Are We Paying Attention to Iran’s Strategy?

Far too much attention has been given to President Donald Trump’s strategy in the current conflict, and far too little to that of the Islamic Republic.

It is an underestimation of Iran and an indictment of the West.

The common belief is that Iran’s original goal was nuclear capability, either to prevent the US from attacking it (the North Korea strategy) or to use it against the Great and the Little Satan. Perhaps.

But the mullahs had/have a second strategic goal — which appears to be working quite well: The undermining and elimination of political, military, economic, and social ties between the US and what has always been their alliance base: primarily NATO, the EU, and the UN, but also the Gulf Arab States and parts of South America.

October 7th

The horrors of Oct. 7 were not designed to destroy Israel — neither Iran nor Hamas believed the terror organization could do that, even if Hezbollah had helped. After years of relatively small-scale attacks and limited Israeli responses followed by ceasefires, this monstrosity was designed to ensure massive Israeli retaliation that would produce a significant political cost on the Jewish State.

With quick and organized PR, Palestinian civilian suffering became the central image of the conflict. The images and the lies they told were designed to isolate Israel diplomatically, erode its standing in Western societies, and reignite deeply rooted hostility across the Arab and Muslim worlds.

While Israel, in fact, conducted perhaps the most careful military campaign in history, both real and (mostly) false images and stories were used to cast Israel as a villain, which committed “genocide.” Even though casualty statistics by independent groups show that never happened, and ample proof that Israel never had a goal to kill civilians intentionally.

In many spheres, the Iranian and Hamas objective against Israel was achieved. France, the UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, the EU as a body, Denmark, and many more all pulled away from Jerusalem. (Norway, Spain, and Ireland were always hostile, so they don’t count. The UN doesn’t either.) This group extends to Democrats in our own Congress, leftists on campus, and the journalistic chattering class.

The damage calculation is not complete.

Fighting America  

The same principle exists for Iran’s 47-year war against the US. Iranian attacks against America have been carefully structured to do damage, but only enough to claim bragging rights — not enough to produce a backlash. Until now.

1. In 1979, Americans were held hostage for 444 days in the US Embassy in Tehran.
2. The Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut killed 241 US servicemembers and 58 French soldiers.
3. William Francis Buckley (1984), US Navy diver Robert Stethem (1985), and Colonel William R. Higgins (1988) were tortured and murdered. In 2007, Robert Levinson was presumed kidnapped by Iran and killed.
4. In 1996, the Khobar Towers attack occurred.
5. Iran was responsible for the construction, strategy, and use of IEDs during the Iraq war.
6. In 2011, Iranian plots in Washington, D.C, involved killing a Saudi diplomat and attacking the Israeli and Saudi embassies. That year, Iran also began taking steps to mine the Persian Gulf.
7. US Naval Intelligence shows Iranian warships in the Red Sea — where Iran has no border — since 2011 — as part of Iran’s support for the Houthi rebellion in Yemen.
8. In 2012, chairman of the Iranian chiefs of staff, Hassan Firuzabadi, said, “We do have the plan to close the Strait of Hormuz, since a member of the military must plan for all scenarios.”
9. Iranian war games in 2015 were designed against American forces and passed skills along to proxy forces. Beginning in 2016, swarms of Iranian fast boats harassed American ships and others in the Persian Gulf. Iran captured American sailors and released video footage of them — a violation of their rights under the Geneva Convention.
10. In 2018, US intelligence revealed that Iran was responsible for more than 600 American military deaths and thousands wounded by Iranian IEDs in Iraq.
11. In 2024, three military contractors working in Jordan as contractors were killed in a drone attack, and 40 others were injured.

Each damaging, most deadly. None, in isolation, enough to engender an American military response. But all of these — including many unlisted incidents — showed that Tehran had the US in its sights.

The Denouement

At the same time, Israeli and American intelligence were monitoring the enrichment of Iranian uranium beyond Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) limits and ballistic missile ranges beyond UN sanctions. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), as loud an opponent of President Trump and this war as there is, acknowledged that Iran had enough uranium to make nuclear bombs, but added there was no reason to do anything about it because Iran’s missiles couldn’t yet reach the United States.

This is not an uncommon view — if Iran couldn’t reach us with a nuclear weapon, it was not our war.

But as Iran’s capabilities grew, the margins narrowed. And the United States and Israel found themselves in a war they didn’t ask for, didn’t want, but have to win.

Unfortunately, the allied response in Europe and across the world produced the diplomatic response Iran wanted.

The mullah government doesn’t care how many of their people die — they killed 35,000+ civilians in the streets in January — they care about the ultimate “victory.” The more European countries and institutions, plus the UN, castigate and punish Israel and the US, the happier the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards Corp are. The histrionic anti-American and anti-Israel and antisemitic caterwauling has Iran claiming it is winning.

The Other World

To be fair, there is another world.

Venezuela’s presidential candidate, Maria Corina Machado, received a large welcome in Spain by an estimated 100,000 people after she refused to meet with Spain’s Prime Minister. And Israel’s relations with Latin American countries are on the upswing. Increasingly concerned about China, Japan and South Korea have signaled that they are ready to step in and purchase Israeli defense systems. India is a reliable ally.

Most importantly, the people of the Arab states themselves, and the people of Iran and Africa, have moved in the opposite direction from Europe, the UN, and American leftists. And, while it remains tentative, even the Lebanese government has banned Hezbollah and has announced itself ready to find peace with Israel.

Syria, while a very unfinished product, appears unwilling to antagonize Israel and has, apparently, ceased its attacks on the Druze areas in the south.

No country has left the Abraham Accords, and Kazakhstan joined in November 2025. Israel maintains trade and diplomatic relations with all Central Asian countries.

And finally, the Palestinians appear to have lost favor among the Arab states as Iran’s influence and money — and Qatar’s money — have crashed.

The American strategy has yet to play out. Depending on how the rest of the war goes, Iran could find itself even worse off than before the war started.

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of the Jewish Policy Center.