Iran's Goals Are Even More Nefarious Than You Think

By Felice Friedson

President and CEO of The Media Line news agency

The countdown is ticking away toward some grand act of revenge for Israel's killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon, and its alleged assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran.

Much of what comes next hinges not on any desire for revenge but whatever will best serve Iran's strategic goals of destabilizing the region and beyond.

Whatever Iran's ultimate decision will be, armies are being mobilized in Israel and Lebanon, command centers are readied for any scenario, and citizens along the border are evacuating—if they can. Psychological and economic damage is already apparent.

This is not an Israeli problem alone. Many Americans may not grasp the extent of Iran's ambitions. It seeks to destabilize the world, reshape Arab countries with extremism, and hit hard at American assets.

The supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei has been upfront in telling the world that his motives are to destroy Israel and destroy America. These two allies do not stand alone on the Iranian target board.

Iran's is hyper-focused on acquiring nuclear capabilities that will garner them a title of regional superpower. As the world is deterred watching Iran's Middle East chess game, the regime can now produce weapons-grade uranium for at least 13 nuclear weapons in under four months.

Shahin Modarres, the Iranian Desk director at the International Team for the Study of Security Verona, recently told The Media Line, "The potential development of nuclear weapons by the Islamic Republic of Iran poses significant strategic concerns for Europe, particularly due to two critical factors: energy dependence and migration pressures."

Iran's activities in the Middle East, including its support for its proxy groups, exacerbate regional instability, which in turn contributes to increased migration pressures. Another example of Iran's instability campaign, according to Modarres.

To understand the current conflict's importance in the overall scheme of things, one needs to focus on the numerous military bases spread from Djibouti to Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq and Turkey, which are protecting many nations' resources. Iran once again is aiming to rid the region of these strategic bases.

In the last year, the Houthis—an Iranian-backed terror proxy—have not only tied up the Bab el Mandeb shipping route, which leads to the Suez Canal from points east, but attacked the ships themselves.

They aim to hit or capture Western ships, as well as disrupting trade. Millions of barrels of oil—a quarter of the world's supply, according to the International Maritime Organization—moves through the thin strip, which is merely 20 miles wide and 70 miles long.

Iran's proxies were responsible for more than 150 attacks on Americans in Iraq and Syria between October and January. More recently, American soldiers were injured in a rocket attack on Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq, with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claiming responsibility. The group has ties to Iran and its stated goal is to rid their country of all U.S. military personnel.

A drone attack on an outpost in Jordan, on Jan. 28, claimed by the same group, killed three American troops. In a notable retaliatory response, the U.S. attacked 85 targets in seven locations.

The expression of hostility toward the U.S. is so extensive that Iran's proxies may attempt to destabilize countries with longstanding friendships with the United States, aiming to replace their governments with Iranian proxy regimes. This aligns with the extreme Shia expansionist ideology that then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini announced in 1979 following the so-called Islamic Revolution.

The United States needs to understand that Iran's tentacles are not just in the Gaza Strip, or in Arab lands, but also on the streets of Washington and on Harvard's campus. The number of leading institutions of higher learning which have been defaced, along with its leadership resigning is monumental.

If words do indeed lead to action, the new academic year will be fraught with painful reminders that it is Iranian-backed ideology fomenting on the streets of America and Europe.

Recently, the FBI and other U.S. governmental agencies concluded that the Iranian government was behind hacking attempts that targeted both the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns.

It's just another example in this long list of cases of Iran's malicious disruption.

The USS Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, has just arrived in the Middle East, bolstering America's naval presence. It's certainly not an everyday sighting.

It joins another aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, eight destroyers, and numerous other ships and fighter planes. In all, a third of America's warships have assembled in the region, and the USS Georgia cruise missile submarine is on its way, as the world waits to see whether the countdown is bluster or bombs.

Ali Khamenei, the current supreme leader of Iran, understands the language of weapons and military tactics—his enriching of nuclear fuel, and destabilization efforts against neighboring states. But he also understands timing.

It is time for the world to recognize that the supreme leader aims not only to destroy Israel and the Middle East but also to create turmoil and destruction for America and any Western country that opposes his warped vision of world disorder.

Tehran is tactical and timing is on their side.

Felice Friedson is president and CEO of The Media Line news agency and founder of the Press and Policy Student Program, the Mideast Press Club, and Women's Empowerment Program. She can be reached at ffriedson@themedialine.org.