The Paradox of Intervention: War and Politics in Iran

As global discourse across continents remained dominated by the revelations emerging from the Epstein files—documents that sent tremors through powerful political and business elites—another tectonic shift was unfolding in West Asia. The United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran that killed its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. While the initial strikes were widely perceived as a surprise escalation, Tehran had long anticipated the possibility of such a confrontation and had spent years preparing for it.

Ali Khamenei was not only the Supreme Leader of Iran; his influence extended far beyond the Middle East. For millions of Shia Muslims across the world, he represented a religious authority and a symbolic political figure. His death therefore cannot be understood merely as the loss of Iran’s most powerful political leader. It also marks the elimination of a figure whose influence reached Shia communities from Lebanon and Iraq to South Asia. Moments like this rarely remain confined within national borders. They often reshape identities, alliances and political imagination across regions. The fact that this incident occurred during the holy month of Ramadan further deepened its emotional resonance. In Iraq, for instance, mourning gatherings emerged across Shia communities, reflecting the wider emotional resonance of the event. Similar expressions of mourning were visible in India, particularly in the Kashmir Valley and parts of Uttar Pradesh where significant Shia populations reside.

Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic under Ali Khamenei has a deeply troubling domestic record. The aspiration that followed the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 was to establish an Islamic Republic that combined religious values with modern constitutional principles. Yet, the constitutional structure that emerged gradually concentrated asymmetrical power in the hands of the clerical establishment through the doctrine of ‘Velayat-e Faqih’, which places the Supreme Leader above the elected branches of government and limits democratic accountability. Over the decades, repression, the crushing of dissent and the violent suppression of protests—from the Green Movement of 2009 to the nationwide unrest following the death of Mahsa Amini—have exposed the narrow limits of political freedom in Iran.

Interestingly, the nature of dissent itself has evolved. While the protests of the late 1970s and the early 1980s were often framed as a return to Islamic authenticity after the Shah’s westernising rule, contemporary protests increasingly revolve around demands for individual rights, personal freedoms and autonomy over issues such as the hijab. Economic hardship caused by prolonged sanctions, coupled with widespread allegations of corruption, has further deepened public discontent. Many Iranians therefore harbour profound grievances against the clerical establishment. Any honest reflection on the current crisis must begin by acknowledging these realities.

Although the Islamic Republic faces significant public discontent, it still retains a certain social and institutional base of support. Much of the regime’s durability lies in the strength of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has evolved into a powerful political, economic and military institution within the state. Its loyalty to the regime has ensured that moments of crisis rarely translate into immediate regime collapse.

This distinguishes the present situation from the revolution that overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979. The Shah’s fall occurred amid a nationwide economic crisis, massive labour strikes—particularly in the oil sector—and a broad coalition of social forces that paralysed the state. Such a convergence of economic breakdown and organised mass mobilisation does not presently exist in Iran, despite widespread dissatisfaction with the regime.

Another important difference lies in the external dimension of the current conflict. After the experiences of prolonged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States appears reluctant to commit ground troops directly to another large-scale Middle-Eastern war. Instead, the military pressure on Iran has largely been channelled through Israel, reflecting Washington’s caution about the political and human costs of a direct confrontation. Public opinion in the United States remains wary of another prolonged war that could involve significant American casualties.

Recognising the abuses of the Iranian regime does not automatically legitimise external war as an instrument of political transformation. History repeatedly shows that political change imposed through foreign intervention rarely produces the outcomes its architects promise. Instead, such interventions often reorganise internal political identities in ways that strengthen nationalist resistance rather than weaken authoritarian rule.

The assumption that external military pressure will swiftly collapse the Islamic Republic rests on a fundamental misreading of Iranian society and political history. Iran is not a brittle personalist dictatorship whose authority depends on a single individual. Over decades of sanctions, isolation and geopolitical confrontation, the Iranian state has developed political and institutional mechanisms designed precisely to withstand pressure from militarily superior adversaries.

Some external actors therefore expect that Iran’s ethnic minorities—Kurds, Baloch and others—may seize the moment to challenge the state. Indeed, Tehran’s recent strikes on Kurdish militant bases along the Iraq-Iran border reveal the regime’s concern that external conflict could activate internal fault lines. Yet, such developments also illustrate the complex political psychology of societies under external threat. In such moments, war does not automatically translate into internal rebellion; it often transforms political contestation into a question of sovereignty.

The death of Ali Khamenei could deepen this dynamic. In Shia political theology, martyrdom carries immense symbolic power rooted in the memory of the Battle of Karbala and the death of Imam Hussain. When a leader dies at the hands of an external enemy, his political legacy can be recast through the language of sacrifice and resistance. What might appear as a moment of vulnerability can therefore become a source of mobilisation.

Yet, the significance of this moment extends beyond Iran’s domestic politics. War does not simply destroy states; it also reshape the political environment in which states and movements act. External shocks often create new openings for actors capable of converting crisis into mobilisation. For Iran and its networks across the region, the present confrontation may become less a moment of collapse than an opportunity to consolidate a narrative of resistance and sovereignty.

The implications extend beyond Iran itself. Transnational Shia communities, militant organisations and sympathetic movements may reinterpret the event as part of a broader narrative of resistance against foreign domination. When a powerful symbolic figure dies in such circumstances, the emotional and ideological vacuum can sometimes generate multiple centres of mobilisation. In movements built around religious authority and political loyalty, ardent followers may fragment into splintered groups that are difficult to control from any single centre of authority.

At the same time, such disruptions also alter the strategic space available to other states. Regional powers, militant networks and global actors may each seek to exploit the emerging shifts. But the ability to do so varies widely. For countries like India, whose interests in West Asia are tied to energy security, diaspora safety and connectivity ambitions, the same crisis may expand geopolitical uncertainty while simultaneously narrowing the room for strategic manoeuvres for New Delhi.

For India, these developments raise difficult strategic questions. New Delhi has long attempted to balance its relationships across West Asia, maintaining ties with Israel, the Gulf monarchies, the United States and Iran simultaneously. A notable example came after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi became one of the early major world leaders to visit Tehran, signalling the renewed importance of Iran in India’s regional engagement. The visit reflected how critical Iran remains for a country like India that depends heavily on imported energy. This delicate equilibrium has enabled India to pursue ambitious connectivity projects, most notably the development of the Chabahar Port and participation in the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.

Yet, prolonged instability in Iran could place both initiatives under strain. The war exposes the structural constraints within which India’s policy of strategic autonomy operates. While the crisis may create new geopolitical opportunities as regional alignments shift, India’s dependence on Gulf energy supplies, the presence of millions of Indian workers in West Asia and the fragility of regional trade routes significantly limit its room for manoeuvre.

There is also a broader lesson about the logic of power in international politics. Major powers rarely initiate conflicts where the risks of symmetrical retaliation are overwhelming. Instead, they tend to choose arenas where escalation appears manageable and the balance of power seems favourable. Yet, wars often escape the strategic calculations that produce them. What begins as a carefully calibrated operation can quickly generate consequences far beyond its initial design. The recent exchange of strikes—including Iranian drone attacks on American installations in the Gulf—suggests how rapidly such conflicts can widen and defy the expectations of their architects.

The war against Iran may ultimately transform the Islamic Republic in ways that remain difficult to predict. Internal dissent has not disappeared, and the regime’s legitimacy continues to be contested within Iranian society. Yet, the belief that external military force can engineer political transformation from the outside has rarely been borne out by history. Political change that endures usually emerges from within societies themselves, shaped by their own struggles, aspirations and contradictions.

External war, by contrast, often rewrites internal politics in ways its initiators do not anticipate. Instead of dismantling authoritarian systems, it frequently strengthens the language of sovereignty, resistance and national survival. In that sense, the tragedy of wars launched in the name of liberation is that they seldom empower the oppressed. More often, they create the very conditions in which the regimes they seek to overthrow learn to endure.

(Pottepaka Sandeep Kumar is a PhD scholar in the Department of Political Science at Osmania University)

Views expressed are personal