A Lesson in Iranian Ancient Mythology — or why Trump’s blockade is destined to fail

Hormuz, or as the same Persian Hormoz, was originally Hormazd, short for Ahura Mazda, the name of the creator in Zerastianism, the religion of ancient Persia. In ancient Iranian mythology, Hormazd, the creator, was a symbol of all that is good, and it had an arch-enemy called Ahraman, which was a symbol of all that is evil, the devil himself. Now Hormazd lived in infinite light, and Ahraman lived in eternal darkness. Hormazd, being all-knowing, knew about the existence of the devil, but Ahraman, the devil, learned about the existence of light one day by coming across it. Out of envy, Ahramand created demons and set them to launch an attack on light, Hormazd, knowing how the war would turn out and wanting to avoid intermingling with the devil, offered peace. But Ahramand took it as a sign of weakness and rejected the offer. So Hormazd and its eternal wisdom created time, because it was only with time that Ahramand or the devil would meet its own demise in the war that it had launched on light. And as such, the devil's war on light became a campaign with a timer attached to it, at the end of which, if it has not managed to conquer and destroy all light in the world, it will lose forever. Now the ancient wisdom that has named the straight must have been influenced by the idea of using time as an instrument of defeating darkness. It reminds me of a poem by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Daarish, where he writes, "Under siege time becomes a location, solidified eternally." The ancient Iranians must have known that at the right time, the narrow passage of the Strait of Hormuz will become an instrument in controlling the devil's time demise. And right now, Donald Trump is helping speed that up by trying to copy Hormazd's tactic. And as he does that, he falls right into his trap. Or as Mahmoud Daarish writes, "The siege will endure until the besiegers feel like the besieged." At the beginning of this war, Donald Trump promised to make Iran great again. And I think this is the one thing that he has succeeded at. Not only did he make Iran great in the eyes of the world, but he has also managed to return the Strait to his original namesake, the creator, and set off the timer for the destruction of his enemy. Now, this all might sound like just folktale to you, until you think about the fact that in the ancient world, unlike today's messed up world where names are given by force and are erased by force, indigenous wisdom was employed in naming places. There's a reason after all that the Gulf has been known as the Persian Gulf throughout history. And I feel like this is just the beginning, and we are going to see the stories of the ancient world play out in real time in front of our eyes. And maybe for that, and just for that, we have the true representative of Ahraman, the Donald himself, to thank for.