A shorter version of this piece appeared in the Oct. 15 Weekly Briefing.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Islamist political system in Tehran is on the brink of experiencing perilous blowback for the foreign policy choices it has made. Debates aired inside Iran and on the large diaspora media outlets are increasingly replete with the same gripe: how did Iran end up in a situation where it faces calamitous war with Israel — over 1,500 kilometers away — while having no real strategic partners to count on and being unable to secure basic territorial rights on its own doorstep? This is not fresh outrage but the same anger voiced with greater fervor by an Iranian public that fears the consequences of war and is exhausted by the choices the men who rule them have made. Public pushback against leaders in Tehran who say they want to avoid war but otherwise stay the course will not go away.
Israel, the EU, and the island dispute with the UAE
This inherent conflict in Iranian foreign policy regularly makes itself apparent. Last week, an extremist cleric in Iran suggested that a major and decisive war against Israel is imperative even if it results in the “death of half of [Iran’s] population.” The statement quickly sparked intense outrage in Iran. “They [anti-Israel radicals] speak of war, but it is not sure if they will be in the battlefield in this war,” one of the oldest newspapers in Tehran responded. And this is a rebuke coming from within the ranks of the regime. One can only imagine the level of anger among the public at large.
Iran’s war-wary population attributes ultimate responsibility for the looming conflict to the policymakers in Tehran. A recent poll from inside Iran shows that a majority of Iranians (78%) see a direct link between Tehran’s foreign policy actions and the dire state of the society, which now also has to agonize over the possibility of war. A significant 68% of Iranians want to normalize ties with the United States, a policy course that is far from the agenda of the Islamist leadership.
For now, regardless of senseless calls by a tiny minority of extremists, senior officials in Tehran are working hard to avoid a war with Israel. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has spent the last two weeks touring regional capitals trying to shore up support against an Israeli retaliatory attack on Iran. “We don’t want war, but we are ready for it,” has been Araghchi’s core message. Yet such efforts, even if successful, are at best short-term band-aid solutions. Tehran still must decide whether it wants to tackle the deeper underlying factors that have brought it to this point.
The most pressing factors include Iran’s ideological fixation on defeating Israel and on confronting the US presence in the Middle East, two policy quests that have forced Tehran to downgrade the national interest for the sake of what is basically an ideological agenda.
The question of what ought to be Tehran’s foreign policy priorities most recently took center stage following the October summit between leaders from the European Union and the Gulf states. In the final joint statement, the EU, for the first time, called on Iran to “end its occupation of the three islands.” This was a reference to three islands in the Persian Gulf that the United Arab Emirates claims as its territory. The EU’s support for the UAE’s claim has been described by most Iranian commentators as a threat to Iranian territorial integrity. Tehran considers the islands an “inseparable part of Iranian territory.”
This is not an accidental confluence. To the Iranians, this latest EU statement is the result of a long-running Emirati campaign to create diplomatic support for its position against Iran. In recent years, the Americans, the Japanese, the South Koreans, and now the Europeans have all expressed diplomatic support for the UAE’s claim to the islands. What is most controversial and painful for Tehran is that its two so-called strategic partners, Russia and China, have also expressed support for the UAE’s claims. And why not, given Iran’s inability to do much about it? Both Moscow and Beijing are involved in major economic initiatives with the Emiratis, whereas an irked Tehran has nowhere else to turn.
Can leaders in Tehran focus on the homeland?
The EU’s stance was hardly unexpected. As one outlet summarized it, European support for the UAE’s claim to the islands is revenge against Iran for its assistance to the Russians in the Ukraine war — a position Tehran adopted out of sheer resentment against the West and from which Iran has gained little. There are those who believe that the Emiratis will, at best, continue to push for international support against Tehran’s ownership claim. At worst, in the event there is war between Iran and Israel, there are those who suggest the UAE might seek to take the islands by force while Iran is weak and distracted by its conflict with Israel.
That said, there is no sign that the Emirates have any plans to take the islands militarily. Fear of such a highly unlikely occurrence reflects deep apprehension inside Iran that the country’s leaders have lost their sense of priorities, left Iran bereft of almost any friends, are pursuing actions that are costing the nation dearly, and are undermining the long-term national interest, including by failing to defend the state’s territorial integrity.
Iran’s leadership is still not ready to admit what many view as the inevitable need for a foreign policy course correction. Regime talking points notably suggest that the conflict with Israel is not an ideological decision but an unavoidable struggle over the national interest. As former Minister of Interior Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi put it, “Israel’s existence is against [Iran’s] national interest and independence,” i.e., the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict is not driven by Iran’s ostensible support for the Palestinian cause. Such incendiary remarks will likely not bring the regime closer to an already-tormented Iranian public that regards the high-stakes conflict with Israel as one forced on the nation by the Islamist ruling class.
Whether Tehran continues to prioritize the fight against Israel or decides to look for ways to deprioritize the conflict as a national security matter will not be settled in the foreseeable future — or perhaps the matter will be taken out of Iran’s hands. For now, Tehran will focus on its existing two-pronged strategy: to avoid direct war with Israel while pushing for Israel’s delegitimization on the international stage on the one hand and preserving as much of Hezbollah and Hamas’ fighting capacities as possible on the other. This agenda was very much evident during Foreign Minister Araghchi’s recent regional tour.
The word in Tehran is that Araghchi managed to convince Iran’s Arab proxy allies, such as Hezbollah, that Iran is not about to retreat in the region. But there is no evidence that he secured any meaningful support from Arab countries for Iran’s ongoing conflict with Israel. On that front, the most Arab states were willing to do is vow that they will not actively support Israeli or American strikes against Iran. In other words, Iran is on its own. One has to wonder if the growing burden of fighting this lone struggle will encourage Tehran to look for a change of course on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If Iran’s leadership were to do so, it could refocus on meeting the basic needs of the Iranian population and securing the homeland.
Alex Vatanka is the director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute and a senior fellow with MEI’s Black Sea Program. His most recent book is The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran: The United States, Foreign Policy, and Political Rivalry Since 1979. @AlexVatanka
Photo by Sayed Hassan/Getty Images
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