Will Iran Succeed in Breaking the Zionist-American Project?

Let's imagine, for the sake of analysis and stimulating ideas, that the Iranian revolution had erupted during the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser rather than Anwar Sadat. It is likely that he would have been very pleased, and he would have immediately realized that revolutionary Iran had become a strategic depth for Egypt in facing the Zionist movement. There would have been room for fruitful cooperation between the two countries, in which their leadership could spare the region many senseless conflicts that have plagued it for decades, and the Zionist-American alliance would not have been able to penetrate and tear apart the region as it is happening now. However, fate decreed that this revolution would erupt during Sadat's time, after his visit to occupied Jerusalem, not before it.

When the first signs of this revolution broke out in 1978, Sadat had turned his back on the liberation legacy of the Egyptian national movement with its various streams, not just Nasser's legacy alone. He began to walk the path that led him to visit occupied Jerusalem in 1977, claiming at the time that the United States held 99% of the cards, and that rapprochement with it could help reach a comprehensive political settlement to the conflict with Israel, leading to its withdrawal from the Arab lands it occupied in 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Despite the negative Israeli reaction to his reckless gamble, Sadat persisted in his folly and insisted on continuing the path he had chosen for himself. He accepted President Jimmy Carter's invitation to direct negotiations with Menachem Begin, to be held at Camp David under his auspices. However, these negotiations only resulted in two framework agreements, which his closest aides warned him against accepting, yet he stubbornly went ahead and signed them, causing a deep rift in the Arab system, which was embodied by the relocation of the Arab League headquarters to Tunisia and the establishment of an Arab front opposing Sadat's approach dubbed the "Steadfastness and Confrontation Front."

The new leadership of the Iranian system appears more determined

Just a few months after these significant events, Iranian street pressure peaked, leading to the Shah's escape (January 16, 1979) and Imam Khomeini's return from his French exile (February 1, 1979). The Iranian revolution continued its course until it succeeded in overthrowing the old regime and announcing the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran (February 11, 1979). What is noteworthy here is Sadat’s complete disregard for everything that was happening, perhaps under the illusion that the United States would not allow one of its most important allies in the region to fall so easily and would quickly act to restore the Shah to his throne as it had done previously with Muhammad Mossadegh's revolution in the early fifties. This explains his decision to host the deposed Shah in Cairo, a move reflecting a challenge to the will of the Iranian people and his insistence on continuing the approach that led to the signing of a separate peace treaty with Israel (March 26, 1979), which constituted a major turning point in the history of the region.

With the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran, on the one hand, and Egypt under Sadat abandoning armed struggle against the Zionist project, on the other hand, the Middle East entered a new phase that heralded fierce storms. Before the outbreak of this revolution, the Arab world was divided into two camps, one seeking a peaceful settlement at any cost and the other rejecting a settlement on Israeli terms, demanding the continuation of armed struggle, which led to a significant mixing of the cards. Although Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was one of the most enthusiastic Arab leaders for the establishment of the "Steadfastness and Confrontation Front" and sought to lead it, the success of the Islamic revolution turned his calculations and priorities upside down. This explains his decision to wage war on Iran, mistakenly believing it would be an easy target due to the prevailing chaos and the new regime's inability to establish its footing, confident that he would achieve an easy victory that would help him assert his control over the Gulf region, allowing him to focus on managing the conflict with the Zionist enemy from a position of strength. However, what happened was the opposite; this "strategic blindness" resulted in Saddam becoming mired in Iranian quagmire for more than eight years, dragging the entire region into American embrace, especially after his invasion of Kuwait following the end of the Iran war, pushing the Arab Gulf states toward the "Camp David approach" and abandoning support for the Palestinian cause, clearing the way for the United States to penetrate the region and invade, occupy, and destroy Iraq.

Sadat's insistence on promoting the idea that managing the conflict through political means achieves better results

On the other hand, the new regime in Iran feared the possibility of a repeat of what happened to Mossadegh's revolution, when American intelligence agencies conspired against it, successfully restoring the fleeing Shah to power a second time. Thus, the hardline wing in the student movement occupied the American embassy in Tehran, taking its staff hostage for 444 days, and began the quest for means to enable the new regime to build strong front lines to bolster the revolution against efforts aimed at aborting it. It actively sought to build bridges with forces opposed to American and Zionist policies in the region, closing the Israeli diplomatic mission in Tehran and handing it over to the Palestine Liberation Organization in recognition of it as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. When Israel invaded Lebanon and managed to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization to Tunisia, the Iranian regime immediately began supporting efforts to establish Hezbollah, which focused most of its activities on resisting the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Once the war with Iraq ceased, Iran began to concentrate its efforts on military manufacturing and achieved a major breakthrough in this field. When the United States exploited the September 11, 2001 attacks to invade Afghanistan and occupy it, then quickly turned to invade and occupy Iraq, Iran realized it would be the next target. It intensified its efforts to assist forces seeking to resist the American occupation, eventually enabling it to build strong bastions of influence in a country that had recently been engaged in a prolonged war of attrition against it, continuing its efforts until it succeeded in forming (and leading) the "Axis of Resistance" that is currently engaged in the armed struggle against the Zionist-American project, ignited by the first spark of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" on October 7, 2023. Its flames quickly spread to include, in addition to Gaza, both the West Bank and Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and reached Iran itself, the head of the "Axis of Resistance." Given that it was not possible for Israel to wage war alone against a state as large as Iran, Netanyahu repeatedly sought to drag the United States into participating in a war he had dreamed of launching against Iran for years. He finally succeeded, not once but twice: first, in a limited confrontation lasting 12 days, where the American role was limited to performing tasks that the Israeli war machine could not accomplish, namely destroying nuclear facilities; second, in an open war that is still ongoing as these lines are being written. Because it is a comprehensive war aimed at overthrowing the Iranian regime and paving the way for total domination over the region, the United States has taken the lead, while the Israeli role has receded, affirming that the Zionist-American project for domination over the region is one undivided entity, and that this hegemony cannot be completed without removing the only obstacle that now stands in its way, namely Iran.

The management of the armed conflict shifted after 1973 to non-state forces

No one can predict how long the war currently waged against Iran will last, or what its results and repercussions will be. However, all evidence points to it being decisive in determining the fate and future of the conflict with the Zionist project and the fate and future of the entire region. The regular Arab armies had engaged in the first rounds of armed conflict with the entity in the years: 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, and Israel was able to fight them all alone and achieve remarkable results at the same time. When Sadat decided to abandon the armed struggle by declaring 1973 as the last war, he promoted the notion that managing the conflict through political means alone leads to better results, a notion that has proven to be entirely false. Israel's appetite for expansion and the annexation of more land opened up, evidenced by its repeated invasions of southern Lebanon and its refusal to withdraw to the 1967 borders in negotiations with Syria before Hafez al-Assad's departure. Since none of the Arab armies dared to go to war against Israel since 1973, despite all the crimes it committed, the management of armed conflict shifted to non-state forces, which began to thrive following the victory of the Iranian revolution, achieving significant accomplishments that paved the way for the establishment of the "Axis of Resistance," which Iran became the only competent party to lead. When Hamas succeeded in igniting the "Al-Aqsa Flood," a new round of armed conflict emerged that differed from all its previous rounds. For the first time in the history of this conflict, the United States participated with Israel in a comprehensive war ignited by a Palestinian faction resisting the Israeli occupation of its land, targeting the destruction of a non-Arab state that has become the only state engaged in armed conflict with Israel, while Arab armies remain in the shadows, doing nothing.

The course of this war indicates that Israel and the United States have been unable (as of this writing) to achieve any of the goals they sought, despite the massive initial strike that toppled the head of the Iranian regime and many first-tier military and political leaders, and that the new leadership seems more determined and capable of managing a long-term war of attrition. Therefore, it may succeed in breaking the prestige of the Zionist-American project in the region, which helps to halt its expansion, possibly accelerating its collapse in the near term.