Why the Indonesian Public generally sides with IranThe question is worth answering with intellectual honesty. It is not merely a matter of politics, but of how identity, history, and the information ecosystem combine to shape collective perception.There are at least six overlapping layers of causation.First, Islamic identity as the primary lens.For the majority of Muslim Indonesians, the Israel-Palestine conflict is read first and foremost not as a geopolitical contest but as a religious one — a struggle between Islam and forces perceived as hostile to it. Iran, with its consistent revolutionary anti-Zionist rhetoric since 1979, has positioned itself with considerable effectiveness as the one state power willing openly to challenge Israel. Within this logic, whoever opposes Israel is understood to be defending Islam, and whoever defends Islam is a moral ally. The denominational distinction — Iran is Shia, Indonesia overwhelmingly Sunni — dissolves beneath a solidarity felt to be larger than sectarian difference, a solidarity rooted in a shared sense of embattlement.Second, a social media ecosystem that distorts.Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X carry a structural tendency to amplify content that is emotionally charged, morally binary, and readily shareable. The narrative of Iran as defender of Palestine is exceptionally well-suited to this format: it is simple, heroic, and furnished with an unambiguous villain. Content that introduces complexity — that Iran funds its proxies in the service of regional hegemony, that the Axis of Resistance collapsed at the very moment Iran was attacked, that ordinary Iranians have themselves protested against their government's subsidisation of foreign causes at the expense of domestic welfare — does not travel virally, precisely because it is not emotionally legible in thirty seconds.Third, the historical inheritance of anti-imperialism.Indonesia was born of resistance to colonialism. Anti-imperialist sentiment flows deeply through the political DNA of the republic since Sukarno. Israel is widely perceived as a Western colonial project on Arab land, and the United States as its indispensable sponsor. Iran, which has positioned itself in open defiance of both, is read through this lens as a fellow nation resisting hegemony — a resonance that reaches across differences of religion and geography and speaks directly to something foundational in the Indonesian national self-understanding.Fourth, the absence of adequate geopolitical literacy in public discourse.The analytical work of separating rhetoric from strategic interest, public narrative from behind-the-scenes calculation, genuine solidarity from instrumentalised solidarity, is demanding intellectual labour rarely reached by everyday media consumption. When the narrative of Iran as defender of Palestine has never been seriously challenged in Indonesian public life — not by the mainstream media, not by formal education, not by political discourse — it solidifies into axiom, something received without the need for verification. Unchallenged assumptions do not remain merely assumptions; in time, they become the ground on which all further thinking stands.Fifth, the influence of transnational Islamic networks.Some transnational Islamic organisations—some of which maintain significant networks within Indonesia—actively disseminate framings of resistance that are either directly drawn from the Iranian revolutionary tradition or broadly aligned with it. Sermons, devotional content, and religious literature circulating in pesantren and mosques have, in no small measure, framed Iran as the guardian of Al-Quds and of the Palestinian people. This is not a conspiracy; it is the cumulative effect of an Islamic discursive network that has operated patiently and persistently over many decades.Sixth, a paradox of sectarianism.What is perhaps most striking is this: a portion of Sunni Indonesian Muslims who, in other contexts, are deeply hostile to Shiism — some going so far as to regard it as theologically deviant — find themselves standing alongside Iran when the subject turns to Palestine. This suggests that solidarity with Palestine, in the Indonesian context, is a force more powerful than sectarian antagonism. Palestine has become, in Indonesian public perception, a cause that transcends the boundaries of denomination — and Iran, having successfully positioned itself as the foremost champion of that cause, is lifted by the same current.In short: the Indonesian public does not side with Iran out of any deep or considered understanding of Iran itself, but because Iran has managed — with considerable skill over more than four decades — to fuse its own image with that of Palestine in the collective imagination of global Muslims. What is being defended is Palestine; Iran has simply made itself the symbolic vessel of that defence. And it is precisely this that renders the narrative so susceptible to exploitation — both by those who constructed it, and by those who, in good faith, have come to inhabit it.
The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on 28th February 2026 in coordinated American and Israeli air strikes—an event that sent shockwaves through the Middle East's geopolitical architecture and drew immediate condemnation from leaders across the Muslim world — produced, within Indonesia, a controversy of a rather different and domestically revealing kind. For four days following the Supreme Leader's death, the Presidential Palace in Jakarta maintained what many observers described as a conspicuously cold silence. Indonesia's first official statement stopped short of condemning the strikes, offering only a call for all parties to exercise restraint and to prioritise dialogue and diplomacy. No personal expression of condolence came from President Prabowo Subianto himself — a striking absence, given that Iran and Indonesia maintain longstanding diplomatic relations and cooperate at the international level, and that the custom of extending condolences upon the death of a friendly nation's head of state is, in the ordinary run of diplomacy, entirely uncontroversial. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, by contrast, had already issued a strongly worded statement on the killing within hours, as had several Indonesian civil society figures, Islamic organisations, and senior political figures who moved considerably faster than the state. Islamic organisations, academics, and political parties had already extended their condolences since Monday, 2nd March—two days after Khamenei's passing—and it took a veritable downpour of public criticism before the President finally acted. The formal condolence letter, addressed to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and delivered on 4th March by Foreign Minister Sugiono through the Iranian Ambassador in Jakarta, Mohammad Boroujerdi, arrived only after former President Megawati Soekarnoputri had already sent her own personal letter to Tehran expressing solidarity and rejecting unilateral military aggression—a sequence of events that made the government's eventual gesture appear reactive rather than principled. The PDI-P argued that Indonesia had failed to extend even basic diplomatic courtesy to a close partner, whilst the Indonesian Ulema Council issued a strong condemnation of the American and Israeli attacks and urged the government to review Indonesia's membership of the Board of Peace. Behind this eruption of domestic pressure lay a question more fundamental than the niceties of diplomatic protocol: why did so large a share of the Indonesian public—and so vocal a portion of its netizen community—feel such an acute moral urgency to demand that their government mourn a foreign leader? The answer cannot be separated from the way in which much of Indonesian society has come to understand Iran's role on the world stage—namely, as the foremost champion of the Palestinian cause in its confrontation with Israeli and Western power, a perception so deeply embedded in the Muslim Indonesian collective conscience that it has invested the figure of Khamenei with the aura of a defender of justice, quite irrespective of the complexities and contradictions that, on closer examination, marked his leadership and Iran's strategic conduct in full.The question that animates the pages that follow is, at its core, deceptively simple: is Iran's championing of the Palestinian cause what it presents itself to be—a principled, selfless commitment to the liberation of an occupied people—or does it serve ends that are altogether more calculated, more strategic, and considerably less noble than the rhetoric of resistance would have one believe? Is Tehran genuinely the moral vanguard of the Muslim world's most urgent cause, or has Palestine been instrumentalised, decade after decade, as a banner of convenience—a means of projecting regional power, consolidating domestic legitimacy, and positioning Iran as the indispensable leader of an anti-Western bloc whose cohesion owes rather more to shared enmity than to shared values? And where, in all of this, does the question of oil and petrodollar geopolitics fit—not as a conspiracy theory, but as a structural reality that no serious analysis of the Middle East can afford to ignore? The reader is invited to follow the argument that unfolds in the sections below, not in search of comfortable certainties, but in pursuit of the more demanding and ultimately more useful thing: a clearer, more honest account of what is actually at stake, and why it matters—not least to a country like Indonesia, whose foreign policy traditions and whose obligations to its own people demand something more rigorous than the embrace of a narrative, however emotionally compelling, that has not been subjected to the test of evidence.BEYOND THE RHETORIC OF RESISTANCEAn Anatomy of the US-Israel versus Iran Conflict:Between the Palestinian Narrative, Petrodollars,and the Realities of Regional HegemonyGeopolitical Analysis—March 2026This essay argues that the protracted conflict between the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other, cannot be adequately explained through any single narrative — whether that of Iranian solidarity with Palestine or of petrodollar rivalry. What is actually unfolding is a multi-layered contest involving nuclear ambitions, regional hegemony, strategic momentum, and ideological-identity competition, in which the Palestinian and oil narratives function as instruments of public discourse rather than as root causes. This analysis traces each of those layers against developments in the region across 2023 to 2026, including the twelve-day war of June 2025, which proved to be the pivotal turning point in the Middle East's security architecture.I. Introduction: A Conflict That Cannot Be Read Through a Single LensWhen missiles arc across the Strait of Hormuz and nuclear facilities at Natanz are reduced to rubble by air strikes, millions of people around the world reach for an explanation. In Indonesian-language social media, two dominant narratives circulate with particular force: first, that Iran is the defender of Palestine, attacked for its moral courage in standing against the injustice visited upon the people of Gaza; second, that this is all ultimately about oil—that the United States is determined to secure its dominance over the petrodollar system and to ensure Iran cannot threaten the energy flows upon which American hegemony depends.Neither narrative is entirely wrong. But neither is entirely right—and, more dangerously, both are far too simple for a conflict whose roots run deep into history, whose driving forces are layered upon one another, and which operates within a regional dynamic of extraordinary complexity.This essay is not written to defend any particular party. It is written to encourage clearer thinking by tracing, layer by layer, the interests that are actually propelling this conflict towards the highest point of escalation witnessed in a generation. By understanding the genuine roots of what is happening, we—Indonesia included, as the world's most populous Muslim democracy and a country committed to an independent and active foreign policy—can respond with wisdom rather than mere reflex.II. The Palestinian Narrative: Ideological Shield or Genuine Commitment?Iran is one of very few countries in the world that has formally and consistently refused to recognise Israel as a legitimate entity. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 under Ayatollah Khomeini, Tehran has ideologically positioned itself as the centrepiece of an "Axis of Resistance" against Zionism and Western imperialism. Iran's financial and military support for Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq all flow beneath the canopy of this ideology.On the surface, the narrative appears coherent. Iran does indeed pour significant resources — estimates place the figure at roughly 700 million US dollars per year before international sanctions began to erode that capacity — into funding its regional proxy network. It was Iran that furnished Hamas with the weapons, intelligence, and training that formed a significant part of the operational foundation for the 7 October 2023 attacks.But here is the first critical point of scrutiny: is solidarity with Palestine truly what drives Iran's regional strategy, or is it merely the ideological cloak draped over ambitions that are, at their core, considerably more pragmatic?
Evidence That Undermines the 'Defender of Palestine' NarrativeSeveral facts suggest that Iran deploys the Palestinian cause as an instrument rather than as its deepest motivation. First, Hamas is a Sunni movement, whilst Iran is a Shia state. Relations between the two have always been characterised by latent sectarian tension. When Hamas withdrew from Damascus in 2012 and sided with the Sunni opposition in the Syrian Civil War, Iran temporarily curtailed its support. Reconciliation only came in 2022 — and not out of sincere ideological kinship, but because of cold strategic calculation on both sides.Second, and perhaps most telling: when Israel launched Operation Rising Lion in June 2025 and struck Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, virtually the entire Iranian proxy network chose silence. Hezbollah did not respond. Iraqi militias did not stir. Hamas was by that point too shattered to act. The Houthis fired a handful of missiles, easily deflected by Israeli air defences. What had been propagandised for years as a unified front of resistance proved, at the moment of genuine existential test, to be a loose confederation of opportunistic actors, each calculating its own survival.Third, within Iran itself, the population has repeatedly taken to the streets with slogans that most honestly reflect the underlying reality: "Not Gaza, not Lebanon — my life is for Iran!" This is a direct expression of profound resentment towards a regime that sacrifices domestic welfare — a crisis-ridden economy, rampant inflation, power outages, water scarcity — on the altar of ideological adventurism abroad.A regime truly driven by solidarity with Palestine would not face cries of 'do not sacrifice us for Gaza' from its own people.The more accurate conclusion is this: Iran uses the Palestinian cause as a source of Islamic and pan-Arab legitimacy in the region, as a tool for mobilising Muslim global opinion, and as an ideological justification for building its proxy network — which is in truth designed to serve purposes far more pragmatic: projecting power, extending regional influence, and constructing a form of forward defence that displaces threats well away from Iranian soil.III. The Petrodollar Narrative: A Real Dimension, But Not the RootThe petrodollar narrative — the claim that this conflict is fundamentally about the United States maintaining dollar dominance in global oil trade and eliminating any actor bold enough to challenge that system — holds a certain appeal, particularly amongst those inclined to read geopolitics through the lens of political economy.It is not entirely mistaken. There is a real energy dimension that cannot be dismissed. The Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman — is one of the most critical energy chokepoints in the world. Nearly one fifth of the global oil supply passes through it daily. Every time Iran threatens to close the Strait, the price of Brent crude leaps past the psychological threshold of one hundred dollars per barrel and global energy markets convulse.There is also a dimension of Saudi-Iranian rivalry that cannot be separated from the dynamics of the oil market. Saudi Arabia and Iran are longstanding petro-regional competitors — not only ideologically (Sunni monarchy versus Shia Islamic Republic), but economically, as fellow major OPEC producers whose interests have frequently clashed.B. Why the Petrodollar Narrative Falls ShortYet there are several reasons why the petrodollar narrative — particularly in its most popular circulating form — is insufficient as a primary explanation. First, if this conflict were chiefly about oil, the United States would be far more cautious about disturbing the region's energy production and distribution. In practice, the American military operation in June 2025 — known as Operation Midnight Hammer — targeted Iranian nuclear facilities and immediately triggered a sharp rise in oil prices and renewed threats to close the Strait. This is not the behaviour of a power motivated primarily by a desire to stabilise energy markets.Second, if the principal American objective were to secure petrodollar dominance, a diplomatic accord with Iran — such as the one Obama very nearly achieved through the JCPOA in 2015 — would be a far more rational vehicle for doing so than a military confrontation that destabilises the region and renders energy markets thoroughly unpredictable.The energy dimension is real, but it is best understood as a consequence and a side-wager of this conflict, not as its cause. Oil is a card that Iran plays in order to raise the cost of opposition — it is not the heart of the matter.IV. The Layers of Genuine CausationIf the conflict is not principally about Palestine, and not principally about oil, then what is actually driving it to the boiling point we are witnessing? The answer is composed of at least four layers that sit upon one another and mutually reinforce each other.A. Nuclear Ambitions: The Most Concrete and Most Persistent IssueIran's nuclear programme is the single issue that has appeared consistently at the centre of every cycle of escalation over the past two decades. It is no coincidence that Operation Midnight Hammer targeted Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — Iran's three principal nuclear facilities. Nor is it coincidental that the immediate trigger for the twelve-day war was the IAEA's finding that Iran had violated its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.From Israel's perspective, this is an existential matter. The Begin Doctrine — named for the 1981 Israeli air strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor — holds that Israel will never permit an enemy state to acquire nuclear weapons. In Tel Aviv's calculus, a nuclear-armed Iran would fundamentally alter the regional balance of power and threaten Israel's very survival as a state.From Washington's perspective, the dimensions are broader still. A nuclear-armed Iran would not merely threaten Israel; it would likely trigger a cascade of proliferation across the region — Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt each having their own incentives to develop equivalent capabilities. A Middle East populated by multiple nuclear actors is the worst-case scenario for global stability.B. Regional Hegemony: A Contest Over Competing Visions of OrderBeneath the nuclear issue lies a more fundamental rivalry: who will dominate the order of the Middle East in the post-Cold War era? Iran's ambitions are clear and have been stated openly by its leadership — to become the region's dominant power, leading an Axis of Resistance against American and Israeli hegemony.These ambitions are not empty rhetoric. Over two decades, Iran systematically constructed what strategists call a forward defence posture — establishing proxy networks in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza, such that any conflict with Iran would first be felt by its enemies long before it reached Iranian soil.Israel, for its part, holds a diametrically opposed vision. Tel Aviv has consistently worked to ensure that no other regional power can match it militarily. Iran was the one actor that had been building asymmetric capabilities — through ballistic missiles, drones, and proxy networks — capable of challenging Israeli military supremacy.What is unfolding is not merely a bilateral conflict. It is a contest between two visions of regional order that cannot coexist: Iran's vision of an Axis of Resistance grounded in Shia-revolutionary ideology, against the Israeli and American vision of a region that accepts Western and Israeli primacy.C. Strategic Momentum: A Calculated OpportunityThere is a third dimension that often escapes popular analysis: the factor of momentum and strategic calculation. The twelve-day war of June 2025 did not occur in a vacuum. It occurred at the precise moment when Iran found itself in its weakest position in a generation.Since 7 October 2023, Iran has haemorrhaged strategic assets: the fighting capacity of Hamas, largely dismantled by IDF operations; Hezbollah, stripped of its leader Hassan Nasrallah (killed in September 2024) and much of its command structure; Syria under Assad, fallen in December 2024 — severing the land bridge that for years served as Iran's crucial logistical corridor to the Mediterranean; and its significant influence in Iraq, where Prime Minister Sudani has been moving progressively closer to Washington.At the same time, Iran confronted a severe domestic economic crisis compounded by cascading sanctions, high inflation, and intense social and political pressure from within. In these circumstances, Israel and the United States performed a calculation that was simple but merciless: if not now, when?D. American Domestic Politics: Israel, Lobbying, and TrumpThe fourth layer is the factor of American domestic politics. The US-Israel relationship is not a conventional strategic alliance. It is a political, cultural, and ideological symbiosis of exceptional depth, reinforced by powerful pro-Israel lobbying in Washington, by Trump's evangelical Christian support base — which views Israel through a theological lens — and by the personal relationship between Trump and Netanyahu.Reports indicate that Trump's decision to authorise Operation Midnight Hammer came after sustained pressure from the governments of Saudi Arabia and Israel. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman actively pushed for military action against Iran — not out of any sympathy for Palestine (Saudi Arabia's own record on the Palestinian cause is far from distinguished), but because a weakened Iran serves Saudi strategic interests directly.V. The Collapse of the Axis of Resistance: When Rhetoric Meets RealityOne of the sharpest ironies in this entire conflict is the fate of the proxy network that Iran spent decades constructing at enormous cost. The Axis of Resistance — always presented as a consolidated force ready to stand shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy — collapsed at precisely the moment it was most needed.When Israel struck 27 Iranian provinces with approximately 360 air sorties during the twelve-day war, killing 30 senior IRGC commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, and destroying Iranian air defence systems to the point of achieving air superiority even over Tehran, the entire proxy network was effectively silent. A senior Iranian official reportedly acknowledged to a journalist from The Telegraph: "The Houthis are out of control... and some of the Iraqi groups are acting as though we never had a relationship with them."Hezbollah did not respond. The Iraqi militias did not move. Hamas was too broken to act. The Houthis fired a handful of missiles that were easily intercepted. What had for years been propagandised as a unified front of resistance proved to be a loose confederation of opportunistic actors, each prioritising its own narrow interests when the stakes became genuinely high.This failure confirms what analysts had long suspected: the resistance narrative that Iran constructed is an ideological edifice that works well in rhetoric and propaganda, but proves brittle when subjected to a genuine existential test. Every member of the Axis weighed its own risks and chose self-preservation.This also dismantles a fundamental error in the narrative of Iran as defender of Palestine: if Iran were truly committed to Palestine as an end rather than an instrument, the Axis of Resistance should have staked everything when Iran itself was attacked. What happened was precisely the opposite.VI. The Global Dimension: A Contest Over World OrderThe US-Israel versus Iran conflict cannot be fully understood without situating it within the broader contest over the international order. This is not only a regional conflict — it is one of the theatres of a fundamental shift in international relations that is presently underway.On one side, the United States and Israel sit within a bloc seeking to preserve the liberal international order under Western leadership, in which Israel functions — in the view of Western-aligned analysts — as a forward defence node for American interests in a volatile region. Israel's military operations against Iranian nuclear infrastructure and proxy networks are not solely about Israeli security; in Washington's framing, they serve to disrupt the formation of a coherent anti-Western network across the Middle East.On the other side, Russia, China, and Iran — though ideologically divergent — converge in their interest in eroding American hegemony. Both Russia and China have supported Iran in diplomatic forums and provided Tehran with the breathing room to circumvent the effectiveness of Western sanctions. The oil price surge triggered by Operation Rising Lion delivered a windfall for the Russian war economy, which is heavily dependent on energy exports.Here we encounter one of the conflict's greatest paradoxes: Iran, which has always positioned itself as the champion of the oppressed, has in practice become a partner of Russia — a country engaged in the systematic destruction of Ukraine — by supplying drones and ammunition. Solidarity with the oppressed, it turns out, is highly selective.VII. Implications for IndonesiaIndonesia, as the world's most populous Muslim country, its third-largest democracy, and a member of the G20, cannot afford to take a position based solely on religious solidarity or to follow the currents of simplified narrative. The principle of an independent and active foreign policy demands rather more than that: it demands a clear-eyed assessment of Indonesia's own national interests amidst this turbulence.There are at least three concrete interests to be weighed. First, energy stability: as a net oil-importing country, any surge in energy prices caused by disruption to the Strait of Hormuz directly affects Indonesia's domestic economy, its inflation rate, and its cost of production. Second, trade stability: disruption to Red Sea shipping lanes — exacerbated by Houthi attacks sponsored by Iran — also affects Indonesian supply chains. Third, diplomatic posture: Indonesia has a significant interest in maintaining its credibility as an actor that can be trusted by all parties, rather than being perceived as a mouthpiece for any one bloc.This means Indonesia ought to condemn military escalation — from whichever quarter — not out of ideological sympathy with Iran or antipathy towards the United States, but because uncontrolled military escalation threatens Indonesia's concrete national interests. At the same time, Indonesia need not uncritically swallow the narrative of Iran as defender of Palestine — a narrative that, as this essay has set out to demonstrate, functions more as propaganda than as an accurate account of Iranian motivation.VIII. Conclusion: Beyond the Narratives That OversimplifyThe conflict between the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other, cannot be read through a single lens. The narrative of Iran as defender of Palestine contains a grain of truth but, taken whole, functions more as ideological legitimation than as causal explanation. The petrodollar narrative captures one real dimension but fails to explain why the conflict has grown more rather than less escalatory at precisely those moments when escalation damages global energy interests.What is genuinely driving the conflict is a complex accumulation of interests: Iran's nuclear ambitions, which provoke existential anxiety in Israel; the rivalry between two visions of regional order that cannot coexist; the strategic calculation that sees a weakened Iran as a rare opportunity to resolve a longstanding problem; the dynamics of American domestic politics inseparable from its special relationship with Israel; and the broader contest over international order, in which Iran, Russia, and China share an interest in wearing down Western hegemony.Palestine is genuinely suffering amidst all of this. But Palestinian suffering has been exploited by every party — by Iran for legitimacy, by the United States and Israel for counter-narrative framing, by Saudi Arabia to play both sides. The painful truth is that the interests of the Palestinian people are no one's primary concern in this conflict.Understanding this is not an act of cynicism or a surrender of empathy. On the contrary, by understanding the interests actually at play, we can distinguish between genuine solidarity and instrumental solidarity, between policies that truly advance peace and those that merely exploit suffering as a political commodity.Therein lies the value of honest geopolitical analysis: not to render us passive, but to make us harder to manipulate.
"Of all the forms that solidarity may take, none is more honest than a clear and undeceived mind."
NOTE ON SOURCESThis analysis draws upon primary and secondary sources published between 2023 and March 2026, including reports from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), The Soufan Centre, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Gulf International Forum, and Small Wars Journal, as well as reportage from The Hill, the Jerusalem Post, Middle East Eye, and interviews with senior Iranian officials as reported by The Daily Telegraph. All factual claims reference sources that are independently verifiable.
[Part 15]
