Middle East Policy, Vol. XXII, No.

3, Fall 2015

Iran and Daesh: The Case of a Reluctant

Shia Power
Shahram Akbarzadeh
Professor Akbarzadeh is deputy director of the Alfred Deakin Institute for
Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.*

P
resident Hassan Rouhani came
to office in 2014 with a popular
mandate to relieve Iran’s inter-
national isolation. His electoral
campaign focused on ending the crippling
sanctions Iran has suffered due to the
ongoing dispute over its nuclear program.
Rouhani promised to make “moderation”
the centerpiece of his government, but
breaking out of isolation has proven to be
much more difficult than the reform-in-
clined Rouhani government expected. The
Arab upheaval has morphed into sectarian
warfare, championed by the Islamic State
of Iraq and Syria (“Daesh” in Arabic and
Persian). This conflict has presented Iran
with a most unwanted problem. From its
inception, Iran has projected itself as a
champion of the whole Muslim communi-
ty. It has stayed clear of sectarian disputes
with its Sunni neighbors and presented its
disagreements with Saudi Arabia, for ex-
ample, in terms of global Muslim interests.
It highlighted the failure of U.S.-friendly
Arab leaders to protect the Palestinians
as the cardinal charge against them. Their
Sunni affiliation was not the issue. How-
ever, the bloody sectarian conflict in Iraq
*
Research on this topic was funded by the Qatar National Research Fund (NPRP grant 6-028-5-006). The
statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the author. The author wishes to thank Fatemeh Nejati
and Dara Conduit for their role in researching this paper.
© 2015, The Author
and Syria, with spot fires in other states,
has forced Iran to engage with the sectar-
ian issue. Events of the past few years
have made it impossible for Iran to ignore
the schism. This complicates President
Rouhani’s task: his promised mantra of
“prudence and hope” (tadbir va omid) has
effectively been sidelined in the context
of forming a Daesh policy. Iran is forced
into relying on its Shia allies to respond to
the threat posed by Daesh, making Iran a
reluctant Shia power in the region.
Rouhani’s challenge is compounded
by the growing assertiveness of his do-
mestic critics who see the rise of Daesh
as evidence of an international conspiracy
to undermine and ultimately destroy the
Islamic Republic. Pressure from within
and the rapidly diminishing external op-
tions have restricted Rouhani’s room to
maneuver and resulted in a set of policy
choices that reinforce the cliché that Iran
is a Shia state. This paper offers a review
of key milestones in Iran’s response to the
sectarian conflict, giving special atten-
tion to the dominant political discourse
in Iran. The narrative of a Western con-
spiracy against Iran working in tandem
Middle East Policy © 2015, Middle East Policy Council

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with pro-Western Arab governments, most
notably key regional rival Saudi Arabia,
put debilitating limits on the public debate.
Some observers, often former ambassadors
to the Arab world, have made comments
that deviate from the preset narrative of
a master conspiracy against Iran. Online
publications inclined to the reformist camp
have published pieces that link the rise
of Daesh to the absence of representative
government. The reformist agenda is clear:
Political openness, public accountability
and political inclusion deprive extrem-
ism of oxygen. Democracy is the antidote.
But this alternative view is overshadowed
by deep-seated suspicion of the West and
concern with the shrinking appeal of the
Islamic Republic in the Arab street.
BACKGROUND
In December 2004, King Abdullah of
Jordan famously warned of a Shia “cres-
cent” emerging in the region, connecting
Hizbullah in Lebanon to the rising Shia
power in Iraq and the Islamic Republic of
Iran.1 King Abdullah named Syria as part
of this grouping, suggesting the emergence
of a continuous crescent. The idea re-
ceived only scorn in Iran, but it resonated
throughout the predominantly Sunni Arab
world, leading to Iran’s growing isolation
in the region. Iran denied having a sectar-
ian bent in its policies, but the impression
in the Arab world was very different and
the subsequent escalation of conflict in
Syria and Iraq made it even harder for
Iranian policy makers to avoid reinforcing
the sectarian interpretation of its foreign
policy. Iran felt it necessary to bolster its
long-time regional ally in Syria and subse-
quently the central government in Baghdad
and the (Sunni) Kurdish fighters against
the seemingly unstoppable Daesh. Initially,
Iran was reluctant to admit its involve-
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Akbarzadeh: Iran and Daesh
ment, inadvertently feeding the rumors
of a Shia conspiracy. Reports of Iran’s
involvement in the conflict continued to
accumulate.
According to Robert Fisk in June 2013,
Iran was poised to send 4,000 Revolu-
tionary Guards to Syria to bolster Bashar
al-Assad’s regime against armed rebels.2
While this report remained unconfirmed,
President Rouhani held a telephone confer-
ence with Assad and endorsed his decision
to surrender Syria’s stockpile of chemical
weapons. Rouhani argued that this sur-
render would disable the U.S. propaganda
machine and avoid a military strike by the
West. Assad’s government was accused of
firing chemical weapons indiscriminately
at Ghouta in the Damascus countryside.
President Rouhani was reported to have
argued that the Syrian crisis needed a
political solution, while restating Iran’s
commitment to the Assad regime.3 None-
theless, reports of military aid from Iran
to Syria seemed to contradict Rouhani’s
claim. In February 2014, Reuters reported
that Syria was receiving increased military
assistance from Iran to boost the Assad
regime’s capacity to collect intelligence
and train fresh recruits.4
Reports of Iran’s military involve-
ment in the sectarian conflict continued to
accumulate. In June 2014, The Guardian
published a report on the presence of Com-
mander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.
Soleimani is the head of the Quds Force
in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp
(IRGC), credited for working closely with
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Assad in Syria.
According to The Guardian, Soleimani’s
presence in Iraq indicated how seriously
Iran viewed the worsening crisis.5 It is im-
portant to note that Soleimani could only
be involved with the direct knowledge and
approval of Supreme Leader Ayatollah
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Middle East Policy, Vol. XXII, No. 3, Fall 2015

Ali Khamenei, who retains the position smokescreen.11 According to this view, the
of commander-in-chief. Amid reports of United States is secretly happy for Daesh
Iran’s involvement, officials continued to to undermine the central government in
insist on the fiction that no Iranian military Baghdad. This was seen as another ex-
advisers were present in Iraq or Syria.6 ample of U.S. intervention in the domestic
Commander Soleimani’s presence in Iraq affairs of the Middle East.12
was only conceded after Iraqi TV reported
on his visit to Iraq.7 An Iranian media re- TERROR AS A U.S. CONSPIRACY
port appeared under the self-congratulatory In the dominant Iranian discourse, the
title, “Without Iran, Kurdistan Would Have United States and its Arab allies bear the
Been Lost; Commander Stopped Daesh blame for the rise of Daesh’s terrorism and
Advance on Erbil with 70 Fighters.”8 sectarian bloodshed. From this point of
By the end of 2014, Iran had stopped view, the emergence of Daesh is part of a
all pretences and was happy to report on its broader policy to contain Iran. This per-
military assis- spective is in
tance to Iraq According to this view, the United States line with the
and Syria. early rhetoric
In January is secretly happy for Daesh to undermine of the Islamic
2015, Israel the central government in Baghdad. revolution
carried out It is seen as another example of U.S. and its Mani-
an air strike
intervention in the domestic affairs of the chean view:
in Quneitra, the West is
Syria, target- Middle East. poised to
ing Hezbollah snuff out the
fighters engaged with anti-Assad forces. light of the Iranian revolution. Not sur-
This resulted in the death of an Iranian prisingly, this perspective is most system-
IRGC commander who appeared to be atically advocated by the conservative
coordinating Hezbollah operations in members of the leadership, those close
Syria. While Israel claimed ignorance of
9
to the office of the Supreme Leader. This
Commander Allahabadi’s presence among good-versus-evil trope is their dominant
its Hezbollah targets, Iran reported on the paradigm. In a public address in 2014 to
deliberate killing of its commander and commemorate the Shia festival of Qadir
promised a swift response against Israel marking the appointment of Ali as the
and the United States.10 successor to Prophet Muhammad, Khame-
The fall of Mosul to Daesh in June nei left no room for doubt about who is
2014 sent shock waves through the region responsible for the crisis in Iraq and Syria:
and made the United States very uneasy
about the unexpected turn in the fight They [the United States and Israel]
against Bashar Al-Assad. The subsequent created al-Qaeda and Daesh to sow
seeds of discord among Muslims and
scramble to form an international coali-
oppose the Islamic Republic, but now
tion that included a number of Arab states they also suffer the consequences.13
as well as France, Britain and the United
States was met with scorn in Iran. The Su- Other Iranian leaders in the conserva-
preme Leader dismissed U.S. efforts as a tive camp have echoed this assertion. Ac-

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cording to a Basij commander, the U.S. ef-
forts to establish an international coalition
against Daesh is merely a smokescreen
intended to hide the Israeli-led agenda to
divide Shia from Sunni and undermine
their opposition to Israel.14
This perspective also finds its way into
much of the academic literature produced
at Iranian universities. An early indication
of this perspective was provided by Farzad
Poorsaied, a board member of the Strategic
Studies Centre, who argued in 2007 that
the growing terrorist attacks on Shia targets
in Iraq were indicative of a congruence of
interests among the United States, Arab
countries and terrorist organizations.15 The
Iranian Strategic Studies Quarterly has
published other papers along these lines. In
one, Faramarz Taqilo argued that “intensi-
fying the sectarian war and Arab/Iran di-
chotomy is part of the U.S. strategy against
Iran.”16 In 2010, the same journal published
a paper pointing to pro-U.S. Arab lead-
ers as instigators of instability in Iraq due
to their fear of its expanding influence.
The author did not shy away from naming
Saudi Arabia as the main patron of violent
extremists in Iraq in order to destabilize the
country and contain Iran’s influence.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia receives special
attention in publications on geopolitics.
A team of authors in 2014 added a new
dimension. They moved away from the
simplistic view that puts the United States,
Israel and Saudi Arabia in the same camp
and introduced an element of autonomy
for the Saudi leadership. Barzin Zarqami
et al. argued that Saudi Arabia is lobbying
the United States against Iran in order to
ensure Washington’s continued engage-
ment in the region. By presenting Iran as
an expansionist state and an instigator of
regional instability, they argued, Saudi
Arabia seeks “to prioritize the security
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Akbarzadeh: Iran and Daesh
agenda for the United States and shift the
focus away from the urgency of domestic
reform.”17 In other words, if the United
States is preoccupied with Iran, it will not
be pressing Saudis to reform their system.
ISLAM IN FOREIGN POLICY
Iran has repeatedly argued that its
foreign policy is informed by Islamic
principles of justice, respect and equality,
a revolutionary reading of Islam. Ayatol-
lah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, set the framework: “Iran
will not treat other states unjustly and will
not tolerate being treated unjustly. We
work on the basis of mutual respect.”18
In its early days, the vernacular of policy
makers borrowed heavily from leftist lit-
erature characterizing the United States as
an imperialist power bent on world domi-
nation. Iran rejected international organiza-
tions such as the United Nations, the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund
as instruments of power. The international
system, Iranian leaders argued, was domi-
nated by the United States and other West-
ern powers to protect their position and
perpetuate the systemic imbalance between
the global rich and the global poor. This
perspective has continued to form Iranian
foreign-policy thinking. In a 2008 address,
Supreme Leader Khamenei presented Iran
as a challenger to this divide:
It had become conventional for some
states to use technology, science,
weaponry and trickery to dominate
and subjugate other states. The world
was divided between the powerful and
the powerless. The rise of the Islamic
Republic of Iran challenged this false
and unjust division.19
This ideological approach was a famil-
iar critique of global inequality, sometimes
8/28/2015 1:31:21 PM

Middle East Policy, Vol. XXII, No. 3, Fall 2015
dubbed the north-south divide, favored by
leading states in the Non-Aligned Move-
ment (NAM). Iran found an ideological
home in NAM, formally joining the orga-
nization in 1979 and using the NAM plat-
form to advocate its position. Its August
2012 hosting of a NAM convention was
a much-coveted occasion, an opportunity
for firebrand President Mahmoud Ahma-
dinejad to restate Iran’s anti-imperialist
revolutionary credentials. In the official
perspective, the NAM convention in Teh-
ran delivered a clear message to the United
States: its unjust attempts to impose its will
on Iran would not succeed.20
Despite the obvious overlaps with
Third Worldism, Iran has been adamant to
emphasize that its position is drawn from
Islam, with the Muslim world as its in-
tended audience. In the formative phase of
the Islamic Republic, no other issue galva-
nized Muslim opinion more than the Israeli
occupation of Jerusalem and the plight of
the Palestinians. It was no surprise, there-
fore, that liberating Jerusalem emerged
as a central tenet of its foreign policy.
Ayatollah Khomenini famously linked that
objective to the defeat of Saddam Hus-
sein in Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq: the
“path to Jerusalem is through Karbala.”21
This was a significant statement, as it
emphasized Iran’s long-term commitment
to the Palestinian cause and presented Iraq
and its Arab allies as stumbling blocs to
the liberation of Jerusalem. This approach
was aimed at gaining the support of the
Arab street, where disillusionment with the
Arab governments’ failure to effect change
in the Arab/Israeli stalemate ran high. The
adverse consequence of this foreign-policy
objective was widespread apprehension
among Iran’s neighbors. Fears of Iranian
expansionism colored regional relations,
made worse as Iran developed ties with
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Hezbollah and Hamas.
Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric won it some
kudos in the Muslim world, where Teh-
ran was keen to burnish its revolutionary
credentials. Anti-Israel sentiments have
been institutionalized through the celebra-
tion of Quds (Jerusalem in Arabic and
Persian) solidarity day as a show of unity
with the Palestinians, and the extremely
negative terminology used to refer to the
state of Israel. The use of terms such as
the Zionist entity, the occupying regime
and more recently the regime of child-
killers (following the 2014 Israeli assault
on Gaza and the loss of over 2,000 civilian
lives) has ensured that the official Iranian
position remains as uncompromising as
possible. This hard-line approach clearly
has important implications for the way Iran
wishes to be seen in the eyes of the Mus-
lim masses. Not surprisingly, all Iranian
presidents have adhered to this line, with
President Ahmadinejad using extremely
inflammatory language.
Iran has developed a revolutionary
Islamic point of reference for its foreign
policy. The response to Daesh is kept
within this framework. However, given
the sectarian nature of the conflict, Iran’s
narrative has come under obvious strain,
and this is a concern for the Iranian leader-
ship. Iranian policy makers are aware of
the risks involved in entering the sectarian
conflict on Daesh’s terms. According to
Seyed Baqer Saeidnezhad, Iran’s revolu-
tionary Islamic ideology has been its great-
est soft-power tool, but the rise of sectari-
anism is presenting Iran more and more as
a Shia power and undermining its appeal
and its legitimacy as an Islamic state.22
This assessment maintains widespread
currency in Iran. Iran’s national interests,
argues Mohammad Taqi Hosseini, are best
served by avoiding sectarian wars and in-
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Akbarzadeh: Iran and Daesh

sisting on the unity of the Muslim umma.23 tion against Daesh on June 13, 2014, and
This message was delivered forcefully by proclaimed its readiness to assist.25 Even
the Supreme Leader to Iranian pilgrims on President Rouhani, generally known for
their way to Mecca in 2014: his delicate approach to difficult issues,
took a categorical position: “The great
Unity and brotherly relations among nation of Iran will not hesitate to act in de-
Muslims is a religious principle for us
fense of the holy places of Karbala, Najaf,
…. Islamic
unity is a Kadhimiya
key slogan For the Iranian leadership, the Twelver and Samara.”
for the
26
These are
Islamic
Shia version of Islam, which believes in Shia holy
Republic the sanctity of the Prophet’s bloodline sites, closely
of Iran, from Ali’s descendants to the hidden tied to the
that means Shia narrative
no enmity Twelfth Imam, is regarded as the only of sacrifice
among the true and pure Islam. and resis-
Muslim
tance against
umma and mutual support on impor-
tant global issues. Building a wall injustice. Karbala is the site of the forma-
between the Islamic Republic and the tive battle of Hussein, the grandson of the
rest of the Muslim world is a trick by Prophet Muhammad and the third imam of
the enemies of Muslim unity.24 the Shia, killed in combat against Yezid,
the usurper of power, in 680 AD. Other
The reality of the fast-evolving conflict sites named in Rouhani’s bold statement
in Syria and Iraq, however, has imposed are the burial sites of other Shia imams.
a different agenda on Iran. The Iranian Given the history of attacks on Shia
leadership is effectively forced into a Shia places of worship in Iraq, the Iranian
corner. As with Syria, Iran cannot afford leadership took the Daesh threat seriously.
to let Iraq fall to Daesh or disintegrate In addition to a range of high-level com-
along ethnic and sectarian lines. Bolster- mitments, such as sending General Qasem
ing the Shia-dominated government in Soleimani to provide strategic leadership,
Baghdad is an important strategy to avert noted above, it rested on its tradition of
those risks. As a consequence, while Iran revolutionary mass mobilization. Supreme
purports to represent the interests of the Leader Khamenei advised Iranians to go
Muslim umma, its close relationships with on a mass pilgrimage to Shia holy sites
the government in Baghdad as well as with in Iraq to commemorate the slaying of
Shia militia groups tend to substantiate Imam Hussein and protect Shia shrines.
accusations that Iran is the lynchpin of the Government authorities were instructed
Shia Crescent. The matter is made worse to facilitate this pilgrimage.27 Hamid Reza
when Iranian authorities habitually refer Taraqi, a leading member of the conserva-
to the Shia community in Iraq as brothers tive Islamic Coalition party extolled the
and Iran’s natural partners. Iran welcomed Supreme Leader’s strategy:
the fatwa by Ayatollah Ali Husayni Sistani
(the highest religious authority for Shia in The crimes committed by the takfiris
Iraq, a marjae taqlid) for mass mobiliza- [a nickname for Daesh] have created

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Middle East Policy, Vol. XXII, No. 3, Fall 2015
an atmosphere of violence against
the Shia and pure Islam, prompting a
response by all the Shia from across
the world .… This is a show of love,
solidarity and sacrifice for the Shia
[in Iraq] .… The presence of millions
of Shia in Karbala to commemorate
Imam Hussein is testimony to the pu-
rity of Shia Islam and the commitment
of the Islamic revolution [in 1979] to
Islam …. Today the West should bow
to the cultural might of the Islamic
Republic of Iran and admit that no
other regime, except the Islamic
Republic and the Shia nations in the
region, has such cultural might.28
For the Iranian leadership, there is no
line of separation between Shia and Islam.
The Twelver Shia version of Islam, which
believes in the sanctity of the Prophet’s
bloodline from Ali’s descendants to the
hidden Twelfth Imam, is regarded as the
only true and pure Islam. This is the con-
ventional wisdom in Iran; all other varia-
tions of Islam are seen as false and corrupt.
The Sunni version, the demographically
dominant sect, is particularly singled out.
This partly reflects the early history of
perceived Shia suffering as a minority sect
and partly the fact that Iran’s contempo-
rary regional rivals adhere to Sunni Islam.
The Iranian leadership has been quick to
emphasize the ideological connection of
Daesh and the Sunnis. For example, Ali
Mosavi Khalkhali wrote:
Sunnis are not alien to the extreme
ideas of Daesh. Sunnis don’t regard
Daesh as negating their beliefs, but
taking them too far to the extreme.
That is why we don’t see any Arab and
Sunni country condemn the inhuman
behaviour of Daesh in Iraq and Syria;
at best they have remained silent.29
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The predominance of this view among
the Iranian leadership and the rejection of
Sunni powers as behind-the-scenes Daesh
allies, steers Iran’s foreign policy in a
direction reminiscent of the early days fol-
lowing the 1979 revolution.
In Iran’s worldview, the principal
belief that informs its strategic thinking
is the notion of the Islamic Republic as a
vanguard of Islamic revolution, surrounded
by powers conspiring in its demise. This
worldview, harkening back to the early
days of the revolution, is reinforced by
anti-Shia rhetoric and Daesh’s behavior,
particularly its assumed support from Arab
states. Responding to Daesh, therefore, is
not simply an ideological challenge; it is
closely tied to state security. According
to the secretary of the Supreme National
Security Council, if Iran does not stand up
to Daesh in Iraq and Syria today, it will be
fighting Daesh inside its borders tomor-
row.30 Ali Shamkhani made this comment
at the funeral of an Iranian commander
killed in action against Daesh in Samara.31
The fight is seen as imperative for national
defense.
This strategic perspective imposes
obvious limitations on the way Iran can
engage with regional powers. Not surpris-
ingly, relations with its Arab neighbors
have suffered a major setback. President
Rouhani and his team operate within this
framework and do not stray too far from
the core assumptions of the regime. Even
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif,
credited with bringing professionalism and
an adherence to diplomatic protocols to
Iran’s international behavior, has advocat-
ed this worldview. Addressing a university
gathering in Tehran, Zarif promised that
Iran will not succumb to the international
“campaign of Iranophobia.”32
8/28/2015 1:31:22 PM

This concept has gained currency in
foreign-policy circles and is evoked repeat-
edly to de-legitimize international pres-
sure on Iran. That pressure was essentially
concerned with Iran’s nuclear program,
but the Iranian leadership sees the rise of
Daesh and accusations of Iranian expan-
sionism as evidence of an Iranophobic
trend that is gaining momentum. Iran sees
Saudi Arabia and Israel as key players
pushing Iranophobia, while the attitude
towards the United States varies slightly
between reformists and conservatives.
The Foreign Ministry is inclined to see the
United States as susceptible to Iranopho-
bic lobbying and views the U.S. response
to Daesh and Iran as largely influenced
by Iran’s regional rivals. Highlighting
tensions, Deputy Foreign Minister Amir
Abdullahian claimed that Tehran has
repeatedly asked Saudi Arabia to refrain
from accusing Iran of “occupying Syria.”
Saudi Arabia, he continued, is pursuing an
Iranophobic agenda on the international
stage and fanning the fires of sectarianism
in the region.33
THE REFORMISTS
The recent descent of the region into
sectarian warfare has limited the scope
of activity for those who would typically
challenge conservative interpretations of
Islamic power in Iran. Perhaps the most
explicit and daring articulation of dissent
was by Mostafa Tajzadeh, who linked the
rise of Daesh to the absence of democracy
and a lack of legitimate avenues for politi-
cal expression.34 Others have been less
categorical, but still critical, of the record
of Shia intolerance of other sects. This has
only served to alienate Sunni Muslims.
Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, a
longstanding member of the clerical elite
and more recently allied with the reformist
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Akbarzadeh: Iran and Daesh
camp, argued that Shia condemnation of
the Sunnis has paved the way for the rise
of Daesh. Rafsanjani, in an act of political
daring, warned against “Shia extremism.”35
He was rebuked by the conservative daily
Keyhan for subscribing to the Saudi narra-
tive of sectarianism in Iraq and mocked for
his efforts to normalize Iran-Saudi rela-
tions when in office (1989-97).36 Nonethe-
less, calls for moderation and warnings
against stoking the fires of sectarianism
have become a key message of those in the
reformist camp. Mir Mahmoud Mousavi,
former ambassador to India and Pakistan,
for example, lamented how frequently
those in power express ill-informed opin-
ions that alienate minority groups. He went
on to say that Daesh and other extremist
groups find oxygen in an atmosphere of
ignorance and intolerance.37
The crisis in Iraq was a hot topic in
the Iranian media in 2014. The grow-
ing international unease with Al-Maliki’s
government in addressing Iraq’s slide into
anarchy appeared to be contagious, as
Iranian commentators hinted at the failure
of Al-Maliki to form a truly representa-
tive government. In August 2014, the
reformist-inclined online journal Iranian
Diplomacy published a paper laying the
blame squarely at Al-Maliki’s feet. The
author argued that even Ayatollah Sistani
(the highest Shia authority in Iraq) was
no longer supporting Al-Maliki because
he had driven an exclusivist policy that
favored only his supporters, fanning the
flames of sectarianism.38 This assessment
was echoed by Iran’s former ambassador
to Lebanon, who warned other countries
to learn from the failings of Al-Maliki and
work towards inclusive governments.39
Mohammad Ali Sobhani asked rhetori-
cally, could Daesh have grown so fast in
Iraq if Al-Maliki had incorporated the
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Middle East Policy, Vol. XXII, No. 3, Fall 2015
Sunni community into his government and
established national solidarity?
The recurrent theme in reformist com-
mentary was democracy and inclusive
government as the antidote to Daesh. In
a passionate piece, Sadeq Ziba Kalam
argued that Iran cannot allow Daesh to
take root because Daesh stands against
all human rights, ethnic-minority rights,
women’s rights, and freedom of expression
and thought. “This is a battle between de-
mocracy and dictatorship,” he said.40 This
argument reverberated among the Iranian
intelligentsia. A former ambassador to
Syria, for example, argued in the reform-
ist-inclined online publication Tabnak that
Daesh’s ideology is inherently intolerant
and exclusivist, sharing a conceptual foun-
dation with dictatorial regimes.41 Casting
the crisis in these terms obviously alluded
to the reformist agenda in Iran. The unspo-
ken but obvious inference was that intoler-
ance of dissent and suppression of freedom
led to a crisis of confidence and ultimately
civil war.
With growing unease about Al-Mali-
ki’s leadership, his handover of power to
newly appointed Prime Minister Haidar
Al-Abadi was welcomed widely in Tehran
as an important step forward. For those
broadly inclined with the reformist agenda,
this was a necessary move. Al-Abadi
was expected to regain the confidence of
the Sunni population and form a govern-
ment of national reconciliation. This was
even tacitly endorsed by Supreme Leader
Khamenei, who welcomed Prime Minister
Al-Abadi on his first official visit abroad
and urged him to mend the Shia-Sunni rift
in Iraq.42 The reformist camp gained heart
from this shift, hoping that a change of
tack in Iraq could have future reverbera-
tions in Iran.
52
Akbarzadeh.indd 52
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CONCLUSION
President Rouhani’s task of bring-
ing Iran out of isolation has encountered
a difficult challenge. The threat to Iran’s
regional allies, Syria and Iraq, has forced
Iran to take action to protect its strate-
gic reach. In Tehran’s assessment, Iran’s
geostrategic sphere of influence would
seriously shrink if Bashar Al-Assad fell
to Sunni (potentially pro-Western) rebels,
and if Iraq were broken up along sectarian
and ethnic lines. Iraq’s territorial integrity
and the continued rule of the Assad regime
are integral to Iran’s fortunes in the region.
Rouhani’s team cannot avoid these urgent
matters, even if it has no direct control
over the fast-moving crisis. Events beyond
Iran’s borders and actions by some Iranian
players have created a difficult environ-
ment for Rouhani and his team. The in-
volvement of Quds Commander Soleimani
in the fight against Daesh, for example,
did not require presidential endorsement.
The IRGC is directly answerable to the
supreme leader, not the president, and has
enjoyed significant autonomy to pursue
its own agenda on matters it perceives as
impinging on Iran’s national security. The
actions of the IRGC, however, reflect on
the country as a whole, ensuring that the
Iranian diplomatic corps has had a difficult
task, first denying and then justifying the
presence of Iranian military personnel in
the Syrian and Iraqi theaters of war.
Iran does not wish to be seen as a Shia
state, but finds it difficult to stay true to its
vision of a united Islamic umma. Daesh
has set a sectarian agenda for Iran which
the authorities seem unable to circumvent.
In responding to the Daesh threat, Iran has
relied on its established partnership with
the Shia-dominated government of Iraq
and Shia militia groups, while coordinat-
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Akbarzadeh: Iran and Daesh

ing Hezbollah operations in Syria. In that
sense, Iran has become a reluctant Shia
power in the region. Only the alliance
with the Sunni Kurds defies the sectarian
logic, but it is largely overlooked in the
Arab world, due to the non-Arab lineage
of the Kurds. From the perspective of Arab
capitals, Iran has doubled its push to drive
a sectarian wedge between Arabs, a notion
that harks back to the early years of Islam
and conflict between Arabs and Iranians.
The conflation of the Shia sect and Iran is
proving difficult for Tehran to shake.
Iran’s woes have been exacerbated by
Shia clerics’ frequent depiction of Shia
Islam as pure and authentic. Iranian com-
mentaries reject the extremism of Daesh
and use the term takfiri as a scornful re-
minder of Daesh labeling of other Muslims
as kafir. At the same time, the predominant
view points to the ideological connection
between Daesh and Sunni Islam (espe-
cially Wahhabism). Sunni Islam is dele-
gitimized and belittled as imperfect and
a sectarian deviation. This exclusivist ap-
proach is a mirror image of other religious-
exclusivist claims to the truth. Iranian
leaders use Islam and Shia interchangeably
and reinforce the message that other sects
in Islam are false and illegitimate.
In this harsh regional environment,
Rouhani’s agenda of running a govern-
ment of moderation and wisdom has come
under severe strain from forces outside
his control. Iran’s deep involvement in the
sectarian conflict has served the hardlin-
ers’ Manichean position depicting Iran’s
regional rivals working in concert with the
United States and Israel against the Islamic
Republic of Iran. This dominant narrative
imposes serious limitations on Rouhani’s
efforts to find a diplomatic solution to
Iran’s international isolation. Complaints
of pervasive “Iranophobia” by Foreign
Minister Zarif is a symptom of how the
ideological narrative permeates Iran’s
engagement with the outside world. This
unfavorable international environment
makes the objective of normalizing Iran’s
standing in the international community
harder to achieve.

1
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Robert Fisk, “Iran to Send 4,000 Troops to Aid President Assad Forces in Syria,” Independent, June 16,
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3
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Al-Alam, July 6, 2014, http://fa.alalam.ir/news/1608645.
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20
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28
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29
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33
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34
Published on the reformist site Kalame (October 12, 2014), http://www.kaleme.com/1393/07/20/klm-
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35
Tabnak, November 9, 2014, http://bit.ly/1HsGG52.
36
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37
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38
Iranian Diplomacy, August 23, 2014, http://bit.ly/1S8pjKh.
39
Khabar Online, November 5, 2014, http://khabaronline.ir/detail/383551.
40
Shafaqna, October 16, 2014, http://bit.ly/1Gwp1ZV.
41
Hussein Sheikhul, “Islam in Tabnak,” October 23, 2014, http://bit.ly/1g7MkPW.
42
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