“The brutality of minorities” has become a growing Arab phenomenon following the 1979 Khomeini revolution. Then the phenomenon began to spread in the Arab world with Iranian support until it has become common and within earshot and sight today. It is dealt with in the West as a matter of course and not an anomaly to history and reality.

The cruel minorities in the Arab world are organically linked with the Iranian regime. They report to it, spring from it and have alliances with it, and provide it with all the services, even if this leads to uprooting themselves from their historic caution and traditional apprehension.

Hence, they have become tools of a religious-political imperial struggle that contradicts all their history and nature and threatens their future and next generations.

The biggest minorities in the Arab and Muslim world are the “Shiite minorities” that follow the noble Shia sect, which has been carrying out revolution after revolution against the “Sunni majority” since the beginning of Islamic history.

This continued until things stabilized and they rejected politics and revolutions and considered “waiting for the Mahdi” as the established doctrine of its followers for long centuries.

All its sectarian institutions were built firmly, tightly, and with cohesion on this principle, until the Khomeini Revolution took place and introduced drastic changes in the Shiite sect through the “Wilayat Al-Faqih” doctrine and the policy of exporting the revolution.

The “Wilayat Al-Faqih” theory or doctrine is also known as “The Guardianship of the Jurist”.

The Khomeini scheme failed to export the revolution through a direct war in Iraq, so its second religious leader Khamenei followed a new policy based on supporting some minorities and converting them to “brutality”.

It was natural that the beginning would be with the Shiite minority in the Arab world. This was specifically in Lebanon with Hezbollah, and supporting the Shiite minorities in Iraq and the Arabian Gulf countries.

One can notice the development of its work in the “Kuwaiti model” in the assassination attempt against Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed in 1985 that was carried out by the Iraqi Shiite “Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis”, who was killed along with “Qassim Sulaimani” in 2020, the Lebanese Shiite “Mustafa Badruddin” who was eliminated in Syria in 2016, and until the “Abdali cell” in 2017.

In the Abdali cell incident in 2017, the quantity of weapons and the magnitude of planning was enough to topple a state. It was not just a terrorist operation or an attempt to assassinate an official. This did not end with some Shiites carrying out acts against Saudi Arabia and Al-Baqee’ Cemetery.

Iran did the same thing with the Houthis that belong to the noble Shia sect in Yemen, such that they attracted the Houthis towards the Ithna’shari Shiism with its Khomeini version.

Then it strove to turn it into a “brutal minority”, to bring it to its current status of brutality, terrorism, and oppression against the majority and the other minorities in Yemen, as well as targeting Saudi Arabia and threatening the world and international trade.

Meanwhile, outside the Shiite sphere, the Iranian regime forged an alliance with some representatives of the Christian minorities, specifically the “Awni current” and this current engaged in cruelty and forged alliances with the brutal groups in serving the Iranian regime.

The Iranian regime has proved its capability to convert “The Messiah”, “The Cross” and “The Virgin” to soldiers in the “minority brutality” battle being led by the Iranian regime. The statements of the former Lebanese foreign minister Charbel Wehbe are just a passing example within a constant strategy of this current.

“Contradictions” are a weapon in politics and thought. Many countries, political parties, and movements use it. It is one of the “mechanisms” the Iranian regime and its followers “the oppressors” are adopting so as to expand their influence and impose their hegemony on many Arab countries.

Among those, is blending “the discourse of pride” and “the discourse of weakening and humiliating others”. It is sufficient to monitor the discourse of “the Lebanese Hezbollah”, the “Houthi militia”, and the “Hamas faction” to explain the purpose in this context.

“Persecuting other minorities” which are smaller in number and of less influence is one of the elements in the strategies of the “Brutal minorities”. And there are many examples in this regard, including the Lebanese Hezbollah persecuting the Christians and Druze as religious minorities.

Meanwhile, “Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi” militias in Iraq oppress the many minorities in Iraq, which form part of the Iraqi historic and cultural mosaic. The tyrannized minorities include the Kurds as a racial minority and the Yazidis and Christians, as religious minorities. In addition, the Houthi militias persecute the Bahais and the Yemenite Jews, and so on in a constant and stable policy.

These brutal minorities reap profits and incur losses like any other current or political party. For example, the Lebanese Hezbollah has won total control of the Lebanese state, but it lost overall by turning it into a “failed state” and proved its total incapacity, that contradicts all its slogans during the recent Gaza incidents.

Moreover, it refrained from antagonizing Israel in any way. It seems it has learned the 2006 lesson very well. The Houthi militias did the same in Yemen, while the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas Movement, Daesh, and Al-Qaeda made little gains but lost subsequently.

The nature of human beings and the logic of history bear witness to the fact that the "barbarity of minorities" is one of the greatest existential dangers to these minorities themselves, as well as to their leaderships and political, cultural, and economic elites, at this stage in the age of mankind.

However, they will bear a great burden in the future when things return to normal.

— Al-Otaibi is a Saudi writer. This article was originally published in Al-Ittihad newspaper.