'An Examination of the Ideological, Political & Strategic Causes of Iran’s Commitment to the Palestinian Cause'

Our friend Amal Saad Ghorayeb wrote this excellent paper for CF:

"... Not only does Iran’s dedication to the Palestinian cause   pose a threat to its political stability, but it also compromises its strategic interests. Despite the US’ fixation with Iran’s nuclear program and its futile attempts to pummel it into submission with sanctions, it is more than likely that Washington would turn a blind eye to an Iranian nuclear weapons’ program or even contribute to one as it has with its allies... were it not for Tehran’s support for resistance movementsin Palestine and Lebanon. This inference is laid bare by the Bush administration’s almost constant association between Iran’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction program and its alliance with“terrorist groups”. This was illustrated by Bush’s January 29, 2002 State of the Union Address in which he branded Iran as part of "an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world,” with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons which it allegedly sought to provide to its "terrorist allies". Likewise,  then National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, asserted: "Iran's direct support of regional and global terrorism and its aggressive efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, belie any good intentions it displayed in the days after the world's worst terrorist attacks in history."38 Washington’s problem, then, isn’t Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons per se, but rather, that a state allied to Palestinian resistance groups is pursuing them.But although Iran’s commitment to the liberation of historical Palestine exposes it to external security threats (as well as externally instigated domestic threats) in the medium- term and undermines some of its strategic interests in the short- term, the fulfilment of the Islamic Republic’s ideological principles has reaped it longer-term dividends in both realms. In the first place, Israel’s history of intervention in Iranian affairs which preceded the launch of the Islamic Revolution renders it a perpetual threat to Iran’s independence and by extension, its political stability. ..." (Continue, here)