Ironies in the Iran-Israel conflict

If we fail to view recent events in their historical and global context, we risk falling into the trap of dividing nations into good or evil. A complex geopolitical situation is thus reduced to the simplistic binary of “bad guys” and “good guys.” These moral labels, nothing more than self-descriptions, prevent a deeper understanding of the enduring ironies in international relations. Here are four such ironies in the long and twisted relationship between Iran and Israel.

Irony #1: Today, Iran—a theocratic regime ruled by Shiite clerics—is seen by Israel as its greatest existential threat. The United States, for its part, regards Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Yet, not long ago, Iran was Israel’s closest ally in the region. Until 1979, the Israeli government maintained a large embassy in Tehran and enjoyed strong ties with the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

During their period of cooperation, both countries saw themselves as modernizing outposts of the West in a region they regarded as hopelessly backward. This alignment flourished under the Shah’s authoritarian rule, a regime installed by a 1953 US-backed coup that deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Despite being politically repressive and extravagantly corrupt, the Shah remained a steadfast ally of the West—and of Israel.

Irony #2: Today, Iran is often caricatured as a hermit state—antimodern, deeply repressive, and isolated from global culture. But this image belies its history. Before the 1953 coup, Iran had a functioning parliamentary democracy. Mossadegh, a secular nationalist, sought to wrest control of Iran’s oil wealth from the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. When he nationalized the oil industry in 1951, his actions sparked massive popular support.

Though Mossadegh was not a communist, his alliance with the outlawed Tudeh Party led Washington and London—already worried about growing Soviet influence during the Cold War—to brand his government a threat. On August 19, 1953, a joint CIA-MI6 (or the US Central Intelligence Agency and the British Military Intelligence, Section 6) operation, using millions of dollars and weapons, engineered his removal and restored the young Shah to full control. The coup marked the beginning of Iran’s long descent into authoritarianism—ironically, under the auspices of “modernization.”

Irony #3: Determined to make Iran a model of Middle Eastern economic development, US President Eisenhower selected it for its “Atoms for Peace” program in the 1950s. Iran thus became one of the first countries to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), committing to international inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for civilian nuclear technology.

But after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini halted the nuclear program, denouncing it as a corrupt project of the previous regime. That attitude changed dramatically during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), when Iran came to suspect Saddam Hussein of using or developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Ironically, the same WMD suspicion would later be used by the US to justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq.

By the 2000s, Iran’s uranium enrichment activities drew closer scrutiny. In 2006, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions after it was found that Iran had restarted operations at its Natanz facility. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, brokered under the Obama administration, provisionally eased tensions—until the first Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018.

Irony #4: While Iran’s nuclear activities have been under intense international surveillance, Israel’s own nuclear capability has remained opaque and untouched. Israel is one of only five countries that have never signed the NPT—the others being India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Sudan. This refusal exempts Israel from IAEA inspections.

Yet, it is widely believed that Israel possesses nuclear weapons. As reported by Sam Mednick in a June 23 article for the Associated Press, “Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence.” Independent estimates suggest Israel has at least 80 warheads and delivery systems capable of hitting targets up to 6,500 kilometers away.

Ironies like these abound because the global system lacks an effective central political authority to enforce norms. In such a world, the familiar realist maxim holds sway: there are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends—perhaps not even permanent interests, only shifting calculations of power and survival.