The American-Israeli war against Iran is now in its seventh month, but Western policymakers and commentators continue to overlook one of the most fundamental reasons for their own inability to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Many of them fail to understand that Iran’s foreign policy is shaped only in part by self-interest and rational choice. Of far greater importance to the leaders in Tehran is the revisionist worldview that lies at the heart of their regime and continues to define how they see global events.
Iran foreign policy goals are an expression of the regime’s worldview, which lends it domestic and regional legitimacy. This worldview is centered on the emancipation of the region’s oppressed Muslim majority from what it views as a tyrannical alliance led by the United States (the “Great Satan”), Israel (the “Little Satan”), and corrupt Arab authoritarian regimes in the Gulf, Jordan, and Egypt. Tehran sees this constellation of forces as a mechanism to oppress the peoples of the region, rob them of their natural resources like oil, and displace Palestinians.
After its initial revolutionary zeal and early mistakes, Tehran learned to adapt its foreign policy to the imperatives of state behavior, avoiding acts that would invite unnecessary trouble. It mastered the art of building for the longue durée.
Islam, for Iran, is not a religion in the conservative sense or a source of legislation and morality (as is the case, for example, in Saudi Arabia). For the Iranians, Shia Islam is primarily a liberation movement, an emancipatory, anti-colonial, and anti-exploitation doctrine for the oppressed and downtrodden. This emancipatory framework explains why the Iranian Revolution has historically exerted such a strong attraction on the Global Left. Tehran’s ideology creates foreign and security policy goals that the Left finds appealing: The Revolution aims to undermine client Arab regimes and support other revolutionary movements in the region. It treats the region’s natural resources as a collective good for its peoples rather than the property of specific states. It thwarts attempts to reconcile Arab states with Israel and support Palestinian resistance with the ultimate goal of dismantling the Zionist project, and it works to push the United States out of the Gulf and the broader region.
Unlike past Arab revolutionary regimes – such as the Baathists in Syria and Iraq, who embraced comparable ideologies – Iran has been remarkably serious about pursuing these goals, and demonstrated a much higher level of capability than any of its Arab neighbors. After its initial revolutionary zeal and early mistakes, Tehran learned to adapt its foreign policy to the imperatives of state behavior, avoiding acts that would invite unnecessary trouble. It mastered the art of building for the longue durée.
Following its invasion by Iraq in 1980, Iran modified its security doctrine to build “advance bases” over decades of dedicated effort. This is how it established deep roots in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories (both Gaza and the West Bank), Iraq, and Yemen. (It tried to do the same, with less success, elsewhere). The massive investments poured into these entities has created groups that are much more than mere proxies; each has built deep roots as a social movement for the poor and downtrodden, effectively laying the groundwork for future Iranian-style revolutions.
This disciplined, patient approach is also how Iran built its sophisticated missile program despite a harsh regime of sanctions imposed on it for decades. The effectiveness of this strategy is demonstrated by the fact that Iran can still fire salvos of missiles across the region despite heavy aerial bombing by its enemies. This long-term mindset also helps to explain how Tehran has managed to maintain its nuclear program over the past two and a half decades despite intense international sanctions and other forms of pressure. The same approach underlies its shrewd use of naval power, which it has adapted to its specific security environment and capabilities despite limited resources – as shown by its swarming tactics against the U.S. Navy in the Gulf and its success at disrupting global navigation, much like the Houthis have learned to do in Bab al-Mandeb.
Iran and its apologists frequently describe this impressive system as purely “defensive,” pointing to a historical pattern of attacks, from colonial exploitation and invasion attempts, to the 1953 Mossadegh coup, to the Iraqi invasion in 1980, the sanctions regime, all the way to the current war on Iran. They are not wrong. Yet a defensive shield built by one state can legitimately be perceived as a severe threat by its neighbors. If you are a Gulf country, Israel, or the United States (which maintains a regional presence Iran wishes to eliminate and which faces pressures from its allies), you inevitably see this apparatus as an active threat. This is what it means for two sides to be on a structural collision course.
For decades, the central question was whether confrontation could be contained or avoided or whether it would erupt into open warfare. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was the most significant attempt to contain it, and optimists hoped that it would eventually “integrate Iran” and erode its revisionist orientation. However, the JCPOA left Iranian power unchecked in non-nuclear domains while ending the sanctions, which meant increasing Iran’s capacity to pursue its non-nuclear programs, including missiles, military build-ups, and the expansion of its regional networks.
The violence may pause, or the U.S. role may change. But the war will go on.
This is precisely why the fiercest opposition to the JCPOA came from America’s allies within the region itself. When the U.S. insisted on pursuing the deal, those allies adopted their own versions of conflict management: a bitter Saudi-Iranian rivalry that tore the region apart for a decade, supplemented by the Abraham Accords, which bypassed and further radicalized Palestinians who rightly felt left out and abandoned.
The explosion of October 7 and the ensuing Gaza War and the Israeli-Hezbollah war brought these trends to a head, making an active confrontation with Iran a matter of time. The only question for the U.S. is which policy it decides to adopt from here on out: whether it leads its allies into the fight, allows itself to be guided by them, or stands aside and lets them handle it alone (with consequences for its presumed leadership role in the region).
It is theoretically possible to imagine some sort of diplomatic miracle that might convince the Islamic Republic to abandon its core objectives and reconcile with the world around it. But until we actually witness such a development, or some other fundamental change to the Middle East and American role in it, the current conflict will continue. The violence may pause, or the U.S. role may change. But the war will go on.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MBN’s editorial stance.
