Over the past century, Iran’s concept of war has moved from national awakening and revolutionary sacrifice to a contested ideology, revealing a deep rift between state doctrine and a new generation’s civic aspirations.

What Is Iran Fighting For? And Who Decides?

For over a century, war in Iran has been more than an armed conflict. It has been a symbol of sovereignty, revolution, sacrifice, and increasingly, fatigue and dissent. As the Islamic Republic doubles down on its doctrine of “forward defense,” expanding its reach through proxy forces, ballistic missiles, and cyber capabilities, a generational shift is reshaping how war is imagined, accepted, or outright rejected.

The Iran–Israel conflict brings these tensions into focus. Once promoted as a sacred duty, resistance is now being questioned—not because the cause is dismissed but because the people are demanding a different kind of justice: one rooted in accountability, not ideology. This article explores how the concept of war has evolved alongside Iran’s institutions, ideology, and, most critically, its people.

Nation in Formation: From Constitutional Struggle to Military Modernization

In the early 20th century, war in Iran was framed through the lens of justice and liberation. The Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911) envisioned conflict not for conquest, but for dignity. Poets like Aref Ghazvini cast the nation’s struggles as noble resistance to tyranny, internal and foreign.

This vision shifted under Reza Shah, who sought to centralize power through military reform. Inspired by European models, he built a unified national army, established military academies, and imported weapons and training from the West. War was reframed as a tool of state-building and internal order, not popular empowerment.

Under Mohammad Reza Shah, Iran’s military ambition expanded further. With deep ties to the United States and Israel, Iran became a cornerstone of Cold War containment. The Shah envisioned Iran as a regional hegemon, even intervening in conflicts like the Dhofar Rebellion in Oman. Yet this modernization served the monarchy’s prestige more than national agency. When revolution came, the military’s Western dependence became a liability—its collapse was as symbolic as it was strategic.

Revolution and the Sacred War: Institutions Reborn

The 1979 Islamic Revolution brought with it a new vocabulary of war—martyrdom, sacrifice, and divine justice. The newly established Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was tasked not only with defending borders, but with safeguarding revolutionary values. Its mandate was political and ideological: to ensure the Islamic Republic’s survival against foreign and internal threats.

The Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) defined this era. Portrayed as an existential battle, it fused nationalist defense with spiritual narrative. “Sacred Defense” (Defa’-e Moqaddas) became a founding myth of the new state.

The war reshaped Iran’s war-making institutions and mindset:

• The IRGC emerged as a permanent, parallel military power, rivaling the conventional army.
  
• The Basij mobilized millions, including youth and the elderly, to participate in “human wave” operations marked by martyrdom symbolism.
  
• Iran’s first proxy—Hezbollah—was established in Lebanon, launching a model of ideological militancy that would spread across the region.
  

While effective in consolidating the regime, the war cost nearly a million lives and devastated Iran’s economy. Its legacy was not just military—it was moralized and embedded into national identity.

From Deterrence to Forward Defense: Exporting the War Doctrine

The post-war era marked a strategic transformation. Scarred by international isolation and arms embargoes, Iran shifted from conventional force to asymmetric capabilities: missiles, drones, cyber operations, and regional militias.

The IRGC redefined doctrine around two concepts:

• “Strategic depth”: confronting threats before they reach Iran’s borders.
  
• “Forward defense”: preempting conflict by deploying assets across the region.
  

These doctrines led to the emergence of the Axis of Resistance—a network of non-state allies from Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen to Iraqi militias and Palestinian factions like Hamas. These proxies extended Iran’s influence and blurred the boundaries of war, allowing for plausible deniability and sustained engagement far from Iranian soil.

Iran’s military posture became simultaneously defensive in rhetoric and offensive in reach, striking targets from Syria to the Red Sea, confronting Israel and the U.S. indirectly through cyberattacks and proxy engagements.

A War Rejected: Public Sentiment and the Rise of Civic Identity

While the state continued to expand its reach, the public sentiment within Iran began to fracture. The once-sacred concept of war grew contested, especially among post-2009 and post-2022 generations who had only known repression and hardship at home.

• Slogans like “Not for Gaza, Not for Lebanon, My Life Only for Iran” became rallying cries of civic nationalism, signaling fatigue with ideological wars fought in others’ names.
  
• Veterans of the Iran–Iraq War were honored in name but often neglected in practice, revealing the gap between myth and lived reality.
  
• Young Iranians increasingly saw war as a justification for economic failure, repression, and censorship, not defense or dignity.
  

This generational shift is profound. Older narratives emphasize sacrifice and unity, but younger voices demand accountability, pluralism, and freedom. The idea of war is no longer linked to national honor, but to national diversion. It is seen not as protection of sovereignty, but as avoidance of reform.

War as a Mirror: Between Institutional Power and Civic Meaning

Iran today lives between two narratives of war:

• The regime’s view: war ensures survival through strength—missiles, militias, and deterrence.
  
• The people’s view: war postpones justice, silences dissent, and sacrifices futures for abstract causes.
  

This contrast is not just political—it is moral. The state invokes justice for Palestine, while many citizens ask: What about justice in Evin? In Sanandaj? In Mahabad?

The conflict with Israel illustrates this rupture. Official discourse celebrates confrontation as righteous and strategic. But for many Iranians, it is not their war, not their victory, and not their loss to mourn.

The End of Myth, the Beginning of Meaning

Over the past century, Iran’s concept of war has traveled a long road:

• From constitutional resistance and modern militarization,
  
• Through revolutionary sacrifice and ideological export,
  
• To a civic awakening that increasingly questions the very foundations of power and purpose.
  

The younger generation is not apathetic—they are deeply political. But their battlefield is different. They are not fighting for territory or theology. They are fighting for narrative, for voice, for a future of their own choosing. And perhaps that is the most profound evolution of all: from a nation mobilized by war, to one mobilized against it, through memory, clarity, and the demand for dignity.

---

Related Topics from the Iran 1400 Project