During the Israeli-American war with Iran, several American and Israeli reports indicated that the Israeli leadership was surprised that the Iranian people did not rise up against the regime despite repeated calls to do so, and even though less than two months had passed since the protests that took place at the beginning of the current year, which were suppressed by the Iranian authorities by force.
Despite the multiplicity of political, economic, and security factors that explain Iranian society’s reluctance to revolt during moments of escalation, highlighting the psychological–social dimension appears necessary, as it is a key to understanding patterns of collective behavior when facing existential threats.
Studying Iranian societal behavior remains difficult without penetrating the depth of the collective perception of threat—one that goes beyond purely material calculations and engages with deeply rooted existential fears. Iran’s geopolitical position, as a center of international conflicts throughout history, has granted it opportunities for influence, but at the same time has exposed it to persistent security vulnerability. This has generated what can be described as “existential anxiety,” which intensifies with every threat of external aggression.
First: Existential Anxiety and Historical Victimhood
Iranian historical anxiety stems from past events in which the state disappeared or disintegrated at various points in time. This legacy leads to any military aggression being perceived as a threat of “state extinction,” prompting a defensive response characterized by solidarity during existential crises.
Despite the radical change in the system of governance in 1979, the Iranian perception of threat shows remarkable continuity. The fears that inhabited the strategic mindset during the Pahlavi era remain present in the thinking of the Islamic Republic. However, the revolution worked to “institutionalize” this anxiety and frame it ideologically, embedding the historical collective anxiety within the frame of Shiite “victimhood.”
The concept of “victimhood,” derived from the Battle of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, holds a central place in mobilizing the Iranian collective mindset when confronting aggression. This narrative, alongside a “persecution complex,” serves two primary functions:
Internal mobilization: transforming national suffering into a sacred act that strengthens social cohesion behind the political leadership.
Strategic justification: legitimizing military and political actions beyond borders as preventive measures to avoid the repetition of historical injustices.
Second: Strategic Isolation and “Forward Defense”
“Strategic isolation” is a central concept for understanding Iranian behavior. It reflects a deep perception among decision-makers in Tehran that Iran is a state without natural allies or reliable geopolitical “friends” it can depend on during existential crises.
This isolation stems from the convergence of two unique factors in the region:
Ethnic factor: Iran is a Persian state in a predominantly Arab and Turkish environment.
Sectarian factor: Iran represents the center of Shiite influence in a region with a Sunni majority.
This distinction has created a historical sense among Iranians that they are an “island” in a different environment, making self-reliance not merely a political choice, but a necessity for state survival.
As a result of this sense of strategic isolation and the absence of formal military alliances with major powers or neighboring states, post-revolutionary Iran developed a strategy of “forward defense” through a network of non-state actors.
A deeper examination of Iranian strategic behavior, however, reveals continuity in the doctrine of “forward defense,” transcending successive political ideologies and becoming embedded in the core of the state’s security culture. This continuity is evident when comparing the statement of Ali Khamenei: “We fight in Aleppo so that we do not have to fight in Kermanshah,” with the statement of General Bashai, a SAVAK official during the Shah’s era, who said: “We fight in the Mediterranean so that blood is not shed in Iran.” This unity in geopolitical logic indicates that the necessity of projecting power outward to protect internal security is a structural constant for Iranians.
While the Shah sought to position Iran as a dominant power through direct military intervention—as in the Dhofar rebellion in Oman—the revolutionary regime reformulated this necessity under an ideological framework.
Paradoxically, this principle is not limited to the modern era. Some experts trace it back to the Sasanian Empire, when Khosrow I’s invasion of Yemen in 570 CE was considered a preemptive measure to prevent Byzantine expansion into the Red Sea.
The qualitative difference introduced by the revolutionary regime lies in the “cultural–religious” dimension it gives to these security imperatives. Khamenei linked the defense of national security to the protection of holy shrines, arguing that without regional sacrifices, “nothing would have remained of Zaynabiyyah, Karbala, or Najaf.”
Accordingly, it can be concluded that the “defensive-expansionist doctrine” is not merely an ideological product of the Islamic Revolution, but rather a trans-regime phenomenon in Iran—rooted in geopolitical realities, historical anxiety, and great-power ambitions.
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