The scenes from Dearborn, Michigan, where thousands of Shiite mourners marched through the streets to commemorate the 40th day of a death nearly 1,400 years old, deserve to be understood as more than material for internet debate. Children carrying banners, religious paraphernalia, and portraits of figures such as Khamenei and Nasrallah, alongside troubling chants and incidents of violence, point to a larger problem of political-religious indoctrination. Dearborn offered a glimpse of an ideological infrastructure America has spent decades refusing to examine with the seriousness it deserves.

Domestic Shiite extremism should not be treated as a fringe concern or a string of isolated episodes. The signs have been visible for decades: children holding portraits of Ali Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani, public pledges of allegiance to Iran, alleged assassination plots targeting President Donald Trump, the attack on Salman Rushdie, attacks on synagogues, and other terrorist plots too often treated as disconnected events. Iran has cultivated radicalized sympathy among segments of the global Shiite diaspora by weaponizing religious symbolism, historical grievance, and apocalyptic doctrine.