During the past few weeks, the Islamic Republic has brutally tried to crush mass demonstrations throughout its borders. In an in-depth study of Tehran’s strategies and tactics, Yossi Kuperwasser argues that such domestic repression is part of the same comprehensive strategy that includes its support for militias, guerrillas, and terrorist groups in the Middle East and further afield, as well as its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Each of these endeavors, writes Kuperwasser, serves the ayatollahs’ “aims of spreading Islam and reducing the influence of Western states.” The tactics vary:

Iran practices asymmetric warfare because, although it is far too weak militarily to defeat the United States, it can still have a significant impact upon America and its allies [while simultaneously] influencing other countries and exacting from the United States a high price for interfering in the pursuit of its goals. Undoubtedly, the most obvious example of this is Iran’s nuclear-weapons program; not only does it negate the disparity in military strength between Iran and the world’s primary superpower, it has also enabled Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s regime to strengthen its domestic position with the lifting of sanctions [following the 2015 nuclear deal].

Iran is [also] able to pose a more direct threat through its sponsorship of terrorism. This sponsorship has expanded significantly over time and involves proxies within the Middle East, as well as worldwide sleeper cells.

Tehran’s network stretches far beyond such groups as Islamic Jihad in Gaza and Hizballah in Lebanon, to include both terrorist sleeper cells and lucrative criminal activity in Latin America:

[Some Iranian] sleeper cells [not only threaten] U.S. allies and trading partners but have [also] moved into organized crime to fund themselves, to undermine further the countries in which they operate, and to gain recruits for their operations. The most notable example of this is in Brazil, in which [Iranian agents’] large-scale weapons smuggling has benefited local gangs and cartels. This, along with the recruitment, brainwashing, and training of local youths through “cultural” centers and Shiite mosques have provided Iran with a high number of armed and ideologically-driven youth, . . . ready to attack [targets in the U.S. and abroad] in the event of war with the United States.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.