ANALYSIS || Using the example of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, Brett H. McGurk tells how we should take seriously leaders who declare long-term ideological goals and demonstrate a willingness to use violence to achieve them
Shortly after I first landed in Baghdad in January 2004, American intelligence intercepted a letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The letter discussed the use of ruthless violence to establish an Islamic caliphate – first within Iraq and eventually throughout the Middle East.
“The greatest battle of Islam in this age is being fought now,” Zawahiri wrote.
The United States released the letter, but few took seriously the idea that al-Qaeda could conquer and rule territory in the heart of the Arab world.
Ten years later, he was back in Baghdad when Zarqawi’s successor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, conquered Iraq’s second largest city and declared a caliphate covering a territory the size of Portugal, with millions of people living under his rule. We spent the next decade dismantling it.
The lesson stuck with me: When leaders openly declare long-term ideological goals and repeatedly demonstrate a willingness to use violence to achieve them, we must take them seriously.
This lesson applies to Iran.
Different presidents, same challenge
For nearly five decades, American presidents of both parties have approached Iran with different combinations of diplomacy, sanctions, deterrence and military force. Yet the conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic persists because the main factor driving Iran’s behavior has remained remarkably constant: the Islamic Republic’s own revolutionary ideology.
The debate in Washington often centers on tactics. Democrats tend to prioritize diplomacy and cite President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran as the best mechanism available to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions and avoid war. Republicans generally advocate campaigns of “maximum pressure” and military deterrence, arguing that Iran exploits diplomatic agreements while continuing regional aggression.
Both arguments contain elements of truth. None of them fully explains the continuing problem.
The central point is not changing political trends in Washington, but rather the enduring nature of the Iranian regime and the goals rooted in the Islamic Republic since 1979.
Nothing President Donald Trump would be discussing with Iran — a transactional agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and perhaps impose new nuclear limits — would change the course that has continued for 47 years.
The ideology of the Islamic Republic
The Constitution of Iran assigns the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) not only a defensive military role, but what it calls an “ideological mission of jihad in the path of God”. Over the decades, Iran’s revolutionary leadership has interpreted this mission as expanding Iran’s influence across the Middle East, expelling the US from the region and supporting armed movements bent on the destruction of Israel.
These goals have transcended American and Iranian presidents, economic crises, sanctions campaigns and diplomatic overtures.
They explain the pattern of attacks, kidnappings, terrorism and proxy wars that have defined Iran’s relationship with the US since the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. They also explain Iran’s continued investment in militant organizations across the region, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Iraqi militias and the Houthis.
The IRGC was specifically designed to protect the revolution domestically and promote it abroad. Its expeditionary arm, the Quds Force, has spent decades building networks of armed partners capable of projecting Iranian influence far beyond Iran’s borders.
At various times, American policymakers have hoped that Iran’s revolutionary fervor might moderate in exchange for economic opportunities and reintegration into the international system. This hope was part of the strategic logic behind the Obama administration’s nuclear deal.
The JCPOA imposed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program for a period of time, and in that sense it was an achievement. But it did not alter Iran’s regional conduct or its revolutionary objectives. In some respects, Tehran – full of new economic resources – seemed increasingly confident thereafter.
Shortly after the deal was concluded, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejected suggestions that Iran’s stance toward Israel or the US would soften. He publicly predicted that Israel would not exist in 25 years and promised continued resistance throughout the region.
Like Zawahiri, this statement was not mere rhetoric. It was in line with the trajectory Iran had followed for decades.
October 7th as climax
October 7, 2023 represented the clearest manifestation of this trajectory so far.
Hamas – armed, financed and supported by Iran for many years – launched the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, killing more than 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. Most governments around the world condemned the atrocities. The Iranian leadership instead celebrated what it described as resistance against Israel.
Within days, Iranian-backed groups across the region joined the conflict. Hezbollah began firing rockets from Lebanon toward northern Israel. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have launched repeated attacks against US forces. The Houthis in Yemen have begun attacking American merchant ships and naval assets in the Red Sea.
All of this reflected decades of Iranian investment in a network designed precisely for this purpose: to pressure Israel and the US across multiple fronts, maintaining varying degrees of denial.
Iran ended up launching two unprecedented direct attacks with missiles and drones against Israel from Iranian territory itself – even before Israel had directly attacked Iran.
Trump’s approach meets its limits
Trump is the first president to directly attack senior Iranian military leadership and, subsequently, to authorize military operations on Iranian territory.
Some of these actions produced tangible tactical results. The assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 disrupted Iran’s regional operations. Subsequent attacks on Iranian military infrastructure and nuclear facilities significantly degraded parts of the country’s missile, drone, and nuclear programs.
But tactical military success alone does not produce strategic results.
Indeed, the events of recent months have highlighted the limitations of isolated military power when confronting a deeply rooted revolutionary system. Although weakened, the Iranian system appears to have consolidated, with the rise of radical ideologues such as Ahmad Vahedi, the new leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – who commanded the Quds Force for much of the 1980s and 1990s.
American tactics—military, diplomatic, and economic—may be effective in degrading Iranian capabilities, but they have proven completely ineffective in changing the ideological course of the Iranian regime itself.
No end in sight
Even with rumors of an imminent agreement, Iran’s new Supreme Leader reinforced his late father’s goals of expelling the United States from the Middle East and eliminating the State of Israel. “From now on,” he wrote this week, “Death to America and Death to Israel will be the common slogans of the Islamic Ummah.”
To top it off, he reaffirmed his late father’s promise to see Israel eliminated by the year 2040 – a promise that Israel has no alternative but to take seriously.
Israel, in turn, may have a new government after elections later this year, but its more proactive security doctrine after October 7th is unlikely to change. The country will act on threats as they arise, whether near its borders or within Iran itself, including against Iran’s missile program.
The United States will also act to defend itself and its interests. This week, as Washington and Tehran negotiated the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was caught laying new mines in the strait, leading to an exchange of military strikes.
This reality — Iran’s defining ideology, Israel’s propensity to act against perceived threats, and the protection of American interests and personnel — will create ongoing challenges for Trump and his successor. Until there is political change in Iran, we should expect a recurring cycle of clashes, temporary de-escalation and new clashes.
