🚨 The Islamic Republic now admits its forces were not in Syria to protect holy shrines. They were there to protect Bashar al-Assad as his forces and allies committed war crimes in a war that killed more than half a million people. For years, the Islamic Republic sold its intervention under the banner of the “Defenders of the Shrine,” using religion to mobilize Iranians and foreign Shia fighters for Assad’s war. Iranians, Afghans from Fatemiyoun, Pakistanis from Zainabiyoun, Iraqi militias and Hezbollah fighters were sent into Syria under this religious narrative, while Iranians who challenged it could face accusations of insulting the Ahl al-Bayt. Now, after Assad’s fall, a Shia cleric featured in the circulating clip says Zainab’s actual body is not buried at the Syrian site and describes it instead as a symbolic shrine. That strikes directly at one of the most powerful narratives the Islamic Republic used to justify years of bloodshed and intervention. The real strategic objective was keeping Assad in power, preserving the Islamic Republic’s corridor to Hezbollah and maintaining its military and political foothold in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean. The religious framing helped sell that geopolitical project to Shia communities across the region. More than 500,000 people were killed during the Syrian civil war, with some monitoring organizations placing the overall death toll above 600,000. The Islamic Republic poured IRGC personnel, weapons, money and tens of thousands of foreign and terroristic Shia fighters into Syria to keep Assad in power and sustain the war. They called it defending the shrines. It was about defending Assad and the Islamic Republic’s regional empire.