The modern state of Iran is heir to the imperial civilization of ancient Persia. Its territory broadly aligns with the Mede, Parthian, Achaemenid, Sassanid, Qajar, and Pahlevi states and empires, whose spheres of influence often extended from the Mediterranean to Central Asia. Persia was the ancient world’s first superpower, and a bold if sometimes broken line connects the Persian monarchs of antiquity to the ayatollahs of today, whose very aggression is rooted in the geopolitics of their forebears. There are many Arab states, but there is only one Persian state – a state that has historically dominated its immediate Arab neighbours with its ample resources of cultural wealth and political organization. It took nothing less than the suffocating totalitarianism of Saddam Hussein to keep Iran out of Iraq. In the absence of such a dominant influence, Iraq must revert to its default, heavily Persian-influenced normal.

At the same time, Iran’s regime bears all the hallmarks of a sub-state – and all the advantages. Like Hezbollah, the various Shiite militias, and al Qaeda, the regime binds a close-knit, determined band of believers that has come to represent an ideology due to the revolutionary clarity of its ideas. Hezbollah, the various other Shiite militias, and al Qaeda have all been effective and innovative because they represent fervent sub-state ideologies. Meanwhile, the Iraqi army and other conventional forces in the Middle East have generally performed less impressively. This is because Arabs, with some exceptions, never really believed in their states, so they never believed in their state armies. Just ask the Israelis, who defeated those armies in the 1956, 1967, and 1973 wars.

The failure to understand this dynamic sits at the root of why the vast and expensive American plan to train the Iraqi army has largely fallen flat. Iran’s own state military may also not be very good. But its Revolutionary Guard Corps army and navy are another story: These are lethal and innovative forces because they are outgrowths less of the Iranian state than of the sub-state of radical mullahs. The Revolutionary Guards inculcate an ideology of resistance that also appeals to some Sunnis, whom the Shiite Iranians support in strategic and pragmatic ways. This flexibility on the part of Tehran evinces not only sub-state dynamism, but an ancient imperial mindset, too.

Civilizations represent a thick depository of language, culture, and values. The sub-state represents a dynamic solidarity group. Put the two together, as they are in revolutionary Iran, and you have a formidable adversary to ossifying Arab states.