World Relations with Israel

Prior to the 1979 revolution, Iran and Israel maintained a pragmatic, mutually beneficial relationship rooted in geopolitical realism. Under the Pahlavi dynasty, Iran’s foreign policy operated within the framework of the "Peripheral Doctrine." This strategic concept, originally conceived by Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, sought to build alliances between Israel and non-Arab states or minorities on the periphery of the Middle East to counter pan-Arab nationalism and Soviet expansionism. During this era, Iran and Israel engaged in deep, discrete cooperation across multiple vital sectors. This included extensive intelligence sharing between the SAVAK and Mossad, significant military technology transfers, and critical economic joint ventures—most notably the construction and operation of the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, which allowed Iranian crude oil to bypass the Suez Canal and reach European markets directly. This alignment was driven entirely by shared security calculations and geographic realities, recognizing that neither nation posed an existential threat to the other, while both faced common regional adversaries.

The ascent of the Islamic Republic under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini shattered this pragmatic paradigm, replacing a foreign policy based on state-centered realism with an uncompromising, state-sponsored religious ideology. Following the 1979 revolution, the new regime immediately moved to dismantle the pre-existing diplomatic apparatus. The Israeli mission in Tehran was promptly seized, its personnel expelled, and the keys to the facility were ceremonially handed over to Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This transformation was not triggered by any territorial dispute, resource scarcity, or direct military provocation by Israel against Iran. Instead, it was an artificial enmity manufactured by the ruling clergy to serve as a foundational pillar of the regime’s revolutionary and ideological identity. By embedding anti-Zionism into the core of its political DNA, the regime sought to transcend the historic Arab-Persian and Sunni-Shia divides, positioning a Persian, Shia-dominated state as the vanguard of the broader Islamic world.

By institutionalizing this hostility, the Islamic Republic systematically separated itself from conventional 

international diplomacy and locked the nation into a permanent state of ideological mobilization. Anti-Israel radicalism became a primary tool for vetting internal elites, mobilizing the domestic population during times of crisis, and drawing sharp ideological boundaries against Western-aligned states. This shift replaced rational assessments of national interest with a rigid, theological worldview that viewed the international order as an inherently corrupt system divided between the "oppressors" and the "oppressed." Consequently, the regime barred itself from engaging in standard diplomatic bargaining, trade agreements, and security arrangements with Western democracies. By making an existential, cosmic enmity out of a relationship that had previously been stable, the regime set Iran on a long-term trajectory toward international isolation, ensuring that its foreign policy decisions would remain subservient to its revolutionary dogmas.

The adoption of the slogan "Annihilation of Israel" went far beyond mere political rhetoric used for domestic rallies; it was integrated into the operational manuals, strategic doctrines, and legal architecture of the Islamic Republic. By placing the total destruction of a sovereign state and United Nations member at the center of its foreign policy, the regime established a goal that was fundamentally incompatible with the principles of Westphalian sovereignty and international law. This maximalist approach eliminated any room for traditional diplomatic flexibility or de-escalation, as any compromise, normalization, or recognition of the adversary’s right to exist was viewed as an act of ideological treason. The state apparatus, including the diplomatic corps, state media, and educational institutions, was entirely oriented toward sustaining this narrative of total confrontation, creating an institutional rigidity that prevented the government from adapting to changing global realities.

The strategic repercussions of this policy for the Iranian nation have been consistently disastrous, acting as the primary driver behind decades of international containment, global sanctions, and regional counter-coalitions. By declaring an existential war against a country closely allied with the world's major economic and military powers, the Islamic Republic provided international bodies with the necessary justification to impose highly restrictive economic sanctions. This stance effectively transformed Iran from a natural regional anchor into a primary security threat in global calculations. It forced successive generations of Iranian diplomats to operate in a permanently defensive posture, spending significant diplomatic capital to manage the fallout of provocative state rhetoric rather than building constructive bilateral partnerships. The country's geopolitical potential was neutralized, as international partners remained hesitant to invest in a state that openly pursued a policy of regional destruction.

Furthermore, this doctrine forced Iran into an unyielding geopolitical trap, where it has been unable to capitalize on its immense natural resources, strategic geographic location, and highly educated population. Instead of serving as a vital energy and transit corridor connecting Central Asia, Europe, and the Persian Gulf, Iran became an economic island, blocked from global supply chains and international financial systems. The single-minded focus on an ideological goal located thousands of kilometers beyond Iran's borders led to a severe misallocation of diplomatic and strategic resources. While neighboring states modernized their infrastructure, secured major foreign direct investments, and diversified their economies, Iran remained locked in a costly, decades-long confrontation. This approach systematically eroded its national competitive advantages and left the country deeply vulnerable to external shocks.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite external operations branch, the Quds Force, were designed specifically to convert this anti-Israel ideology into a concrete, militarized reality across the Middle East. Following the devastating and costly conventional warfare of the Iran-Iraq War, the regime’s leadership recognized that its regular military forces could not directly match the conventional technological and air superiority of Western nations or Israel. To overcome these limitations, the IRGC developed a highly sophisticated asymmetric and hybrid warfare doctrine known as the "Axis of Resistance." The Quds Force was given the specific mission of projecting power beyond Iran's borders by establishing, training, funding, and arming a complex network of non-state armed actors and proxies across the region, creating a continuous line of influence stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea.

This hybrid war architecture was explicitly designed to shift the physical theater of conflict away from Iranian territory, using foreign populations and lands as defensive buffers for the regime in Tehran.

By placing mobile rocket launchers, advanced drone units, and thousands of radicalized fighters along Israel’s borders, the IRGC sought to establish a system of forward deterrence. This strategy allowed the regime to exert intense military pressure on its adversaries while attempting to maintain plausible deniability and avoid direct, conventional retaliatory strikes on Iranian soil. However, this asymmetric model required the systematic destabilization of neighboring countries. To build its proxy networks, the Quds Force actively undermined the central governance structures of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, exploiting internal sectarian divisions and building states-within-states that answered directly to Tehran rather than local authorities.

The long-term consequence of relying on this proxy-centric security model has been the chronic erosion of Iran’s actual national security, tying the fate of the country to volatile, radical non-state groups. 

By relying on a network of ideological proxies, the regime surrendered a degree of control over its own strategic calculus, as the actions of a proxy group in Gaza or Lebanon could instantly drag Iran into a major international conflict. This approach created a continuous security dilemma, requiring constant financial, logistical, and military infusions to keep these proxy networks operational in the face of intense counter-pressures. Instead of building a stable and secure regional environment for Iran, the IRGC’s hybrid war architecture surrounded the nation with failing states and active conflict zones, ensuring that Iran remained permanently on the brink of war while alienating its historical neighbors.

For decades, the Islamic Republic has systematically diverted massive amounts of national capital, state-controlled oil revenues, and advanced military logistics to sustain its core regional proxies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the Palestinian territories. Hezbollah represents the most complete and advanced realization of this proxy model, evolving from a small underground militant group in the early 1980s into a highly formidable, state-like conventional military force. The IRGC supplied Hezbollah with a massive, sophisticated arsenal containing over one hundred thousand rockets, precision-guided munitions, anti-tank guided missiles, and advanced drone platforms. This extensive militarization was explicitly intended to turn southern Lebanon into a primary forward base capable of holding Israeli civilian and industrial centers hostage to deter any international action against Iran's own strategic facilities.

In the Palestinian theater, the regime's financial and logistical support for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad was deliberately designed to radicalize the Israeli, Palestinian conflict and sabotage any viable diplomatic resolutions. 

Through covert smuggling routes running across East Africa, the Sinai Peninsula, and underground tunnel networks, the Quds Force delivered advanced rocket components, automated manufacturing technology, and specialized explosive training to militants in Gaza. This sustained support allowed these factions to repeatedly launch large-scale rocket campaigns and asymmetric incursions, deliberately undermining the moderate Palestinian Authority and effectively blocking the implementation of a negotiated two-state solution. Tehran’s primary strategic objective was to keep the Palestinian issue open as an active conflict, using the suffering of local populations to disrupt normalization efforts between Israel and the wider Arab world.

The regime's political and diplomatic apparatus was similarly reoriented to provide cover and legitimacy for these armed groups on the international stage. 

Iranian embassies, state-run media conglomerates, and diplomatic missions at the United Nations were consistently used to defend the actions of its proxies, framing violent non-state actors as legitimate national liberation movements. 

This unwavering support came at a severe diplomatic cost, as it led to numerous international designations of Iranian state entities as sponsors of terrorism, further restricting Iran's ability to engage in standard international commerce or cultural exchanges. By tying its state sovereignty to the actions and survival of these radical factions, the Islamic Republic locked itself into a cycle of global isolation, prioritizing the logistical needs of foreign militant networks over the diplomatic standing of the Iranian state.

The allocation of massive state resources to regional proxy networks stands in stark and direct contrast to the severe economic decline, infrastructure collapse, and widespread poverty that has impacted domestic Iranian society for decades. While the regime spent billions of dollars on external military deployments, foreign reconstruction projects in Syria, and annual cash transfers to proxy fighters, the domestic Iranian economy suffered from systemic structural crises. Decades of economic mismanagement, widespread institutional corruption, and the predictable fallout of international sanctions caused hyperinflation, a near-total collapse of the national currency, high unemployment among educated youth, and the steady erosion of the Iranian middle class into poverty.

From a public policy and governance perspective, this pattern of spending reveals a complete and deliberate separation of state expenditures from the welfare and security of the Iranian citizens. The ruling elite, operating under a radical, populist-populist ideology, consistently viewed the national wealth of Iran not as capital to be invested in domestic healthcare, education, environmental protection, or infrastructure, but as a revolutionary fund for regional expansion. Vital domestic sectors, including water management systems, the electrical grid, public transportation, and environmental safety, were left to deteriorate due to chronic underfunding. This choice resulted in severe domestic crises, including widespread water shortages, frequent power blackouts, and toxic air pollution in major urban centers, directly reducing the quality of life and life expectancy of the population.

This persistent diversion of national wealth to fund foreign conflicts created a profound and unresolvable crisis of domestic legitimacy for the Islamic Republic, generating deep, structural anger within the population. The Iranian public grew highly conscious of the fact that their economic futures and standard of living were being sacrificed to fund ideological priorities that yielded zero tangible benefits for the nation. This deep economic frustration was a primary driver behind consecutive waves of nationwide protests, during which citizens from all socio-economic backgrounds risked severe state violence to chant explicit slogans such as "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I give my life for Iran" and "Let go of Syria, think about us." These expressions directly challenged the core ideological mission of the state, demonstrating that the regime’s foreign policy was maintained through domestic suppression against the clear will of its own people.

The rapid and non-transparent development of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear enrichment program, combined with the aggressive expansion of its ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) arsenals, fundamentally altered the security dynamics of the Middle East. By systematically breaching its commitments under international non-proliferation agreements and escalating uranium enrichment to near-weapons-grade levels, the regime sent a clear signal that it was pursuing the technological capacity to develop nuclear weapons. This nuclear expansion was deliberately paired with the development of the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the region, featuring platforms capable of reaching targets several thousand kilometers away with increasing precision and payload capacity.

From the perspective of regional and global security architectures, the combination of a radical ideology openly committed to the destruction of a state with the means to deliver strategic weapons presented an unacceptable and highly destabilizing threat. This rapid military buildup forced a complete realignment of defense priorities across the Middle East. Israel and neighboring Arab states were compelled to invest heavily in multi-layered missile defense systems, early warning radars, and advanced counter-stealth capabilities. The proliferation of low-cost, highly maneuverable kamikaze drones by Iran further complicated regional defense, as these systems were designed to overwhelm traditional radar networks and strike critical civilian and energy infrastructure, such as desalination plants, oil processing facilities, and international shipping lanes.

This aggressive pursuit of advanced delivery systems and nuclear capabilities directly undermined Iran's traditional claim that its military programs were purely defensive and intended for conventional deterrence. Instead, by deploying these technologies to its proxies along regional choke points, the regime built an offensive network that significantly reduced tactical decision-making timelines during crises. The presence of these weapons increased the risk of accidental escalation or a preemptive strike, as regional states faced the reality of an adversary possessing advanced strike capabilities with minimal warning times. Rather than providing a secure defense for Iran, the regime’s focus on strategic weapons programs turned the country into the primary target of intensive international counter-proliferation operations, greatly increasing the likelihood of a direct, devastating conventional war on Iranian territory.

The long-term outcome of the Islamic Republic’s hostile foreign policy was not the creation of a secure sphere of influence, but rather the deep geopolitical isolation of the state and a severe erosion of its national sovereignty. Decades of provocative behavior, support for violent non-state actors, and defiance of nuclear non-proliferation standards resulted in the imposition of a highly complex and restrictive web of multilateral sanctions. These measures, enforced by the United Nations Security Council, the United States, and the European Union, targeted the core pillars of Iran's economy, including its oil exports, petrochemical industries, central banking access, and maritime shipping lines. This economic isolation cut Iran off from the global financial system, prevented foreign direct investment, and restricted the state’s ability to import modern industrial technologies.

This economic isolation had devastating real-world impacts on Iran's internal development, crippling its industrial capacity and forcing the state into highly unfavorable, asymmetrical relationships with opportunistic global powers. Unable to trade freely on the open international market, the regime was forced to sell its natural resources at deep discounts through illicit networks, losing billions of dollars in potential revenue. To survive, the government became increasingly dependent on diplomatic backing and low-value trade agreements with authoritarian regimes, particularly China and Russia. This dependence eroded Iran’s historic foreign policy independence, forcing the nation to accept unfavorable economic terms, surrender long-term concessions over its natural resources, and support foreign policy objectives that did not align with Iran's traditional national interests.

Furthermore, the regime's single-minded hostility acted as the main catalyst for a historic strategic realignment in the Middle East, directly uniting its regional adversaries. 

The shared threat of Iranian regional expansion and missile proliferation drove the signing of the Abraham Accords, leading to the rapid normalization of diplomatic, economic, and military relations between Israel and multiple Arab nations. This realignment dismantled the historic isolation of Israel in the region and replaced it with an integrated regional security architecture. This new system featured shared radar networks, coordinated air defense exercises, and direct intelligence cooperation targeted explicitly at countering Iranian drone and missile threats. Consequently, the Islamic Republic's actions achieved the exact opposite of its stated goal: instead of isolating its adversary, its aggressive policies isolated Iran, surrounding the country with a unified, technologically superior coalition of regional and global powers.

The escalation of direct military encounters and intelligence confrontations between Iran and Israel during the 2024–2026 period exposed deep, systemic weaknesses within the Islamic Republic’s military and security architectures. For decades, the regime relied heavily on the narrative of its asymmetric deterrence and intelligence capabilities to project power. However, the events of this period demonstrated that the state’s security apparatus had been deeply compromised by sophisticated counter-intelligence and espionage operations. High-level penetrations allowed adversarial forces to execute precise operations within Iranian territory and across its regional network, revealing that the regime was unable to protect its most critical personnel, secure communications, and classified installations from deep internal leaks.

The rapid and systematic elimination of key military commanders, senior Quds Force officers, and top leadership figures within proxy networks like Hezbollah and Hamas highlighted a profound failure in the regime's operational security. These operations showed that adversarial intelligence networks possessed real-time, highly granular data on the movements, secure meeting locations, and communication systems used by Iran’s military elite. The regime's inability to detect or prevent these high-profile breaches caused deep paranoia and distrust within its security institutions, disrupting the chain of command and undermining the operational effectiveness of the "Axis of Resistance." It became clear that the state's internal security organizations were heavily focused on monitoring and suppressing domestic political dissidents, leaving the country exposed to advanced foreign intelligence operations.

Furthermore, direct kinetic engagements during this period revealed significant limitations in the regime’s conventional military and (air defense) capabilities when facing modern, high-tech warfare. 

The large-scale deployment of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones failed to achieve its strategic objectives, as the vast majority of these systems were successfully intercepted by integrated, multi-layered air defense networks operated by an international coalition. In contrast, retaliatory strikes on strategic targets inside Iran demonstrated that the regime's radar systems and air defense infrastructure were largely obsolete against modern electronic warfare, stealth technology, and precision strike capabilities. These engagements stripped away the regime’s narrative of strategic parity, proving that its massive investments in unguided or semi-guided missile technology could not overcome an adversary possessing a major technological advantage in network-centric, intelligent warfare.

The Islamic Republic has consistently used the Palestinian cause as a tool to legitimize its domestic autocracy, export its revolutionary ideology, and justify its aggressive regional expansion. By claiming to be the sole true defender of Palestinian liberation, the ruling clergy sought to construct a narrative of pan-Islamic leadership that could divert attention away from its complete lack of democratic legitimacy at home. This ideological stance allowed the state to frame all domestic political opposition, demands for civil liberties, and protests against economic mismanagement as part of a hidden Western and Zionist conspiracy to undermine the state. The Palestinian struggle was effectively converted into a state religion, used to justify the militarization of civil society and the suppression of domestic dissent.

This instrumentalization resulted in severe and tragic human costs for both the Palestinian people and the citizens of Iran. For the Palestinians, the Islamic Republic's intervention acted as a major obstacle to national unity and a peaceful resolution to their struggle. By funneling financial resources and heavy weaponry exclusively to radical, Islamist factions like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Tehran deliberately weakened the moderate, internationally recognized Palestinian leadership. This support encouraged these factions to prioritize armed confrontation over political negotiation, drawing Gaza and the West Bank into devastating, asymmetrical conflicts that brought immense suffering, loss of civilian life, and widespread destruction to Palestinian communities, while yielding no political progress toward actual statehood.

For the people of Iran, the human costs of this policy have been felt through decades of forced economic deprivation, social restrictions, and international stigmatization. 

Multiple generations of Iranians were denied the opportunity to live in a prosperous, open society connected to the global economy because the state insisted on prioritizing a foreign conflict over its own citizens' future. The national identity of Iran was tied internationally to militancy and extremism, severely restricting the global mobility, academic opportunities, and commercial potential of its citizens. The regime's insistence on funding foreign armed groups while its own population suffered from poverty, inadequate healthcare, and crumbling schools represents a profound betrayal of the social contract, forcing the Iranian people to bear the immense costs of an ideological crusade they never supported.

To rescue Iran from its current destructive trajectory, repair its collapsed national economy, and restore its standing as a stable regional power, the country’s foreign policy architecture must undergo a fundamental transition. True stabilization cannot be achieved through minor adjustments or temporary diplomatic compromises; it requires a structural shift away from revolutionary expansionism toward a state policy based entirely on national interest, geographical reality, and international law.

The first and most critical requirement for structural reform is the complete removal of ideological and religious dogmas from the state’s diplomatic and strategic decision-making processes. The constitutional mandates that require the export of the revolution and frame foreign policy around theological enmities must be permanently repealed. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be restored as the sole authority over the country's external relations, replacing the parallel diplomatic systems operated by the IRGC. Iran's strategic objectives must be redefined around measurable national metrics: maximizing economic growth, securing foreign direct investment, protecting territorial integrity, and building stable bilateral relations with all global powers based on mutual respect and non-interference.

Iran must completely end its asymmetric proxy model by halting all unsanctioned financial transfers, intelligence cooperation, and weapons deliveries to non-state armed actors across the Middle East. The state must formally commit to the principles of Westphalian sovereignty, recognizing that the maintenance of independent, armed militias inside the borders of other nations is a direct violation of international law. All military and financial assistance to groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and various Iraqi militias must be permanently terminated. Iran should encourage these entities to either fully integrate into the conventional, legal political structures of their respective nations or disarm, thereby removing the primary driver of sectarian conflict and regional instability.

To reverse its severe economic isolation, Iran must take immediate, verifiable steps to restore international confidence in its strategic programs. This requires granting unrestricted, continuous access to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor all nuclear facilities, permanently halting high-level uranium enrichment, and dismantling the infrastructure required for weapons-grade processing. Furthermore, the state must accept strict, verifiable limits on its ballistic missile and drone development, ensuring these programs conform to defensive parameters. In tandem with these security measures, Iran must fully adopt and implement all international financial transparency standards, including the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines, to allow its banking sector to reconnect with the global financial system and secure the permanent removal of international sanctions.

Rather than serving as the main obstacle to regional stabilization, a reformed Iranian foreign policy must actively support international peace frameworks in the Middle East. Iran should formally withdraw its opposition to normalization agreements between regional states and explicitly endorse the Arab Peace Initiative or similar multi-lateral frameworks that seek a negotiated, stable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By establishing normal diplomatic relations with all regional states, including Israel, Iran can transition from an isolated threat into an active participant in regional economic integration. This pivot would allow Iran to participate in major transnational infrastructure, energy, and trade corridors, utilizing its strategic geography to foster collective prosperity rather than exporting regional insecurity.

An objective and evidence-based analysis of the Islamic Republic's foreign policy demonstrates that the ruling regime operates as a highly ideological, repressive state that systematically violates human rights at home while acting as a primary sponsor of radical non-state actors abroad.

Driven by a volatile combination of religious fundamentalism and radical populist rhetoric, the regime has intentionally maintained its hostile stance against Israel as a core element of its political identity to justify domestic oppression and mask its extensive governance failures. However, the military, intelligence, and economic crises of recent years have proven that this ideological approach has reached its structural limits, leaving the country economically isolated, strategically exposed, and deeply divided internally.

Sustaining this hostile posture offers no viable path forward for the Iranian nation, serving only to hasten the destruction of its national resources and risk a catastrophic war.

Salvaging Iran’s economic future, protecting its national security, and bringing lasting stability to the Middle East requires a fundamental transition away from this repressive, ideological model.

True stability can only be achieved through a governance structure that respects universal human rights, prioritizes genuine national interests, and pursues constructive engagement with the international community.