In previous articles, we have explored the application of asymmetric warfare and the significance of autonomous industrial development — largely fostered under conditions of decades-long sanctions — as central elements of Iranian resilience in the face of imperialist aggression. But there is another equally decisive aspect: the political and social dimension of the conflict. War is not waged solely on the military plane; it also unfolds in the realm of legitimacy, popular perception, and a power’s capacity to present itself as a credible alternative to the masses — or its failure to do so.

It is precisely in this sphere that the United States and Israel appear to have committed one of their most profound errors.

Washington Underestimates the Political Cohesion of the Iranian State

Washington gravely underestimated both the institutional tenacity of the Iranian state and the strength of its organized social base. The regime’s hardcore base of support — estimated at between 20 and 30 percent of the population — interpreted the Israeli-American offensive not as an operation of “liberation,” but as existential aggression aimed at destroying the country’s independence, its state structure, and its Islamic values. For broad sectors of the political, military, and religious elite, the war has become the decisive battle to preserve everything built since 1979.

This had immediate consequences. Far from fracturing, the state apparatus reacted by closing ranks and mobilizing all its material, ideological, and human resources. Supporters of the regime maintained a constant presence in the streets to prevent a power vacuum or the possibility of an internal uprising. This reflected an important lesson that the conservative Iranian leadership learned from previous protests, as well as from the experience of the Arab Spring: numerous regimes fell not merely due to the strength of the opposition, but because their own bases vanished from the public sphere, thereby losing political and symbolic control of the streets.

The U.S.-Israeli strategy appeared to be banking on precisely this outcome: combining devastating military strikes with an internal political implosion. But that logic was quickly derailed. Israel’s attempt to decapitate Iran’s leadership on February 28 failed to produce the expected effect. Far from precipitating a surrender or a negotiated transition, it reinforced the perception that the true objective of the strikes was the total destruction of the regime and the national humiliation of the country.

Moreover, the elimination of Khamenei during Ramadan had an enormous symbolic impact throughout the Shiite world. As a former NATO deputy commander noted, the attack was “about as subtle as murdering the Pope on the steps of St Peter’s during holy week.” What was intended to break the regime’s morale ultimately served to strengthen a significant segment of its religious and nationalist base.

Instead of a popular uprising against the Islamic Republic, pro-state mobilizations began to reappear in Tehran and other cities, featuring nighttime convoys, flag-waving, and public displays of national cohesion.

The Brutality of War Shifts Popular Opinion

The most significant factor behind the U.S. political failure, however, was likely something else entirely: the sheer brutality of the war itself.

The bombing of civilian infrastructure, the systematic destruction of basic services, and incidents such as the attack on a school in Minab — which killed 180 students — sent shockwaves across the nation. Trump’s threats that a “whole civilization will die,” coupled with the possibility of utilizing armed separatist groups to destabilize the country, ultimately solidified the notion that the alternative offered by the West was not emancipation, but rather chaos, fragmentation, and annihilation.

And at that juncture, a politically decisive phenomenon emerged: even sectors of society deeply hostile to the regime began to reject the foreign-led war.

Many Iranians who, just months earlier, had bravely taken to the streets to protest against the Islamic Republic now refused to cooperate with an external offensive. This was not because they had ceased to loathe the regime, but rather because they perceived that the true objective of Washington and Tel Aviv was not to democratize Iran, but to subjugate it and dismantle it as an independent regional actor. The experiences in Iraq, Libya, and Syria weighed heavily on that collective perception.

The war ultimately reinforced a classic contradiction of modern imperialism: when external intervention becomes associated with indiscriminate terror and social destruction, even populations at odds with their own governments may defensively rally behind the national state.

The Erosion of Western Legitimacy

But the underlying problem extends far beyond Iran. The United States progressively lost influence over the masses of the Middle East because it never managed to resolve the central contradiction of its regional policy: speaking in the name of democracy while sustaining wars, occupations, sanctions, and alliances with deeply authoritarian regimes.

The invasion of Iraq, the collapse of Libya, the devastation of Syria, and the unconditional support for Israel during the destruction of Gaza ultimately eroded Western legitimacy in the region.

Since Israel began its genocide in Gaza, Palestine has once again occupied the political and moral center of the Middle East. For millions of Arabs and Muslims, Palestine no longer represents merely a national cause. It became concrete proof that the liberal international order applies universal principles only when they coincide with the strategic interests of Western powers. The United States’ military, diplomatic, and financial support for Israel during the destruction of Gaza thus accelerated a political and subjective rupture between the West and broad sectors of the regional masses. This also helps explain the failure of “regime change” strategies.

There is no credible policy of liberation for the masses of the Middle East as long as Palestine’s future remains subordinated to Western geopolitical interests. No discourse on democracy can acquire regional legitimacy if it coexists with the blockade, occupation, and systematic destruction of Palestine.

The Limits of the Iranian Axis

But neither bourgeois nationalism nor religious movements have proved capable of offering a lasting emancipatory solution.

The genocide in Palestine makes this historical crisis particularly visible. Decades of rhetoric about “Arab unity” or “Muslim unity” did not prevent either the isolation of Gaza or the passivity of most regional regimes. The Palestinian cause survived much more due to the popular identification of the masses than to the effective action of states.

Here too the strategic limitations of the Iranian axis itself become apparent. Despite having partially put the United States and Israel on the defensive during the first phase of the war, the Iranian regime did not use the prestige it gained or the new possibilities opened up by the conflict to promote a regional mobilization against imperialist domination and the expansionist policies of the Israeli state.

Its objective remains more limited: to negotiate — from a position of strength — a new regional architecture that recognizes its military weight and its capacity for strategic blockade, especially in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian strategy continues to combine diplomacy and military pressure, relying on mediators such as Pakistan and Oman and seeking the support of China and Russia as guarantors of a potential regional balance.

But these goals appear increasingly limited in the face of the enormous sacrifice of the Iranian population and, above all, the Palestinian masses in Gaza. They also contrast sharply with the growing regional isolation of the United States and the historic crisis of legitimacy of the Israeli state on an international scale.

Due to its bourgeois and state-driven nature, the Iranian strategy does not aim to promote regional popular uprisings against the regimes allied with the West or against the structure of imperialist domination in the Middle East. It seeks to strengthen its position within the existing regional balance, not to radically transform it.

So what alternative is there for the Middle East? Under current conditions, the immediate and central task remains the struggle to defeat the imperialist aggression led by the United States and Israel against Iran and the Palestinian people. A victory for Washington and the Zionist state would not open any democratic or emancipatory horizon for the masses of the region. On the contrary, it would reinforce imperialist domination over the Middle East, deepen the destruction of Gaza, consolidate Israeli expansionist policies, and pave the way for new wars, state fragmentation, and even more brutal forms of political and economic subjugation.

But the need to confront the imperialist offensive does not imply granting political support to the bourgeois and authoritarian regimes of the region, including the Iranian regime. The historical experience of recent decades has shown that even states opposed to Washington fundamentally seek to preserve their own power interests and stabilize certain regional relations rather than promote a genuine emancipatory mobilization of the Arab and Muslim masses.

The current crisis simultaneously expresses the failure of the American imperialist project, the historical limitations of Arab nationalism, the contradictions of political Islam, and the inability of regional bourgeoisies to offer genuine social and national emancipation. None of these forces has succeeded in resolving the democratic, social, and national aspirations of the Middle Eastern masses.

Therefore, the struggle against imperialist aggression can only develop consistently on the basis of complete political independence from all capitalist states and reactionary regimes in the region. The only progressive path lies in the construction of an alternative of and for the exploited and oppressed masses of the Middle East: an alliance of workers, the feminist movement, youth, peasants, and oppressed peoples — including the Kurds and other historically subjugated minorities — capable of uniting the struggle against imperialist domination with the fight against the regional ruling classes themselves.

Only internationalist mass mobilization can simultaneously break with subordination to the West, with the authoritarianism of local regimes, and with the sectarian fragmentation that has weakened the masses of the region for decades. And in this struggle, the Palestinian question occupies a central place, for it encapsulates — like no other issue — the continuity of imperialist and colonial oppression in the Middle East, becoming the primary political and moral point of reference for millions of people across the Arab and Muslim world.

This article was originally published in Spanish on May 11 in Ideas de Izquierda.

The post The War Against Iran Shows the Failure of Western “Liberation” appeared first on Left Voice.

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