What does Iran really want?

On the surface, Iran’s Saturday missile and drone attack on Israel was a response to the Israelis’ airstrike on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus two weeks ago that killed at least seven officials, including commanders of the nation’s Revolutionary Guards.

Yet it also was an outgrowth of the enmity between Iran and Israel, including its ally the United States, that has been building for decades, a result of both the Iranian regime’s nature and of policy reversals and blunders by the US ever since the Western- and Israel-allied Shah of Iran was overthrown by Islamists in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

“A modern, strong, peaceful Iran could become a pillar of stability and progress in the region,” former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in 2006. “This cannot happen unless Iran’s leaders decide whether they are representing a cause or a nation – whether their basic motivation is crusading or international cooperation.”