Some commentators have asked why the Iranian regime is striking airports, energy infrastructure, and shopping complexes in Gulf countries and then claimed these locations are foreign military bases!
The real answer, of course, is that the Iranian regime knows full well what these sites contain. Its intention is sending a clear message: the regime survives or the region burns. The Gulf states have refrained from entering the war and declared their opposition to it early on, but this means nothing to the authorities in Tehran, who had made their decision beforehand. Indeed, even before the war began, they had decided to turn the Gulf states into hostages as means for applying pressure to ensure the regime's survival.
All attempts by supporters of the Iranian regime to rationalize its behavior are failing. Their actions defy rationalization, rendering these efforts an impossible task. No state can justify striking airports or destroying the oil and gas facilities of neighboring countries that have not attacked it. But the Iranian regime is ultimately less a conventional state than a transnational ideological project, and this war has made that abundantly clear, as have the armed ideological groups it has fostered in across several Arab countries.
The more important question is this: what are the regime's objectives? Why does it insist on obtaining nuclear weapons, antagonizing its neighbors, and projecting influence in far-flung arenas?
The answer is that Tehran seeks to reshape the regional order in its image. It is determined to overturn what it describes as the American or Western order and impose its own. To this end, it is targeting "American interests" and attacking what it calls "America's allies" in the Gulf. The goal is to create chaos and push Washington to withdraw, and it has pursued this strategy before, succeeding in some cases, failing in others.
In Iraq after 2003, it contributed, through its allies, to bogging down American forces and accelerating their withdrawal in 2011. In Beirut in 1983, the bombing of the US Marine barracks, which killed 241 American soldiers and coincided with the rise of Iran-linked groups, led the Reagan administration to pull out of the country. Iran was also behind the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which was carried out by its affiliates. It even hosted al-Qaeda members on its soil, despite their ideological differences, when their objectives converged. It used them as the terror group as part of its broader struggle and its effort to shift the balance in Saudi Arabia - an effort that failed.
The cultivation of IRGC-modeled militias across multiple arenas and undermining of Arab states seek to achieve the same objective: creating a quagmire in the region. Given that the US no longer tolerates prolonged entanglements, Iran’s bet is that the former will eventually grow weary, pack up its back, and leave, clearing the field for Tehran.
All forms of unlawful activity are undertaken as part of this strategy: support for armed groups, drug trafficking, undermining states, and spreading chaos. This is the model Tehran favors and seeks to consolidate, fostering allies in pursuit of this ultimate objective. The Palestinian cause, needless to say, is invoked as a convenient narrative.
This is all unfolding within a broader international struggle. Iran is aligned with China and Russia, and they seek to counterbalance American and Western influence and a more prominent role in managing Gulf and Middle Eastern affairs. It is also worth noting that, although this vision is contrary to the interests of most Gulf states, which see themselves as strong allies of Washington, other regional actors who do not necessarily view this as contrary to their interests and facilitate Iran’s project by cooperating with it in a game of shared influence.
Despite its consistent efforts, Iran has not succeeded in dismantling the Gulf system, which is built on everything the Iranian regime opposes: strong states, capitalist economies, and close financial and military ties with the United States and the West. Undermining this model serves the Iranian regime's interests, which is why, from the very first hours of the war, it did not hesitate to attack these countries with thousands of missiles and drones. The goal was to break the two pillars of the GCC model: stability and development.
There is no point in asking Iranian officials why they target airports, disrupt air traffic, and kill civilians. They state their intentions clearly: eroding this regional order and precipitating its collapse.
