The news has spread worldwide that the dying Iranian mullah regime is sending 12-year-olds into the grinder. While Iranian propaganda is generating AI images of “invincible power,” the real disposition of Tehran looks far darker, and the behavior of the elite more cynical. Exhausted by sanctions, internal protests, and military failures, the Islamic Republic is returning to its most vile practice from the time of the Iran-Iraq war — exploiting children on the battlefield.
According to reports by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the paramilitary structure “Basij” is actively recruiting teenagers, starting from age 12. A large-scale campaign is deployed in Iran’s schools and mosques: children are instilled with the cult of martyrdom.
If in the 1980s, they were given plastic “keys to paradise” before being sent to clear minefields with their bodies, today the methods have become more sophisticated. Social media and school programs are turning 12-year-old boys into “defenders of shrines.” In fact, the decapitated regime is stealing the nation’s future to plug holes in its sagging defense system.
Recent weeks have been disastrous for Iran’s management structure. A series of targeted eliminations have almost destroyed the “golden fund” of the IRGC.
The death of key generals responsible for logistics and external operations has created a vacuum of professional personnel. Simultaneously, there is noticeable degradation of proxies: Hezbollah and other “Axis of Resistance” groups are disoriented.
Amid this, fear of mobilization is spreading across Iran. The adult male Iranian population, tired of poverty, is not eager to die for the ayatollahs’ fake ideas. In these conditions, children and teenagers are the cheapest and most pliable material. They are easier to deceive, easier to manipulate, and their deaths can be used to create new propaganda images of “martyrs.”
The only question is why all this? Iran’s adventurism has finally turned it into a destructive force for the entire Middle East. Direct attacks by Iranian drones and missiles on the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia have devastatingly destroyed the myth of “Muslim solidarity.”
Today, Arab capitals see Iran not as a leader, but as an existential threat.
The missile and drone terror from Tehran against Arab neighbors is to some extent a mirror of Russia’s war tactics against Ukraine. But, as we see, with Iran’s “Hitler Youth” recruitment, things are dire for the Persians.
A regime that begins to massively arm 12-year-olds is in the terminal stage. There are signs of agony, not strength. Iran’s “survival strategy” has turned into devouring its own children.
But history shows: regimes that build their power on children’s blood always end the same way — they perish under the weight of the ruins of collapsing tyranny.
