One war leads to another and one revolution leads to another. Iran is in turmoil and the religious leadership, preaching the path of peace (one assumes), slaughters its young because, as we all know, religious leaders know best and fighting the sinful requests of democratic freedoms always has been an article of Islamic faith.
I once asked a Muslim how their empire building differed from the Christian, and he quite sincerely told me he didn’t know to what I was referring. It isn’t empire building when it is done for the religion. Just as it isn’t murder when you are protecting your version of the religion. The various Christian Inquisitions went through the same process and it is no coincidence that this thinking is kith and kin to all we know of fascism.