Iran’s Priorities in a Turbulent Middle East – LobeLog

21.4.18

by International Crisis Group // Iran’s Priorities in a Turbulent Middle East – LobeLog: Iranian leaders’ first priority, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum, is to ensure the Islamic Republic’s perpetuation. This imperative includes deterring adversaries that have stronger militaries and/or Western support. Iran’s sense of insecurity is rooted in the tumultuous post-1979 era, particularly the sense of strategic solitude it experienced during the traumatic eight-year war with Iraq, when the West and almost all Arab states supported the Saddam Hussein regime to contain Iran’s emerging revolutionary order, which seemed bent on exporting its revolution throughout the Muslim world. It was then that Iran forged a close bond with the Syrian regime of Hafez al-Assad and helped establish Hizbollah in Lebanon, a group it has supplied militarily via Syria ever since.