that has long defined its survival through control over people’s minds, bodies, and daily lives. Ideological governments fear nothing more than the free individual.
A person capable of thinking independently, asking difficult questions, and rejecting official narratives poses a greater threat to such systems than any weapon. For this reason, throughout history, the first victims of ideological regimes have almost always been the young—those who still possess dreams and still believe that change is possible.
That is precisely what occurred in today’s Iran. The bullets were not aimed only at young bodies. They were aimed at their dreams. They were aimed at the hope of a generation determined to build a different future.
When a young woman is killed in the street, it is not only a single life that is lost. A portion of an entire nation’s trust in life dies with her. When a mother cries over the body of her child, her voice no longer belongs only to one family.
It becomes the echo of an entire generation that feels the world no longer hears its pain.
Perhaps the most painful aspect of this tragedy has been the silence of the world.
The world watched. It saw the videos. It heard the gunfire. It witnessed blood-covered faces.
It saw mothers waiting outside prison gates. It saw fathers summoned in the middle of the night to identify the bodies of their children. It saw the internet shut down. It witnessed fear spreading through the streets.
And yet, after only a few days, the world returned to business as usual.
Why?
This is a question that the conscience of modern humanity must answer. How is it possible that in an age when the world constantly speaks of human rights, human dignity, and freedom, the deaths of a nation’s young people remain headline news for only a few days before disappearing beneath politics, markets, elections, and global rivalries? How has modern humanity become so accustomed to witnessing death?
The painful reality is that the modern world, despite its ideals, does not always revolve around moral principles. International politics is often governed by interests.
Where economic, strategic, or geopolitical interests are at stake, morality quietly retreats. Within such a system, countries are often viewed not as homes to human beings, but as political files—files concerning oil, regional security, energy markets, and the balance of power. In that process, human lives gradually become statistics.
A number killed.
A number arrested.
A new round of sanctions.
Another diplomatic statement.
Perhaps this is one of the most alarming characteristics of our age:
The world has learned to transform death into news. News that disappears beneath the next wave of headlines only hours later. Modern humanity is exposed to so many images of violence that it gradually loses its moral sensitivity.
Death becomes ordinary.
Screams become ordinary.
Even grief becomes ordinary.
Yet history has repeatedly shown that no government has ever succeeded in erasing the memory of an entire nation.
The internet may be shut down.
The media may be censored.
Families may be threatened.
Statistics may be hidden.
But the memory of the young people who were killed in the streets remains alive within the conscience of their people.
A generation that sheds its blood may be silenced for a time, but it is never erased from history.
Iran today faces more than a political or economic crisis.
It carries a profound wound within its collective soul—a wound created by witnessing the deaths of its own children.
No society remains unchanged after watching its young people die.
Trust collapses.
Fear becomes part of memory.
Grief gradually becomes part of a nation’s identity.
Yet history has never belonged solely to those in power.
Much of what we now call the conscience of humanity was born from the suffering of people whose cries the world once ignored.
Perhaps one day history will record these years in Iran.
It will tell how a young generation stood in the streets.
How it was killed.
And how, at the very moment when the world should have raised its voice, it chose silence.
And perhaps future generations will ask us:
When the young people of Iran were giving their lives for the right to live in freedom, what exactly was the world doing?
Awakening in the Age of Post-Globalization
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
By Dr. Cyrus Kangarlu
Los Angeles, California
Researcher in Philosophy and Sociology
Not long ago, the world spoke with almost religious certainty about the emergence of the “global village”—a world in which national borders would gradually lose their significance, nations would become increasingly interconnected, and modern humanity would ultimately find itself within a shared and harmonious horizon.
Today, however, amid the silence born of successive global crises, that same world looks upon itself with unmistakable signs of doubt.
Globalization has not collapsed; rather, it has lost its legitimacy. And perhaps this loss of legitimacy is more consequential than any visible collapse.
What is unfolding today is not merely an economic or geopolitical transformation. It is, above all, a transformation within the human spirit.
For decades, people were raised on promises of global prosperity, individual freedom, and an international order founded on cooperation. Yet many are now realizing that these ideals have often taken very different forms in practice.
Freedom has increasingly become a form of subtle dependence.
Markets have evolved into networks of complex monopolies.
International institutions have become mechanisms that often echo the interests of established powers more than the voices of nations.
At the center of this transformation lies something profoundly significant:
Trust has been broken.
This collapse of trust marks the beginning of humanity’s return to the stage of history.
People no longer wish merely to exist on the margins of decisions made elsewhere in their name.
They seek once again to become active participants rather than passive subjects—to become creators instead of mere consumers.
Although this awakening often appears through national political movements, trade restrictions, or public demonstrations, its deeper meaning is the reemergence of the historical subject—the conscious individual reclaiming agency over history.
Every awakening, however, carries its own dangers.
History repeatedly demonstrates that periods of rupture create not only opportunities for liberation but also conditions for new forms of decline.
A society that frees itself from an exhausted order, yet fails to attain a higher level of awareness, can easily become trapped within new versions of the very domination it sought to escape.
The central issue, therefore, is not globalization’s retreat itself, but the quality of consciousness that emerges to replace it.
Within this process, ideologies—particularly those presented in the name of religion or liberation—play a decisive role.
Throughout history, religions have carried profound experiences of meaning and spiritual insight.
Yet whenever they have become instruments of political power, their function has fundamentally changed.
Suffering is transformed into virtue.
Obedience becomes sacred.
Liberation is postponed to another world.
In such circumstances, religion no longer serves as a path toward transcendence but as a mechanism for preserving existing power structures.
A similar pattern has appeared in many modern ideologies.
Whether in rigid forms of the political left, in versions of liberalism that have become detached from their humanistic foundations, or in political interpretations of religion that monopolize truth, the result is often remarkably similar.
Despite their apparent differences, these systems frequently share one essential characteristic:
A profound distrust of the real human being.
Rather than beginning with people’s lived experiences, they attempt to fit individuals into predetermined ideological frameworks.
The result is a society in which individuals are valued not as free and thinking human beings, but merely as instruments serving larger political or ideological projects.
From this perspective, the support that certain foreign powers extend to weakened or rootless political movements acquires a significance beyond ordinary political calculations.
Although such support is often justified in the language of democracy or stability, in practice it may simply perpetuate the very conditions that prevent nations from achieving genuine self-awareness.
A people who see themselves only through externally imposed political forces can never fully recognize themselves.
For this reason, the awakening of societies has become an unavoidable necessity.
Yet if such awakening is truly to lead toward freedom, it must move beyond mere reaction and evolve into genuine self-awareness.
The first step along this path is the recovery of historical memory.
A society that forgets its history is destined not merely to repeat it, but to relive it unconsciously as fate.
Revisiting history should not serve to glorify the past, but rather to understand the mechanisms that have repeatedly conditioned human beings to accept obedience.
The second step is the restoration of courage.
Knowledge alone does not produce change.
Many societies recognize the truth, yet fear living according to it.
Freedom, while liberating, also places a profound burden upon humanity:
Responsibility.
An awakened society is one willing to accept that responsibility.
The final necessity is discernment.
In an age where concepts are rapidly redefined and manipulated, the ability to distinguish between faith and political power, between patriotism and fanaticism, and between freedom and disorder becomes essential.
Without such discernment, every awakening risks descending into blind chaos.
What appears on today’s global horizon is less the end of an era than the threshold of a new possibility.
If accompanied by genuine awareness, the retreat of globalization may lead humanity toward a new understanding of its relationship with the world—a relationship in which isolation does not replace cooperation, nor domination replace partnership.
Instead, it may give rise to a form of shared existence in which nations interact within a broader human horizon without sacrificing their own identities.
Yet this possibility will never realize itself automatically.
Its realization depends upon a human choice.
Will humanity transform this moment of rupture into a bridge toward greater awareness?
Or will it fall once again into new versions of the same ancient sleep?
Perhaps the defining question of our age is neither globalization nor opposition to it.
Rather, it is humanity’s relationship with its own truth.
So long as human beings continue to surrender their destiny to forces outside their own consciousness—whether those forces appear in the form of religion, ideology, or global power—every political order will eventually become another form of domination.
Ultimately, awakening is both a simple and profoundly difficult moment:
The moment when a human being decides no longer to live within someone else’s dream.
That decision marks the beginning of a journey that is neither easy nor short.
Yet it may well be the only path that truly leads to freedom.
The United States, Russia, China, and the People of Iran
Friday, July 24, 2026
(2 Mordad 2585 – Imperial Iranian Calendar)
By Dr. Cyrus Kangarlu
Los Angeles, California
Researcher in Political Philosophy and Historical Sociology
The history of nations is not always decided on the battlefield. Sometimes, the destiny of a nation is determined in the moment when, after years of crisis and conflict, it chooses how to build its future.
There are moments when a society must choose between repeating the past and creating the future.
Iran stands at one of those defining historical moments today.
Surrounding Iran are major powers such as the United States, Russia, and China, each pursuing its own national interests and strategic vision for the region. Yet amid these great geopolitical rivalries, one fundamental truth must never be forgotten:
No foreign power can build the future of a nation on behalf of its own people.
The essential question is not what the United States wants, what calculations Russia is making, or what plans China is pursuing.
The real question is whether the Iranian people can transform this global competition into an opportunity to rebuild their country and create an independent, free, and prosperous future.
In international politics, every nation acts according to its own interests.
Like every major power, the United States shapes its foreign policy around national security, economic priorities, energy interests, and the global balance of power.
Russia views Iran primarily through the lens of its geopolitical competition with the West, while China focuses chiefly on economic stability, trade routes, and energy security.
This reality represents neither permanent hostility nor everlasting friendship. It is simply the nature of international politics.
There is, however, one fundamental difference.
The only people whose interests are inseparably tied to Iran’s prosperity are the Iranian people themselves.
No nation can bear greater responsibility for the historical future of a country than its own citizens.
One of the greatest mistakes nations make during periods of crisis is believing that their salvation will come from outside.
History has repeatedly shown that foreign powers may influence circumstances, but they cannot create social trust, establish the rule of law, cultivate political culture, build lasting institutions, or instill a sense of national responsibility on behalf of another people.
A nation that entrusts its future entirely to the will of others, even if it enjoys temporary success, ultimately sacrifices its genuine independence.
Throughout history, Iran has endured extraordinary trials.
From Alexander’s invasion to the Mongol conquest, from the collapse of dynasties to long periods of political turmoil, this ancient land has been wounded time and again.
Yet each time, it has risen from the depths of crisis.
The secret of Iran’s endurance has never rested solely upon military strength.
What has preserved this civilization has been its language, culture, philosophy, and historical memory.
Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is not merely a chronicle of kings and heroes.
It is the story of a nation’s struggle to preserve its identity against the storms of history.
Its enduring lesson is that an external enemy can prevail only when a society has already lost its inner strength.
Iran’s future cannot be built through perpetual hostility toward the world, nor through dependence upon any foreign power.
The wiser path is one of independent decision-making and constructive engagement with the international community.
Iran can maintain relations with the United States based on mutual interests, expand scientific and economic cooperation with Europe, strengthen commercial ties with China, and maintain pragmatic relations with Russia as an important neighboring power.
Yet in all such relationships, one principle must remain constant:
Iran’s national interests must always take precedence over foreign dependence or ideological allegiance.
The key to Iran’s future lies neither in Washington, nor in Moscow, nor in Beijing.
It lies in the ability of the Iranian people to build a society in which differences are resolved through dialogue, the rule of law stands above individuals, science and education replace stagnation, and citizens recognize themselves as the true guardians of their country’s future.
Nations do not build tomorrow through hatred of yesterday.
They build it by understanding their past, learning from their mistakes, and choosing a wiser path forward.
In today’s world, genuine power is not measured solely by military capability or economic output.
The greatest strength of any nation is the confidence of its people in their collective future.
If Iranians can restore trust, national unity, and political wisdom, then the competition among global powers can become an opportunity rather than a threat.
On that day, the United States will be a partner—not a guardian.
Russia will be an important neighbor—not a decision-maker.
China will be an economic partner—not the architect of Iran’s future.
And Iran, after centuries of triumphs and hardships, will once again reclaim its rightful place in the world—not as an arena for the ambitions of others, but as a nation whose people are the true architects of their own destiny.