The recent confrontation between Iran and the United States did more than expose a military imbalance. It exposed a strategic illusion that has shaped parts of the Middle East for decades: the belief that ideological fervour can substitute for statecraft. Iran’s recent experience is among the clearest examples of where that illusion leads.

If this conflict is viewed apart from emotion, it becomes clear that the issue is not one strike, one administration, or one episode of escalation. It is the result of a much longer political and strategic trajectory, in which events were interpreted through a particular lens and decisions were made accordingly. The consequences of that approach are now difficult to ignore. At its core, the problem may be reduced to three recurring errors: turning political conflicts into religious causes, dealing with global powers through idealism rather than realism, and allowing the memory of past grandeur to obscure present realities.

From the outset, Iran tied its regional role to a religious and revolutionary narrative. Political conflicts were no longer treated merely as political or geopolitical disputes. They were elevated into sacred struggles, ideological fronts, and elements of a larger historical mission. Behind this outlook was a powerful religious imagination: the belief that expanding influence across the region was not simply a matter of statecraft, but part of a broader moral project that........

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