The Iranian War of 2026: Unveiling the Historical Project and Symbolic Conflict at the Heart of the Middle East

On February 28, 2026, the streets of Tehran were shaken by the sound of massive explosions, as columns of smoke rose from the presidential palace and high-security headquarters, signaling the beginning of an all-out war that was not conventional, but rather a true moment of revelation for the Iranian regime's project and its political and religious doctrine in the region. The military strikes were not merely a reaction to external pressure, but came in the context of a long-standing conflict, revealing the regime's fragility in the face of its internal challenges and external threats from the United States and Israel.

Historical Background and Regime Doctrine

Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the regime's political doctrine has been based on integrating political power with religion, adopting a main axis: hostility towards Sunni Arabs and rejection of Western hegemony over Iran. Over the past four decades, the regime has used this hostility to strengthen the position of the Revolutionary Guard and expand Iran's influence in surrounding Arab countries, from the Gulf and Yemen to Syria and Iraq, exploiting sectarian divisions to its advantage.

Internally, the Iranian regime built its symbolic legitimacy on a dual equation: consolidating power through religious ideology, and demonstrating regional power at the expense of its regional adversaries, especially Sunni Arabs. This doctrine was used internally to strengthen the regime's cohesion, and even to justify its regional interventions to the Iranian people, who often viewed external hostility as far removed from their daily interests.

Iran's Conflict with Israel and America

For three decades, Israel and the United States tried to deal with Iran within policies of deterrence and negotiation. In the 1990s, Netanyahu, since his early membership in the Knesset, began to portray Iran as a permanent nuclear and military threat to Israel and the region. With the shift in the balance of power after the 2015 nuclear deal, and the escalation of American sanctions during the Trump administration, the conflict became clearer, especially after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani in 2020.

Israel relied on what is known as the “war between wars” to gradually strike at the capabilities of adversaries, without sliding into an all-out confrontation, benefiting from Iranian hostility towards Arabs to undermine Iranian influence in the region. However, with the events of October 2023 and the attacks on Israel, and the development of the Iranian military program, the conflict became more intense and clear, leading to a rapid slide towards an open confrontation.

The Iranian War of 2026: Unveiling the Symbolic Strategy

What distinguished the war in 2026 was the regime's targeting of Sunni Arab countries in the Gulf and Jordan, even amidst direct confrontation with the United States and Israel. This orientation revealed that hostility towards Arabs is not secondary, but rather represents a central pillar of the regime's doctrine and regional project. The strikes were not only to weaken military adversaries, but to enhance symbolic and political influence internally, and to achieve religious legitimacy derived from sectarian conflict, especially against Sunni Arabs.

In this war, Iran emerged as both an oppressed and an aggressor party: oppressed in the face of American and Israeli strikes, and an aggressor against Sunni Arabs. Nevertheless, the regime realizes that the Arab street will not unite against it due to the balances of regional interests, especially in the face of Israel and America, which made the strikes on Arabs a means to enhance its symbolic legitimacy, rather than a direct war against an actual political competitor.

Limits of the Regime's Goals and Strategic Retreat

Over time, the regime's unrealistic goals began to fall one after another. Instead of focusing on regional hegemony, the focus became on defending the land and maintaining internal cohesion, a stage that can be described as an “awakening and retreat to Iran's natural sphere.” This retreat serves the strategic goals of the United States and Israel, but it will not be fully achieved until the regime falls or is changed internally.

The war showed that hostility towards Sunni Arabs, despite being an internal symbolic tool, faces the limits of military and political reality, and that Iran has been forced to deal with American and Israeli interests in the region, while trying to exploit any weakness in Arabs to achieve internal symbolic goals.

Repercussions of the War on the Region and the Iranian Street

The Iranian War of 2026 revealed the regime's weakness in the face of its adversaries, exposed its internal conflicts, and exposed its true priorities, which are no longer hegemony, but survival and internal cohesion. Hostility towards Arabs, which was part of its historical project, appeared as a symbolic tool rather than a real strategic tool. At the same time, the bigger question remains: Can the regime maintain its internal legitimacy without the fundamental change imposed by military and political reality?

In the end, war is not just a fleeting confrontation between states, but a mirror that reveals the historical Iranian project, the limits of its ambitions, and the symbolic stakes that govern its internal and regional policies. The regime, which the conflict pushed into a defensive retreat on its own territory, will continue to seek to strengthen its symbolic and ideological authority, but the next stage will determine whether this authority can endure, or whether the fall of the regime is the only way to achieve true stability in the region.