Iran, Israel, and the Trap of False Choices

The Companions' Wisdom

When the Romans and Persians went to war, the Muslim community was small, persecuted, and geographically caught between two superpowers. The revelation of Surah al-Rum (30:2-4) (predicting Roman recovery) came in a context where both Rome and Persia were enemies of the nascent Muslim community.

The companions were happy when Rome was defeated, and happy again when Persia was defeated. They did not feel compelled to choose a side between two powers neither of which had their interests at heart.

This is the correct framework for contemporary Muslims watching Iran and Israel clash: both are parties whose interests are not the interests of the Muslim ummah. The fact that they are fighting each other does not make either of them our ally.

Israel

Israel's war on Islam and Muslims is documented, ongoing, and does not require extensive elaboration here. The occupation of Palestinian land, the displacement of Palestinian families, the killing of Palestinian civilians, the siege of Gaza, and the systematic erasure of Islamic heritage sites in Jerusalem are matters of record.

What should be noted is that Israel's project is not merely political. It has a specifically religious dimension: the claim to land on the basis of divine promise, the marginalisation of Islamic and Christian presence in Jerusalem, and the ideological construction of Arab Muslims as an obstacle to a Jewish state.

Iran: What Is Not Said

The Iranian regime presents itself to the Muslim world as the defender of the oppressed, the enemy of Israel, and the protector of Palestinian rights. This presentation requires a great deal of selective memory.

The Origins of the Revolution

The 1979 Iranian Revolution is typically presented as a popular Islamic uprising against a corrupt, Western-backed Shah. What is less discussed is the role of Western powers in facilitating Khomeini's return.

Ayatollah Khomeini spent the final months before the revolution based in Neauphle-le-Château outside Paris. French media gave him unusual access that allowed him to coordinate with networks inside Iran. The role of Western governments in his return is debated by historians; some argue Western powers actively preferred an Islamist outcome to a leftist one, others argue they were simply outmanoeuvred. What is not debated is that Khomeini's regime, once in power, served its own interests, neither pan-Islamic nor anti-imperial in any consistent sense.

Iran's Treatment of Sunni Muslims

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a Shia theocracy. Its treatment of its Sunni minority (concentrated in Khuzestan (Arabstan), Baluchestan, Kurdistan, and Sistan) is a matter of documented human rights record:

• Sunni Muslims in Iran cannot build mosques in Tehran
• Sunni scholars have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed
• The Ahvaz Arab population of Khuzestan (historically Sunni Arab) has faced systematic cultural suppression, forced displacement, and environmental destruction of their agricultural land through dam projects that have destroyed the Karun river basin

This is not the behaviour of a regime that considers itself part of the Muslim ummah. It is the behaviour of a sectarian state that uses Islamic rhetoric for external consumption while persecuting its own Sunni population.

Iraq

Iran's role in Iraq after the 2003 American invasion is one of the most consequential and least discussed chapters of recent Islamic history.

The United States invaded Iraq and destroyed the Sunni-majority state structure. Iran moved in to fill the vacuum: backing Shia militias, funding political parties, and embedding itself in Iraqi state institutions. The same Iran that presents itself as the enemy of America cooperated with the American project in Iraq by consolidating Shia political dominance over a country that is approximately 35% Sunni.

The militias backed by Iran (the Popular Mobilisation Forces, including Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah) have carried out documented massacres of Sunni civilians in Tikrit, Fallujah, and Mosul. Human rights organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented these atrocities in detail.

Iran did not resist the American invasion of a Muslim country. It benefited from it.

Syria

The Syrian revolution that began in 2011 was a popular uprising against one of the most brutal dictatorships in the Arab world. The Assad regime's response was mass murder: barrel bombs on civilian areas, chemical weapons attacks, siege warfare that starved entire cities.

None of this would have been possible without Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) deployed thousands of troops to Syria. Iran funded, equipped, and directed the Assad regime's military operations throughout the conflict.

The specific massacres that Iran and its proxies enabled:

• Ghouta (2013): Chemical weapons attack on a suburban Damascus civilian area, killing between 281 and 1,729 people depending on the source. The Assad regime, sustained by Iranian support, carried this out while the world watched.
• Madaya (2015-2016): A Sunni town besieged by Hezbollah and Assad forces. Residents were starved systematically. Images of emaciated civilians (including children) circulated internationally. The siege was enforced by Hezbollah under Iranian direction.
• Aleppo: The systematic destruction of a majority-Sunni city, including its ancient Islamic heritage sites, carried out by Assad forces with direct Iranian and Russian military support.

The Sunni Muslims of Syria were killed, starved, displaced, and chemically attacked, and Iran provided the military force that made it possible.

Lebanon and Hezbollah

Hezbollah was created by Iran in the early 1980s and has operated as an Iranian proxy in Lebanon ever since. Its budget, weapons, and strategic direction come from Tehran.

Lebanon is a country of extraordinary religious and political diversity (Sunni, Shia, Christian, Druze) that has never been able to develop stable institutions because of persistent armed interference by external powers. Hezbollah's role in Lebanon has not been the protection of Lebanese sovereignty. It has been the imposition of Iranian strategic interests on a country that cannot resist them.

The 2005 assassination of Rafic Hariri was, according to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's 2020 verdict, carried out by Salim Ayyash, a member of Hezbollah. The Tribunal stopped short of finding that the Hezbollah or Syrian leadership ordered the killing, but the operational involvement of a Hezbollah member in the assassination of a politician working against Hezbollah's patrons is part of the public record.

The pattern extends to a series of assassinations of Lebanese political figures who pushed back against Syrian and Iranian influence: Gebran Tueni (2005), Pierre Gemayel (2006), Wissam al-Hassan (2012), and others. None of these has been judicially attributed to Hezbollah, but the political and security consensus in Lebanon (and the assessments of Western intelligence agencies) has consistently identified the Syrian regime and Hezbollah as the most likely actors.

The Palestine Question

Iran's claim to be the defender of Palestine deserves specific scrutiny.

Iran has armed and funded specific Palestinian factions (most notably Palestinian Islamic Jihad and parts of Hamas's military wing) for decades. This material support is real. What it has not been is a strategic priority commensurate with Iran's other regional commitments. When Iran finally struck Israeli territory directly in April 2024, it did so in retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, an attack on Iranian sovereignty, not Palestinian rights.

The Palestinians of Gaza have been besieged, bombed, and starved. Iran's response has been to arm Hezbollah for a conflict in southern Lebanon that serves Iranian strategic interests: using Palestinian suffering as a mobilising narrative while the actual military investment goes to Iranian objectives.

The Correct Position

A Muslim watching this situation should:

1. Support Palestinian rights clearly: the occupation is illegal, the violence is documented, and the Islamic case for Palestinian dignity is unambiguous
2. Refuse to accept Iran as the representative of that cause, its record of killing Sunni Muslims in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon disqualifies it from that role
3. Recognise that both Israel and Iran are pursuing state interests that are not the interests of the Sunni Muslim ummah
4. Apply the companions' wisdom: be clear-eyed when your enemies fight each other, and do not mistake enemy-of-my-enemy for friend

The ummah does not need to choose between two parties who harm it. It needs to build its own position: rooted in Islamic principles, informed by accurate history, and free from the manipulation of both.