Iran: Power in the Name of Resistance

What has been Iran’s biggest policy failure? Some geopolitical strategists might argue that it has been pursuing nuclear technology without building a bomb. The pursuit itself invites suspicion that a weapon is the ultimate goal. Stopping short of building one does little to dispel that suspicion, yet leaves Iran exposed to the risks without the protection a nuclear deterrent might offer.

Iran cannot declare nuclear weapons haram while pursuing uranium enrichment to levels associated with making a nuclear bomb. Such a position is neither strategically coherent nor morally consistent. Has accepting those risks without securing that deterrent been Iran’s most puzzling policy choice?

Iran’s hesitation in pursuing a goal while being unable, or unwilling, to cross the threshold has arguably been its greatest policy failure. However, Iran’s real failure has been its belligerent posture, which has instilled such fear among its neighbors that they are left asking: which poses the greater threat, Iran or Israel?

There could be no greater irony than that this question should arise at all. The belligerence ingrained in Israel’s security doctrine threatens even the very prospect of peace across the region. Yet, Israel has skillfully convinced many Sunni Arab states that Iran poses the greater threat to their existence. Israel has exaggerated that threat, but much of the responsibility lies with Iran’s myopic weaponization of the sectarian divide as a tool of foreign policy.

Iran’s failure has been turned into an instrument of regional power. Iran casts its belligerent posture as resistance, claiming the moral high ground through its opposition to American hegemony and Israeli occupation. To an extent, it has succeeded in selling this claim to the Muslim street, drawing on resentment of American dominance and Israel’s occupation and expansionist ambitions associated with the vision of a “Greater Israel”. The devastation of Gaza has further reinforced that claim.

Iran extends this moral framing to Yemen, portraying the Houthis as part of the “axis of resistance” and their opponents as aligned with evil, thereby advancing its foreign policy objectives.

The real question is whether this claim to moral authority gives Iran carte blanche to impose its policies on the region.

To answer this question, we must first ascertain whether Iran’s belligerence stems from a principled moral conviction or the pursuit of foreign policy interests. Every nation seeks to protect its interests, but that pursuit does not, in itself, confer moral superiority. Iran’s historical record challenges its claim to the moral high ground, it has consistently pursued its geopolitical interests, showing little hesitation about making common cause even with those it denounces as the devil. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the Assad regime in Syria were cut from the same cloth, both were authoritarian regimes rooted in Ba’athist ideology. How, then, could Saddam be cast as evil and the Assads as virtuous? Was the distinction merely that one stood against Iran while the other aligned with it across the sectarian divide? The atrocities perpetrated by the Assad regime in Syria can never be whitewashed. Iran stood by the regime and connived in its mass killings in the name of protecting Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its support helped sustain the machinery of repression.

After Saddam Hussein’s fall, Iraq witnessed some of its worst sectarian violence at the hands of Iran-backed militias. Iran also cooperated with the United States after 9/11 against the Taliban and participated in the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan. That cooperation faltered after President George W. Bush placed Iran alongside Iraq and North Korea in the “axis of evil”. Although Iran opposed Saddam Hussein, it did not participate in the US-led invasion that toppled him. His removal nevertheless opened the way for Iran’s expansion into Iraq, strengthening the regional network it would build through Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Iran has shown itself willing to set aside ideological hostility when its strategic interests require it, even in dealings with America and Israel. The Iran–Contra affair of 1985–86 is a case in point. During its war with Iraq, Iran obtained American weapons through secret arrangements involving Israel and officials in the Reagan administration. Israel initially supplied weapons from its own stocks, which the United States replenished; later shipments drew directly on American stocks. Washington hoped the dealings would help secure the release of American hostages held in Lebanon.

The “Contra” connection arose because some proceeds from the arms sales were secretly diverted by American operatives to support the Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, despite congressional restrictions. Iran bought the weapons; it was not buying arms for the Contras. The episode supports the argument that Iran’s professed ideological opposition has not prevented pragmatic dealings with its declared enemies.

Does Iran support Hamas out of ideological conviction or as an instrument of foreign policy?

If that support rests on the moral duty of resistance, why did Iran stop short of entering the war after 7 October, and why did Hezbollah’s intervention remain limited rather than become the full commitment that such solidarity appeared to demand? Hamas was left to bear the overwhelming weight of Israel’s military assault while Iran sought to preserve itself and its principal regional ally in Lebanon.

There was a strategic rationale for restraint, a wider war carried immense risks. Yet that calculation exposes the limits of Iran’s claim to moral leadership. Its solidarity was bounded by its own interests. It cannot present resistance as an overriding moral obligation while treating the survival of those it supports as subordinate to its strategic priorities.

Whether a coordinated intervention by Iran and Hezbollah would have produced a different outcome remains uncertain, it could also have brought greater destruction. Restraint failed to secure the protection it was intended to provide. Hezbollah subsequently suffered devastating blows, while Iran itself faced direct attacks. Preserving its forces for a future confrontation offered little advantage if its adversary used the intervening time to penetrate, weaken and strike them.

The damage inflicted on Hezbollah raises serious questions about its intelligence, preparedness and ability to anticipate how Israel would wage war. The killing of senior Iranian commanders at the outset of direct hostilities similarly exposed grave vulnerabilities. Even Ismail Haniyeh, whom Iran hosted in Tehran, could not be protected. These failures undermine Iran’s credibility as the protector of a regional “axis of resistance”. Its central failure was to promise a common struggle while pursuing a strategy of selective commitment that ultimately left both its allies and itself exposed. The current Houthi advances risk igniting a wider conflagration, drawing more countries into war and deepening sectarian divisions across the Muslim world. The challenge is to safeguard Saudi Arabia’s security while preventing a broader conflict, and ensuring that Israel is not allowed to further fan the flames.

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Firdous Syed is a Kashmiri political analyst. Formerly involved in the region’s 1990s resistance

movement, he later turned his efforts toward civil society, peacebuilding, and development. Over

the years, he has written extensively on Kashmir, South Asian politics, and international affairs

for various publications.