Recent events testify to the destructive relationship between the states of Iran and Israel. To begin with, on 1 April 2024, an Israeli attack on a consular building within the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus killed Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the elite Qods Force, along with six other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders. The Israeli action inevitably provoked Iranian retaliation in the form of a five-hour barrage of drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles targeting Israel during the night of 13/14 April. This so-called Operation True Promise marked the first direct attack on Israel to be launched from Iranian soil. The large majority of the incoming missiles were, however, successfully intercepted by Israeli’s Iron Dome air defence system, with help from the US, UK, and France. Then, on 19 April, pre-dawn missile strikes on the central Iranian province of Isfahan targeted an army air base and a uranium enrichment facility. The precise details of the nature of missiles deployed and the extent of damage on the ground remain unclear at the time of writing. For the moment, an uneasy calm prevails in the region as each side decides upon the next steps, with the almost universal expectation from the rest of the world that retaliatory tit-for-tat strikes will cease forthwith.
Establishing meaningful and effective relationships with the Islamic Republic of Iran remain a major foreign policy challenge for many Western nations. Some unique features of Iran may help explain its current uncompromising stance. The republic dates back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The roots of the first Islamic revolution of the modern age can be traced back to the secularisation, modernisation, and Westernization programme of Reza Shah Pahlavi, which intensified under his son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi during the 1960s and 1970s, when Iran’s pre-Islamic Persian culture and identity was emphasized, threatening its allegiance to Shia Islam. Religious endowments (waqfs) were disestablished, Sharia courts were brought under state control, and Shia clerics were confined to the seminaries. Both men and women were required to adopt Western-style dress. But an increasingly autocratic and repressive Shah, whose enforcers included SAVAK, the dreaded state security police, aroused resentment among conservative and traditional rural people and invited the wrath of Shia clerics. Anti-Shah sentiments found a focus in the person of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose triumphant return to Iran after a fifteen-year exile led to the establishment of an Islamic republic on 11 February 1979.
Unlike the other Muslim nations of the Middle East, Iran is not an Arab state and the official language is Farsi, an Indo-European language. The Safavids, who seized power in Persia in 1501, made Twelver Shiism the official state religion. Twelver Shias invest absolute authority in a line of twelve imams directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima, and await the return of the twelfth ‘lost’ or ‘hidden’ imam to unify the Muslim world (ummah). Iran is the only Shia nation-state in the world, although there are significant numbers of Shia Muslims in Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, and Yemen- among other countries of the Islamic Belt. Shia Muslims are, however, considered heretics and apostates by extremist Sunnis, further contributing to tensions between Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni world, and Iran.
Iran’s particular brand of Islamic government consists of a theocracy, headed by a spiritual leader-the Supreme Leader (Velayat-e Faqih, or Regency of the Faith), and an executive branch, which is headed by a President who is elected by universal suffrage for a four-year term and limited to two successive terms. The actions of the theocracy are guided by Ayatollah Khomeini’s book Hokumat-e Islami: Velayat-e Faqih (Islamic Government: Regency of the Jurist). Khomeini, who served as the first Velayat-e Faqih, believed that the seminary-trained clergy, should lead the Muslim community, as heirs to the Prophet and the Imams, in place of political leaders. The Supreme Leader, or ruling jurisconsult, is chosen for life. He is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the IRGC, controls the judiciary, the Intelligence Ministry, and state broadcasting network, and chooses Friday prayer leaders across Iran. The ultimate source of authority rests with the ‘hidden Imam’-the Mahdi, whose return is awaited by all Shias. Following the death of the charismatic and unifying Ayatollah Khomeini in June 1989, tensions between the Supreme Leader and reformist and centralist President have periodically emerged. In any case, the Supreme Leader, supported by his Governing Council, can veto legislation and overrule government officials.
The Islamic Republic rapidly reversed the Pahlavi reforms. Women were once again required to wear the hijab, were segregated from men in public life, and their rights in the spheres of employment, education, marriage, divorce, property ownership, and travel were curtailed. The death penalty was the ultimate punishment, while exiled dissidents were placed at the mercy of assassins. Anti-Jewish sentiments and Holocaust denial gained prominence in Iranian political discourse, after a period of rapprochement with Israel under the Shah.
All Iranian men who reach the age of 18 now face twenty-one months of mandatory conscription in either the Iranian armed forces or the IRGC. The IRGC, also known as the Sepah-e Pasdaran, was established in May 1979 as a religious militia to counterbalance the influence of the formerly royalist armed forces and to help secure the power of the clergy and protect the new republic. The IRGC has since grown to comprise five branches: ground forces, air force (responsible for Iran’s ballistic missiles programme), navy, marine infantry, and the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force, which coordinates the “axis of resistance” of allied governments and proxy armed groups. It has developed economic and commercial interests. The IRGC’s engineering wing, Khatam-ol-Anbia (Seal of the Prophet), manages some of Iran’s largest infrastructure projects, including construction of housing, roads, dams, ports, and airports.
Iran’s relations with the West have included political conflict, attempts at diplomatic negotiation, arms deals, imposition of sanctions, and military confrontation through Iranian surrogates and proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. Iran has, however, never launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbours. Iraq, on the other hand, initiated the war of 1980-1988 against Iran, seeking to control oil-rich Khuzestan province and the Shatt al Arab waterway.
Iran is the second largest and most populous country in the Middle East. Its strategic location between Asia and the Mediterranean, control over the Strait of Hormuz between the Persian and Oman Gulfs, substantial oil and natural gas reserves, and nuclear capability, make it a key player in the geopolitics of the Middle East. In the hostile environment created by Western sanctions and backing for Iran’s regional rivals (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar), an increasingly isolated Iran has had to rely on Russia, China, and the former Soviet Central Asian Republics for support. Iran’s rigid ideological stance with respect to Israel poses an existential threat to the Jewish Homeland. Iran and Israel are currently locked into mutually incompatible positions, with seemingly no likelihood of compromise. Unless the deadlock is broken, which will require leaders with exceptional negotiating skills and cross-cultural understanding, there can be no guarantee of enduring peace in the Middle East and West Asia, as military solutions alone are unlikely to suffice.
Ashis Banerjee