In the shadow of rising tensions between Iran and Israel, with missile strikes and assassinations threatening to reshape the Middle East, it is easy to paint Iran as a theocratic monolith; a state rigidly defined by religious zeal and revolutionary fervour. But to view the Islamic Republic this way is to misunderstand the architecture of its survival.
As Professor Vali Nasr convincingly outlines in his new book Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History, the driving force behind Iran’s foreign policy is not blind ideology — it is a deeply rational, historically rooted pursuit of sovereignty. The Iran we see today is not the product of mystical thinking but of cold, strategic calculus forged in centuries of imperial humiliation, war, and existential vulnerability.
A Nation Alone
Iran’s identity is unique in the region: Persian, not Arab; Shia, not Sunni. This isolation— linguistic, cultural, and sectarian — has bred a persistent strategic loneliness. From the Safavid dynasty’s embrace of Shiism to differentiate from the Sunni Ottomans to the 20th-century losses of territory to Russia and Britain, Iran has internalised a worldview in which survival depends on self-reliance. The Iranian leadership sees the world through a historical prism — a nation repeatedly encircled, betrayed, and intervened upon.
Even Ayatollah Khomeini, often depicted as a dogmatic cleric, saw independence as the revolution’s central achievement. When secular revolutionaries presented him a draft of Iran’s future governance promising both democracy and Islam, he scribbled a third, non-negotiable principle: independence. Later, he would tell a Pakistani journalist, “All decisions will now be made in Tehran.”
Resistance as State Doctrine
This obsession with autonomy birthed a strategy known as moghavemat — resistance. It is not resistance for resistance’s sake, but a means of guarding sovereignty. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, veterans of the devastating 8-year Iran-Iraq war, emerged with a doctrine: no foreign power will protect us — we must defend ourselves.
This explains the rise of Iran’s proxy model: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen. It explains Iran’s investment in ballistic missiles and drones. These are not imperial tools — they are strategic hedges against perceived vulnerability. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, Tehran interpreted it not as liberation, but a prelude to its own invasion. Its response? Bleed the Americans through proxies in Baghdad, ensuring the war would be too costly to extend into Iran.
From Revolution to Realpolitik
The mythology of exporting revolution faded long ago. Iran does not want to recreate the Islamic Republic abroad — it wants influence, security depth, and bargaining chips. Its nuclear program is not just about energy or weaponisation; it is about reclaiming the right to decide its own future, just as Egypt did with the Suez Canal and Iran itself did with oil under Mossadegh.
The nuclear file — often misinterpreted in Western capitals as religiously driven — is rooted in nationalism. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s refusal to abandon uranium enrichment is not about eschatology; it is about pride, sovereignty, and history. “Who the hell are you to tell us what we can or cannot do?” he once remarked, echoing the anti-imperialist ethos of the 1950s more than a clerical ruling.
The Collapse of the Proxy Model
But the ground beneath Iran is shifting. The old deterrence architecture based on the threat of Hezbollah or Hamas is cracking. After October 7th, Israel’s direct strikes into Iranian territory, including its consulate in Damascus, mark a new era. Iran is now retaliating not through proxies, but directly from its soil. This is a tectonic shift.
Internally, debates rage between hardliners and pragmatists. While the Revolutionary Guards advocate doubling down on missiles and militarisation, reformist voices — historically sidelined — argue that true national strength lies in economic development and normalised relations. The people of Iran, weary of isolation and economic decay, are increasingly siding with the latter.
The Road Ahead
Whether Iran shifts course will depend not on American ultimatums or Israeli airstrikes, but on how the regime reads the costs of its current posture. If missiles prove more effective than militias, budgets and strategies will shift. If resistance becomes too costly to bear, even for the guardians of the revolution, a pivot may occur — not unlike Egypt’s from Nasser to Sadat, or China’s from Mao to Deng.
There is no guarantee. Regime collapse remains unlikely, and even in such a case, any successor would emerge from within the same elite ecosystem, even from the Revolutionary Guards themselves.
The West must recalibrate its understanding. Iran is not irrational. It is not suicidal. It is not, despite the slogans, hell-bent on apocalypse. It is strategic. It is scarred. And it is more than anything else, committed to never being dominated again.
To deal with Iran, we must engage not its slogans, but its story.
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Shariq Us Sabah is a writer and political observer focused on West Asia and the evolving dynamics of nationalism, strategy, and state power
