The war between Iran and Israel has now erupted into the open. What was once a shadow conflict—marked by assassinations, cyberattacks, and proxy skirmishes—has escalated into direct missile exchanges and air strikes. To many Muslims, this appears to be a righteous confrontation: Iran, the self-declared vanguard of “resistance,” finally striking back at Israel for its decades of oppression and, most recently, its ongoing holocaust in Gaza.
But this framing is dangerously misleading. While Tehran speaks in the language of resistance, its actions reveal a calculated ambition for regional dominance
The True Goal: Regional Hegemony
Iran’s conflict with Israel is best understood not as a war for Islam, but as part of a broader, long-running struggle to dominate the Middle East. Following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Iran quickly expanded its influence into Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. This effort—known as the “Shi’a Crescent”—was not motivated by a desire for Islamic unity but by sectarian ambition and national self-interest.1
As political scientist Vali Nasr explains in Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History, Iran employs a policy of “forward defense”, relying on proxy warfare to shield its regime and expand its reach. Its support for militias such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various armed groups in Iraq is not aimed at liberating al-Quds. Rather, it is designed to undermine Sunni-majority states and entrench Iran’s influence across the Arab world.
A 2016 Carnegie Endowment study further illustrates how Tehran has systematically weaponized sectarian identity to justify military interventions and regional expansion. Tehran deliberately frames its Sunni rivals as takfiri or Wahhabi extremists. Meanwhile, Iran casts its Shi’a proxies as “defenders of the oppressed,” masking the reality that these forces function as tools of Iranian dominance.
This sectarian strategy is not incidental—it is a defining feature of Iran’s regional policy. It allows Tehran to rally Shi’a populations behind its leadership while vilifying Sunni resistance movements.
The consequences have been devastating. Iran has empowered sectarian militias responsible for widespread atrocities—most notably, its unflinching support for Bashar al-Assad, whose war on Syria’s majority-Sunni population has killed over 500,000 Muslims, including many Palestinians. It continues to fund the repression of Sunni communities in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. These alliances are not guided by Islamic principles or solidarity—they are tactical and sectarian in nature.
And yet, Iran understands that military power alone is not enough. Alongside its network of militias and armed clients, Tehran has built a parallel front: an ideological campaign designed to present itself as the moral voice of the Muslim world. This image-building is no less strategic than its proxy warfare—and no less deceptive. It is the next layer of the illusion and just as dangerous.
Iran’s “Islamic” Foreign Policy: A Political Facade
This manufactured image has found its most powerful expression in Tehran’s exploitation of the Palestinian cause. As the world watched the holocaust in Gaza unfold, Iran positioned itself as the only state bold enough to stand up to Zionist aggression. This posture won it admiration in many parts of the Muslim world. Yet this admiration is driven more by raw emotion than by an accurate reading of Tehran’s intentions. Iran’s actions are not driven by solidarity with the oppressed, but by a desire to expand its regional influence.
These same groups—Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran-backed militias in Iraq—are presented in Iran’s media and diplomatic rhetoric as part of an “Axis of Resistance.” In reality, they are sectarian instruments of Iranian power, not movements guided by tawheed or unity.
As already discussed by Vali Nasr in Iran’s Grand Strategy, Iran’s foreign policy is not rooted in religious sincerity but in calculated statecraft. Its rhetoric of resistance is carefully crafted to conceal its true ambition: projecting power from Tehran to the Mediterranean by controlling weak states through sectarian militias. What Iran labels resistance is, in reality, the advancement of a sectarian empire that openly reviles the best of this Ummah—the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ
Conclusion:
Iran’s war with Israel is a regional power struggle, not a sacred cause. It is a fight between two nation-states seeking dominance. One is a racist settler colonial state carved out in the blood of the Palestinian people, the other a sectarian Shī‘ī state whose founding clerics openly revile the Prophet’s Companions.
Sources:
- Vali Nasr, Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (2024)
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Iran’s Sectarian Strategy in the Middle East” (2016)
- Financial Times, “Iran steps out of the shadows as direct confrontation with Israel begins” (June 2025).
- https://islamichistory.info/2024/10/06/iran-israel-and-the-war-against-islam/
Appendix: Khomeni, founder of the Iranian revolution
Any serious inquiry into the ideological foundations of the Republic of Iran must engage with the beliefs of its founding figure, Ayatollah Khomeini. Also see this and this for further information.
Hatred of the Sahaabah
In his work Kashf al-Asrar, Khomeini makes the following claim: “They, Abu Bakr and Umar, had nothing to do with Islam and the Qur’an, except to seize worldly power, and had been using the Qur’an as a smokescreen to fulfill their evil intentions.”
Khomeini’s open takfīr (excommunication) of the Prophet’s most trusted allies and family members is a mainstream Shia view. For instance, Rijāl al-Kashshī, a foundational Shia biographical text, attributes the following statement to Abu Ja‘far: “The people all became apostates after the Prophet’s death except for three: Miqdad ibn Aswad, Abu Dharr, and Salman.”
This worldview — branding the majority of the Prophet’s companions as traitors — underpins Khomeini’s ideology. He lauded scholars like Mullah Baqir al-Majlisi, who in his book Hayat al-Qulub (Vol. 2, p. 870), accuses Aisha and Hafsa of poisoning the Prophet ﷺ
Rejection of the Quran
Central to Twelver Shia theology is the belief that the Qur’an was compiled by individuals they consider apostates thus casting doubt on its authenticity. Although this is seldom admitted openly, it runs deep in classical Shia literature. Khomeini affirmed the legitimacy of works such as Faṣl al-Khiṭāb by Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, a text that openly accuses the Companions of altering the Qur’an and omitting verses pertaining to Ali. He also praised figures such as al-Kulaynī (al-Kāfī), al-‘Āmilī (al-Wasā’il), and al-Ṭabarsī (al-Iḥtijāj), all of whom are associated with the ‘distortion of the Quran’ narrative.
Al-Kafi, the most important hadith collection in Shia Islam, equivalent to Sahih al-Bukhari for Sunnis, contains over twenty narrations that accuse the early Companions of altering the Qur’anic text. These narrations claim that key references to Ali and the Imams were removed from the Qur’an by political enemies of Ahl al-Bayt, and that only the Shia Imams preserved the true Qur’anic revelations. In addition to this, Shia texts like Basa’ir al-Darajat by al-Saffar al-Qummi and the historical works of al-Ya‘qubi emphasize the idea that the “authentic” Qur’an — which includes explicit mention of the Imams — is not the version known to Muslims today. According to these texts, the real Qur’an is hidden with the “Twelfth Imam,” who is believed by Shia to be in occultation and will reveal it upon his return.
- The “Shi’a Crescent” is a geopolitical term used to describe a crescent-shaped region of Middle Eastern countries with significant Shi’a populations or influence, stretching from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. It represents Iran’s strategy of linking allied governments and militias to establish strategic depth and regional dominance. ↩︎
