For centuries, the Middle East has stood at the crossroads of civilization and conflict. Despite the formal establishment of modern nation-states, the region has failed to achieve internal political stability or external peace. The situation in the Middle East today is not a temporary flare-up or the product of isolated disputes. It is structural: regimes survive by stoking sectarian division, tribal social systems undermine national unity and the rule of law and ideological movements blend religious dogma with authoritarian control. 

These systems do not want peace because their survival depends on sustained conflict. This is why diplomatic summits, ceasefire deals and foreign interventions consistently fail: they target symptoms, not causes. If the problem is structural, then so must be the solution. Peace in the Middle East will not come through negotiation. It will come through a civilizational shift, and it demands three acts of moral courage.

The first is capitalist liberalization. Every individual must gain the right to produce, to trade and to own. No government has the right to command his labor, confiscate his earnings or dictate his future. Capitalism is not a system of greed. It is the only system that recognizes the moral right of a person to live for his own sake.

The second is cultural conservatism. A society cannot survive without roots. When families collapse, when traditions vanish, when morality fades into relativism, chaos follows. A rational culture does not erase its past. It protects what gives life meaning, not by coercion, but by conviction.

The third is institutional transformation. No regime that survives by crushing liberty, spreading violence and fueling sectarian hate can remain in power without destroying the future. People must not reform such systems. They must replace them. Political freedom requires new institutions built on justice, law and individual rights.

This is the foundation of what I call Conservative modernism. It rejects both Islamic totalitarianism and secular technocracy. It affirms that peace cannot exist without liberty, and liberty cannot exist without moral strength. This is not a policy. It is a philosophy.

Sectarian wars and the legacy of doctrinal politics

We cannot understand the Middle East’s political instability apart from the theological and sectarian divides embedded within Islam itself. The Sunni-Shia schism — originating from a dispute over the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad — has long outgrown its historical moment to become the structural backbone of regional conflict. This divide was never merely theological; it became politicized during the first Islamic civil wars and later crystallized into full-fledged state ideologies during the rise of rival empires like the Sunni Ottoman Caliphate and the Shia Safavid dynasty. 

These empires did not merely represent competing political centers — they embodied competing claims to spiritual authority. In modern terms, regimes seeking to legitimize their power through religious division have hardened, institutionalized and weaponized these doctrinal fault lines rather than letting them fade. 

The legacy of these doctrinal wars lives on in today’s proxy conflicts, from Yemen to Syria, Iraq to Lebanon. Iran, as the self-appointed guardian of the Shia cause, has instrumentalized this divide to export its revolutionary ideology through paramilitary proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq and Syria. 

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, while less overtly ideological, have responded with their versions of sectarian patronage and security alignments. The result is not simply a clash between states, but a doctrinal cold war that perpetually destabilizes the region through religious identity and existential fear.

Political Islam, once unleashed as the doctrine of the state, does not merely challenge liberty — it annihilates the very concept. Its metaphysical certainty surpasses even the most dogmatic ideologies of the West. It does not see disagreement as an error. It brands it as blasphemy. What follows is inevitable. The state becomes paranoid. It cannot rest. It must constantly search for new traitors to purge. Reform becomes a crime. Dialogue becomes apostasy. There can be no middle ground, no compromise — only absolute control.

In this system, truth belongs to the ruling sect alone. To think differently is not a mistake — it is treason. The state no longer governs; it sanctifies itself. Power fuses with theology. Rule becomes divine command. And from that moment, every act of dissent becomes a threat to the sacred order. No regime built on this logic can tolerate peace. Peace implies coexistence. It suggests that another version of truth might exist. But in sectarian totalitarianism, there is only one truth — and only one authority to speak it. The heretic becomes more dangerous than the foreign enemy, because he corrupts the system from within. That is why these regimes live in constant fear of internal betrayal. They do not govern citizens; they hunt them.

Colonial powers did not build the modern Middle East into nations. They carved it into fragments. They drew their borders without reason. National identities remained shallow. In this vacuum, sectarian ideology offered a seductive substitute. It gave rulers a way to seize power without earning it. They did not ask for the people’s consent. They claimed divine authority instead.

Theocrats wrapped themselves in clerical robes to escape accountability. In Iran, the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih placed unchecked political power in the hands of a cleric. Ayatollah Khomeini did not rule as a man — he ruled as a voice of God. Sunni radicals followed the same path. Groups like ISIS declared caliphates not to govern, but to sanctify tyranny. These regimes do not fear criticism, because they do not answer to men. They answer to the metaphysical fiction they claim to represent.

Islamic regimes use a dangerous illusion. They raise the banner of anti-Zionism not to unify but to distract. They invoke Judaism and Israel as the ultimate enemy, hoping to forge a sense of solidarity across sectarian lines. But the truth remains: no propaganda can erase centuries of hatred between Sunni and Shia, between Salafi and Sufi, between Arab and Persian, between Turkic and non-Turkic. The hatred runs deep, and it does not disappear when leaders shout slogans against Israel.

This is not unity. It is manipulation. Anti-Zionism becomes a tool to crush dissent at home. It channels public anger away from corruption, poverty and tyranny, and toward an invented external enemy. It does not heal division; it hides it. The regimes that use this tactic know they cannot survive on truth, so they survive on scapegoats. But lies do not last. The cracks widen. The rhetoric grows louder, while the people grow poorer.

This is the real engine of Middle Eastern conflict. Not just land. Not just oil. It is the battle for the right to define God’s will — and to use that claim as a weapon. No treaty will break this system. No ceasefire will fix it. If regimes like Iran continue to export sectarian revolution as a matter of policy, the region will remain trapped in endless war. Peace will never begin on a battlefield. It begins in the mind. We must name doctrinal tyranny, expose it and defeat it. Only then can the Middle East escape from the chains of sacred war and step into the realm of civil peace.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution

The 1979 Iranian Revolution was not simply a change of regime; it was a civilizational rupture that produced a theocratic state with an unprecedented mission: to restructure the Islamic world according to the vision of Shiite clerical rule. Iran’s revolution claimed divine authorization through the doctrine of Vilayat al-Faqih. This doctrine, enshrined in Iran’s constitution, granted religious elites not only domestic supremacy but also a global mandate. 

Article 154 explicitly declared that the Islamic Republic was duty-bound to “support the just struggles of the oppressed” worldwide. This ideological euphemism laid the legal foundation for regional insurgencies, proxy warfare and transnational terror networks. This new paradigm made Iran’s foreign policy an extension of messianic doctrine.

The Islamic Republic institutionalized this transformation of ideology into action by creating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and specifically its external wing, the Quds Force, which carried out the mission of exporting the revolution. These were not simply elite military units but ideological vanguards — armed missionaries designed to reshape the region in Tehran’s image.

The IRGC trained and funded Shia militant factions during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, inside Iraq, creating the blueprint for what would later evolve into militia-state fusion. As early as 1982, Iran helped establish Hezbollah in Lebanon, embedding its revolutionary DNA in a new Shia militia that would grow into the region’s most sophisticated paramilitary movement. 

But Iran did not confine its ambitions to its sect. Tehran built connections with Sunni groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran and its allies bypassed doctrinal differences when they faced a shared strategic enemy in Israel and the West, proving that ideology would bend to power.

Of all Iran’s ideological exports, Hezbollah remains the most enduring and institutionally complete. Born in the rubble of Lebanon’s civil war, Hezbollah’s 1985 founding manifesto declared allegiance to Iran’s Supreme Leader and its goal of establishing an Islamic state in Lebanon. As Massaab Al-Aloosy has argued, Hezbollah evolved into a uniquely hybrid entity — a terrorist organization, political party and social welfare provider. This model of Islamic fascism does not simply mimic the authoritarian features of 20th-century totalitarian regimes. Instead, it integrates them with theological absolutism. 

In Hezbollah’s worldview, the enemy is not merely political dissent or a foreign occupier. It is ideological impurity. Its glorification of martyrdom, strict sectarian loyalty and rejection of pluralism form the core of an authoritarian theocratic identity, where the sect and the imamate define the sacred political community.

Iran’s reach and pragmatism allowed it to overcome sectarian lines when necessary. Nowhere is this clearer than in its alliance with Hamas, a Sunni group originally rooted in Muslim Brotherhood ideology. Initially antagonistic due to theological differences, Hamas gradually embraced Iran’s vision of resistance as its conflict with Israel intensified. Iran provided financial aid, smuggled weapons, supplied tactical training and built tunnel infrastructure that allowed Hamas to survive and militarize Gaza. 

By the mid-2000s, especially after the group’s electoral victory and its 1988 charter, Hamas began to mirror Iran’s revolutionary language, re-framing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a divine struggle, not a solvable territorial dispute. Its leaders visited Tehran, received IRGC guidance and adopted a media strategy aligned with the broader Axis of Resistance.

This model of revolutionary partnership extended to Yemen, where Iran found a new ideological canvas in the Houthis movement, also known as Ansar Allah. Originally a local revivalist faction rooted in Zaydi Shiism, Iran helped morph the Houthis into a more radicalized, Twelver-aligned militia. The group’s motto, “Death to America, Death to Israel,” is lifted directly from Iran’s revolutionary chant. By the 2010s, Iran supplied or engineered sophisticated missile and drone capabilities for the Houthis. These weapons allowed the group to strike deep into Saudi Arabia and threaten global commerce in the Red Sea.

The fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 provided Iran with its greatest strategic opening since 1979. Iraq, long a bulwark against Iranian expansion, became a vacuum of fractured authority in which Iran could embed deeply rooted proxies. The US-led dismantling of the Iraqi state allowed Tehran to co-opt existing militias such as the Badr Organization and empower new ones like Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq. 

All these militias pledged spiritual allegiance to Iran’s Supreme Leader. These groups infiltrated Iraqi security institutions, won parliamentary seats and turned Iraq into what I call a militia democracy. What distinguishes them from conventional insurgents is their ideological DNA. Rather than acknowledging themselves as part of a civil war, they present their struggle as resistance to Sunnis and Western imperialism.

Syria’s civil war further deepened Iran’s ideological project. Though the ruling Alawite regime under Bashar al-Assad does not follow mainstream Shiism, its geopolitical vulnerability made it an ideal ally. As protests spiraled into war, Iran intervened with billions in military aid, deploying not just IRGC troops and Hezbollah fighters, but also recruiting tens of thousands of Afghan Shia fighters from the impoverished Hazara population into the Fatemiyoun Division. 

These fighters, lured by salaries and promises of martyrdom, became part of Iran’s transnational jihad. Syria thus became the geopolitical artery of Iran’s vision: a corridor of power from Tehran through Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut to the Mediterranean. Iran entrenched what many call the Shiite Crescent by establishing an ideological, financial and logistical presence in Syria.

Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria are no longer just battlefields. They are proving grounds for a new form of tyranny. These lands have become ideological laboratories, where fanatics test how far they can bend reality to fit a totalitarian creed.

Islamic socialism

The ideological machinery of post-1979 Iran introduced a new hybrid: Islamic socialism. While the term may appear contradictory at first glance, it captures the unique fusion of theological absolutism with populist redistributionism. Islamic socialism is an economic-political framework that retains the authoritarian hierarchy of religious fascism, complete with doctrinal obedience and paramilitary enforcement. 

At the same time, it borrows heavily from socialist structures such as centralized welfare, state control over key industries and class-based grievance politics. Just as European fascists in the 20th century adopted socialism to win popular support while retaining autocratic control (e.g., the Nazi “Strength Through Joy” programs), the Islamic Republic has developed a theology of resistance economy. Here, economic hardship is not only tolerated but sanctified as martyrdom against global injustice. In this model, people must endure poverty collectively, heroically and violently rather than overcome it through liberal development. 

Shiite theology provides the foundation for this socialist-fascist hybrid, drawing on concepts of suffering, resistance and collective martyrdom. Shiism glorifies the mustadʿafīn, a group that Islamic texts frame as the downtrodden destined for divine justice. Khomeini’s revolutionary rhetoric reinterpreted this religious concept into a political-economic category, portraying the global poor — and particularly the Shia masses — as victims of Western imperialism. 

Economic disparity is not a result of governance failures or global markets, but of cosmic injustice. Similar to how Nazi ideology romanticized peasant sacrifice and national suffering as the price of destiny, the Islamic Republic elevates economic deprivation into a moral calling. It framed subsidy cuts, sanctions and austerity as acts of loyalty to a divine cause.

Crucially, leaders do not just impose the model of Islamic Socialism from above; they enforce it through tribal structures and sectarian identities. It replaces civic institutions with kinship loyalty and doctrinal submission. In the Iranian-led axis, traditional tribal instincts are not suppressed but weaponized. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the Shia militias in Iraq all demonstrate this structure. 

War footing as the foundation of economic life

These groups offer not only salaries and protection, but welfare, housing and education — all contingent upon ideological alignment and collective loyalty. They systematically erase individualism. One’s worth is not measured by merit or autonomy but by one’s allegiance to the sect, the tribe and ultimately, the martyrdom cause. This mirrors how Italian fascism and German Nazism mobilized pre-modern collectivism to erase individuality and convert citizens into functionaries of myth, soldiers of a destiny beyond themselves.

In these theocratic-socialist regimes, the individual disappears as a political subject. Rather than a bearer of rights, the person becomes a vessel of duty — primarily to the sect, then to the Supreme Leader. Ideological training begins early, often in religious schools controlled by paramilitary arms of the state or proxy groups. These institutions teach loyalty not just to God but to the revolutionary cause. 

The regime trains the youth, like those in Nazi Germany’s Hitlerjugend, not to think but to serve and sacrifice. Hezbollah’s Al-Mahdi schools and Iran’s Basij indoctrination programs illustrate this well. Here, Islamic Socialism becomes a mechanism for total identity control: dictating what to believe, what to fear, who to love and who to kill. Welfare is no longer a civic right — it is a weaponized privilege, allocated according to sectarian discipline and revolutionary usefulness. 

Moreover, this system depends on a dual moral economy: one inward-facing, promoting solidarity, and one outward-facing, glorifying hostility. Internally, Islamic Socialist leaders teach their communities to see themselves as pure, righteous and chosen. Externally, however, the world is divided into oppressors and enemies — whether they be the West, secular liberals, Sunni rivals or Zionists. 

The state’s leaders direct the economic and military engines toward this perpetual war footing. Iran’s leaders speak not of GDP growth but of jihad of production and economic resistance as if commerce itself were warfare. People allocate resources not to produce prosperity but to sustain ideological conflict. They echo Nazi Germany’s approach by fusing industry, propaganda and violence into a single war-making machine.

The myth of the Promised Land

Islamist regimes have spent decades weaponizing one of their most enduring myths: the belief that Israel seeks to fulfill a biblical prophecy by expanding its territory. According to this myth, Israel aims to restore the so-called Promised Land, stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. Islamist leaders and propagandists frequently repeat this claim in Friday sermons, regime media and militant manifestos. 

The narrative serves both psychological and strategic purposes by fostering a sense of perpetual victimhood among Muslim populations and justifying preemptive violence. However, no formal Israeli policy — past or present — has ever pursued such a fantasy. This contradiction between perception and reality is not an accident. It is the product of Islamic fascism.

Arab and Islamic leaders never admit that the biblical Promised Land in the Old Testament covers far less territory than Islamist propaganda claims. While Genesis 15:18 and Ezekiel 47 do reference land covenants, these verses are highly symbolic, varied in interpretation and not presented as a modern political blueprint. The more expansive version — suggesting Israeli claims over half the Arab world — is a misreading or deliberate distortion. 

Even within Jewish religious scholarship, there is no consensus on whether the land covenant is literal, spiritual or eschatological. More importantly, Israel, as a modern state, has never built policy around these verses. The secular Zionist movement that founded Israel drove its actions with political pragmatism, not theological maximalism. The Israeli Declaration of Independence, for instance, contains no reference to religious prophecy as a legal or territorial foundation for the state.

Prominent biblical scholars have repeatedly argued that the Promised Land verses do not apply to modern statecraft. Walter Brueggemann, a leading Old Testament theologian, explains that the land promises in Genesis and Ezekiel symbolize divine fidelity and human obligation. Ezekiel 47:13–23 outlines a limited, region-specific territory tied to historical tribes, not a universal conquest map. Jewish exegetes widely recognize the Nile to Euphrates phrasing in Genesis 15:18 as covenantal poetry, not a literal border plan. Contemporary Jewish religious institutions and Israel’s Chief Rabbinate have never endorsed any policy derived from these verses.

Oslo Accords and the recognition of a two-state framework

Israel’s territorial policy shows a consistent pattern of contraction and compromise, not expansion, contrary to the myth of expansionism. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel accepted the 1949 Armistice Lines rather than pressing beyond. In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel captured territory (including Sinai and the West Bank) but returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982 under the Camp David Accords. The Oslo Accords (1993–1995) and subsequent negotiations all recognized the concept of a two-state solution, even with territorial compromises. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, dismantling settlements without a peace agreement. 

These historical milestones disprove the idea of a consistent theological or messianic territorial agenda. Even in contentious areas like the West Bank, Israeli officials and lawmakers debate expansion according to legal and political frameworks rather than divine mandate.

Regimes like Iran and ideological movements like Hezbollah and Hamas treated the Abraham Accords as an existential crisis. The accords, signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, were a public rejection of the expansionist myth. They demonstrated that Arab nations — particularly those with strategic awareness — do not believe Israel is seeking to fulfill some ancient prophecy. These are not naïve regimes; they signed normalization agreements based on economic cooperation, technological exchange and geopolitical calculations.

The path forward

Real peace in the Middle East requires structural change. This approach rejects the shallow cycle of summit diplomacy and short-term ceasefires. Structural change demands a civilizational shift: leaders must dismantle sacralized politics and stop using religious narratives to justify power. This isn’t Western-style secularism but a deliberate separation of divine claims from state rule. Only through this shift can the region build lasting peace — rooted not in utopias or despair, but in economic freedom, cultural cohesion and strong institutions.

Conservative modernism offers a clear alternative to ideological extremes. It doesn’t fuse them. It escapes them. Unlike secular technocracy, which often alienates traditional societies, conservative modernism respects the cultural depth of the Middle East and promotes practical reform. It builds on Enlightenment ideals like individual liberty and economic autonomy while honoring civilizational continuity. 

Its foundation rests on three pillars: economic liberalism, cultural conservatism and institutional reform. It doesn’t force secularism, nor does it permit theocracy. Instead, it preserves spiritual identity while disarming messianic violence. It respects tradition without falling into tribalism, and religion without surrendering to religious absolutism.

Kemalism offers a powerful historical model within this framework. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk launched it in the early 20th century as a bold top-down effort to secularize Turkey. He abolished the Ottoman Caliphate, replaced Islamic law with Western legal codes and built a civic nationalism rooted in republican values. Kemalism stands as one of the few successful cases in the Islamic world where state institutions stripped religion of political power without erasing faith itself. Yet, the project also imposed authoritarian control, censorship and bureaucratic rigidity. 

Today, the Middle East can draw lessons from Kemalism — not as a complete solution, but as a foundational blueprint. It shows how nations can curb clerical authority without destroying religious life and how civic nationalism can overcome tribal and sectarian divides by building loyalty to the state.

Kemalism needs a complement. Its authoritarian legacy demands correction through the principles of libertarianism, which counters centralized coercion. Many in the Middle East misinterpret libertarianism as a Western indulgence or a form of moral anarchy. In truth, it is a philosophy of restraint — placing clear limits on state power. 

Within conservative modernism, libertarianism protects individual dignity from being sacrificed for national unity. It upholds free association, freedom of speech, private enterprise and personal conscience as essential pillars of post-sectarian societies. When paired with Kemalist reforms, libertarianism softens the state’s edges and makes room for civil liberties to thrive where ideological control once prevailed.

This fusion directly targets what I call the tribal complex — the web of kinship, patronage and sectarian loyalty that cripples modern statehood across the Middle East. In tribal systems, the individual never stands alone; he serves as a proxy for his group, bound by blood ties and religious allegiance. Tribal logic dictates political loyalty, economic access and legal protection, leaving little room for citizenship or merit. 

This is the real enemy of peace: the absence of a civic concept of the individual. Kemalism dismantles tribal structures through land reform, education and militia disarmament. Libertarianism then builds the culture of self-ownership and economic agency needed to prevent tribalism’s return.  

Conservative modernism demands a profound psychological transformation. Middle Eastern societies must abandon the mythology of martyrdom and embrace the everyday heroism of building families, businesses, schools and institutions. Peace begins when people stop seeking symbolic sacrifice and start pursuing tangible contribution. The new citizen must become a rational actor — focused on dignity through property ownership, child-rearing and value creation. Economic liberalism, in this vision, goes beyond material systems; it launches a moral revolt against fatalism.

Turkey’s potential role in reshaping the Abrahamic framework

Turkey holds the key to securing lasting peace in the Middle East through its integration into the Abrahamic framework. Turkey is a historic power. Unlike the Gulf monarchies that are dependent on petroleum dollars and foreign support, Turkey possesses the internal civilizational strength to lead. Its NATO membership, industrial capacity and nuanced relationship with Islam give it a unique ability to balance religious heritage with strategic logic. Including Turkey in the Abraham Accords would shift the regional balance. It would show that Iran’s ideological barriers are not only penetrable but also collapsing. 

Turkey’s participation would also redefine Muslim solidarity, moving it away from perpetual hostility toward Israel and shared goals in economic growth and technological progress. A regional alliance among Turkey, Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia could create a new peace axis and weaken Iran’s grip on ideological leadership.

The Islamic Republic of Iran remains the greatest single barrier to sustainable peace. This is not merely because of its actions, but because of its doctrine. One cannot reach a lasting agreement with a state that must, by its very ideology, destroy its negotiating partner to remain legitimate. Any peace built upon negotiation with such a regime is a ceasefire with a time limit. We must replace the Islamic Republic not through foreign war, but through internal transformation.

Regime change imposed by foreign powers breeds dependency and resentment, as seen in Iraq. Instead, change must emerge from within Iranian civil society — through education, economic empowerment and ideological detoxification. This requires long-term investment in civic literacy, especially among the youth. Only a population that understands the moral and civic basis of pluralism can dismantle a system built on sectarian fear. Empowered with economic agency and a desacralized worldview, Iranians themselves can — and must — be the agents of transformation.

A stable society must depoliticize religion without erasing it. Secularism is not atheism or cultural erasure — it is a safeguard. By limiting the political misuse of faith, secularism protects mosques, churches and synagogues as spaces for moral reflection, not power. To end partisan abuse, sectarian violence and theocratic repression, states must build a legal firewall between belief and authority. In this separation, both faith and civic life can thrive.

To summarize the core prescriptions proposed throughout this work, the following principles outline a structural roadmap for achieving sustainable peace in the Middle East:

• Depoliticize religion by enforcing constitutional secularism that protects faith while preventing its weaponization.
• Embrace economic liberalism to dismantle tribal patronage and foster individual autonomy.
• Redefine conservatism as civil order, family cohesion and moral continuity — not authoritarianism.
• Promote education reform rooted in critical reasoning, pluralism and civic ethics over sectarian indoctrination.
• Foster internal regime change in Iran and similar regimes through economic empowerment and ideological detoxification.
• Reject foreign invasions, supporting revolutions that emerge organically from educated and self-actualized societies.
• Integrate Turkey into the Abraham Accords to establish a strong axis of pragmatic, non-apocalyptic Islam.
• Normalize ties with Israel as a regional partner in trade, security and scientific advancement — not as a messianic threat.
• Fuse Kemalism with Libertarianism to combine institutional reform with civil liberty and crush the tribal complex.
• Replace martyrdom cultures with economic liberalism that prioritizes life, dignity and opportunity.
• Establish conservative modernism as the only viable doctrine suited to Middle Eastern reform.

[Liam Roman edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.