Why Iran is willing to pay any price for resisting Israel

In the eyes of many, the Islamic Republic remains the last bastion in the Muslim world against unchecked Israeli aggression

Apart from flexing its military muscle as a power to reckon with in the Middle East, Iran is showcasing a robust foreign policy by becoming a full-fledged BRICS+ member. Tehran is likely to further assert itself by enhancing its military relationship with Russia and trade ties with China to end its global isolation. Slowly but surely Iran’s affiliation with the BRICS+ bloc will cause more anxiety to the United States of America and its Western allies.

At the same time, the latest Israeli attack on several Iranian military facilities on 26 October has the potential to escalate the ongoing conflict in West Asia (aka the Middle East, for the Western world). According to Iranian officials, four servicemen of the Iranian Armed Forces and a civilian were killed in the recent Israeli aggression. After Iranian drone and missile strikes on Israel in mid-April and early October, an Israeli reaction was on the cards.

Given the recent history of Iranian resistance, it is a given that Tehran will neither be cowed down nor act in anger but there will be a suitable response at some point. American security officials believe that Iran launched missile attacks on Israel on October 1 with “intent to cause destruction” but, due to Israel’s “significant air defense capabilities,” there was “minimal damage on the ground.” By moderate estimates, about 180 ballistic missiles were fired, all of these launched from Iranian soil. The West claims that most missiles were intercepted by Israel’s robust air defense system and the US-led allied forces.

For its part, Tehran maintains its earlier stance that, unlike Israel, Iran does not believe in causing harm to the civilian population. Iran also claims a higher moral ground by saying that it hit military targets and avoided civilian casualties, but that it can hit Israeli defense targets at will.

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At the back of the latest escalation, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated the obvious at a cabinet session on October 27: “We do not seek war, but we will defend the rights of our nation and country. We will give an appropriate response to the aggression of the Zionist regime.”

Here, the emphasis is on “not seeking war” but on delivering “an appropriate response” to a regime that stands accused of killing more than 42,000 people in Gaza since October 2023, the majority of identified victims being women and children. The Israeli ground and air campaign in different parts of Lebanon has also resulted in the killing of about 2,000. West Jerusalem maintains a rhetorical line that it has a “right to defend itself.”

At any rate, actions that cause widespread mayhem and inflict unimaginable pain on civilians should not go unpunished. If they did, Israeli aggression would become normalized and rationalized in the entire region. That is why Iran’s resistance to it stands out and is necessary.

Pravin Sawhney, an acclaimed author on defense and security matters, told RT that the “status of Tehran in the region has shot up.” “Israelis cannot defeat Iran. The whole idea of ‘escalation dominance’ by the Israeli military has been knocked out by Iran,” Sawhney, a former officer in India’s military, said, adding that “this war will not end.”

For challenging Israel on multiple fronts, its daring foreign policy and its refusal to dance to America’s tune, Tehran continues to pay a massive cost in the shape of economic and other sanctions imposed by the US. Over three years ago, then-Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif estimated that sanctions enforced by the US had “inflicted $1 trillion worth of damage on Iran’s economy”. Currently, Zarif is serving as Vice President for Strategic Affairs.

Sawhney feels that “Iran has reshaped the entire security architecture in the region.” According to the security expert, with Iran becoming a full member of the BRICS+ bloc, the idea is to have a military partnership with Russia and to cement its economic bond with China.

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In 2021, China and Iran signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement aimed at extending trade, economic and transport collaboration. The agreement is said to have passed the implementation stage. Experts say that this trade cooperation will be a game changer in reshaping Tehran’s economy.

Western powers accuse Tehran of lending financial, political, military, diplomatic and moral support to armed groups such as Hamas (Palestine), Hezbollah (Lebanon) and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The US and member states of the European Union also level criticism at China and Russia for supporting Iran.

Why is Tehran willing to pay a cost in the shape of sanctions and international isolation, for what reason, and for how long can it sustain its stance? The answer lies in what Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said in a rare sermon on October 4. Khamenei took everyone by surprise by making a rare public appearance to lead the mandatory Friday congregation in Tehran, his first sermon of this nature in nearly five years. With an assault rifle by his side, his appearance was a statement of defiance and irrefutable evidence of his mass popularity and spiritual stature in Iran and beyond.

Addressing a passionate crowd of thousands in a Persian-speaking country, Khamenei delivered parts of his sermon in the Arabic language: “The resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms (referring to the killings of Ismail Haniyeh and others), and will win.” He also had advice for the rest of the Arab world: “Double your efforts and capabilities…and resist the aggressive enemy.”

In the aftermath of the latest Israeli aggression inside Iranian territory, Khamenei said that the Benjamin Netanyahu-led regime had made a wrong move, and warned it of serious repercussions. Besides this note of caution, Iran also called on the United Nations Security Council to hold an emergency session following Israel’s missile strike inside Iran in the early hours of October 26.

Iran is perhaps the only country in West Asia that is not only challenging Israel’s hegemony and expansionist ambition in the region but also making the Sunni Arab world appear timid and lacking in the political will to have either an unambiguous stance on the issue of Palestine or to come forward to help the pulverized Palestinians in a real way.

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The desire of predominantly wealthy Arab nations to appear neutral or pragmatic in the ongoing conflict involving Palestine, Lebanon, Israel and Iran is perceived as a ‘sign of weakness and corruption’ by many Muslim intellectuals of repute. At the same time, a few Arab strategists are of the view that taking sides in the current war entails an unimaginable cost, and that the idea of resistance is perhaps ‘suicidal’ in the contemporary geopolitical setting.

Currently, without a whisker of doubt, Iran has been the world’s most powerful voice against the violent Israeli aggression and its genocidal campaign against Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. Tehran’s morals-based foreign policy is a post-1979 Iranian Revolution phenomenon, though. For most of the last 45 years or so, Iran and Israel have been sworn enemies and known as such. This wasn’t the case before the 1979 Revolution, when the Pahlavi dynasty ruled the country.

The royal dynasty ruled Iran for over five decades between 1925 and 1979. After Mohammad Reza Shah replaced his father Reza Shah Pahlavi on the throne in September 1941, he became a loyal ally of the Western powers. Iran maintained diplomatic relations with Israel during his rule, of course, at the behest of the West.

A dramatic shift took place in the early 1970s during and after the Yom Kippur War or the Ramadan War of 1973, when, surprisingly, the Shah opened airspace to Soviet planes to deliver military supplies to neighboring Egypt. Iran’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel witnessed a paradigm shift after 1979. Till then, Iran was only the second Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel. Turkey was the first. At the time, Iran was a major oil provider for Israel. In return, Israel helped Tehran in matters of security.

At present, Tehran is the face of resistance and defiance in the entire Muslim world.