Between the Project of the Nation-State and Projects of Hegemony: A Calm Reading

 At a moment when the confrontation between the United States and Iran is escalating, coinciding with the continued Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and the expansion of settlements, the Arab nation finds itself at a dangerous crossroads.

The danger does not lie only in the war itself, nor merely in its devastating economic and security repercussions, but in the choices that Arab publics are – as usual – asked to make. Some are calling on them to choose between two camps, both of which contradict their interests and threaten their very existence.

Some call for standing with Iran because it confronts America and Israel and sponsors the so-called “axis of resistance” in several countries, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and a number of Palestinian resistance movements. They describe Iran’s unjustified attacks on the Gulf states as a secondary detail that should not receive attention. Some go further, attributing those attacks to the Gulf states’ permission for American military bases on their territory, thereby providing Iran with an objective justification for launching such attacks.

As if Iran needed justifications when it paved the way and assisted, through its intelligence agencies, the American invasion of Iraq; or when it helped sow division among the citizens of one nation in Lebanon by planting a body affiliated with the doctrine of the Guardianship of the Jurist, loyal to it and obedient to its commands; or through its attempts to seize the Arab region by planting its agents in many countries, including Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine—and what remains hidden is even greater.

Attempts to push the Arab citizen—and the Egyptian citizen in particular—to choose between these two projects are, in my view, a trap set by some to prevent us from looking with reason and wisdom at the danger both projects pose to the future of the Arab nation and its generations. Both are expansionist and colonial projects seeking to devour the resources of the Arab world. Both thrive on the weakness and fragmentation of the Arab nation and feed off each other; the existence of one is a condition for the existence of the other, and vice versa.

Both call upon us to pay the price for a war that is not ours and to serve an agenda that is not ours.

This reading rejects that equation at its foundation. We are not compelled to choose between these two projects, because we possess our own project: the project of the nation-state.

Before addressing the details of this vision, I would like to elaborate briefly on my general view of the war and its parties.

Position on the War

Before entering the core of this important reading, I must state clearly, without ambiguity, that I reject the American war on Iran.

I reject it because war is not a legitimate tool for resolving disputes between states. I reject it because destroying a regional state by a unilateral American decision would create chaos that the entire region would pay for. I reject it because the experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya have proven that American wars in the region do not produce stability but rather devastation.

Yet—and this is the crux of the matter—my rejection of war against Iran does not mean acceptance of the Iranian project in the Arab region. There is a fundamental difference between rejecting the destruction of a country and accepting that this country penetrate Arab states from within and spread corruption and division.

I reject both.

This distinction is not an intellectual luxury but an ethical and political necessity. Many are trying to place us before two choices and no third: either you bless the war on Iran or remain silent about everything Iran has done in the region and about its blatant aggression against our brothers in the Gulf without any objective justification.

I reject this blackmail.

Diagnosis

The Arab region today faces three competing projects.

The First Project: The Iranian Expansionist Project

The first is the Iranian expansionist project—the “new Safavid” project. This description is not sectarian nor does it carry hostility toward our Shiite brothers; rather, it is a historically precise description of a specific political project.

The Safavid state in the sixteenth century imposed Shiism on Iran by force and used sectarian doctrine as a tool to construct an imperial identity in opposition to the Ottoman state. The current Iranian regime replicates that model almost exactly: it employs sectarianism as a political instrument, builds cross-border networks of loyalty, and plants armed proxies within Arab states to serve its imperial ambitions.

I am not speaking about Shiites as a sect. Arab Shiites are citizens and brothers in their countries, possessing full rights like their Sunni Arab brothers. Most of them categorically reject the Iranian project.

What I am speaking about is a political system in Tehran that exploits an entire sect and uses it as fuel for a project of dominance that has nothing to do with Islam or even with the interests of Shiites themselves.

This project penetrated Lebanon through Hezbollah, which transformed the country from a state into a hostage. It penetrated Iraq through armed militias that have become stronger than the Iraqi state itself. It penetrated Yemen through the Houthis, who turned Yemen into a platform for Iranian missiles. It has also attempted to penetrate Bahrain, Kuwait, and others.

More dangerously, this project has at critical moments acted as a dagger in the back of the Arab nation. Iran facilitated the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and cooperated with Washington in toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In other words, the party that raises the slogan “Death to America” was a partner with America in the two most consequential military operations that struck the region in recent decades.

The true face of this project appeared in the recent crisis, when Iran effectively took the Arab Gulf region hostage and directed its missiles and attacks toward Arab states far more than toward Israel. This reveals that the Palestinian cause for this regime is not a cause of a usurped homeland but rather a cover for a project of regional influence.

The Zionist Project

In contrast, there is the Zionist project, which occupied Palestine and displaced its people, occupied the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied parts of Lebanon, and aspires to the project of “Greater Israel” from the Nile to the Euphrates. This is a colonial settler project based on replacement, ethnic cleansing, and the imposition of facts on the ground by force.

Some analysts make the mistake of believing that the Israeli project is less dangerous simply because it “floats on a lake of Arab hostility” and lacks a popular base in the region as Iran does. This analysis appears logical but overlooks a fundamental fact: Israel does not need a popular base because it does not operate through such instruments.

Israel expands through entirely different tools: overwhelming military superiority, an organic alliance with the United States, deep intelligence penetration, economic and political normalization, fragmentation of Arab issues, and the dismantling of collective Arab will.

Israel does not need Arabs to love it in order to expand. It expands despite their hatred, and that in itself makes it a different kind of danger.

Therefore I say clearly: Israel is a present, permanent, and historical threat. Whoever observes what is happening in Gaza today—killing and displacement—what is happening in the West Bank—daily settlement expansion—and what is happening in Jerusalem—systematic Judaization—realizes the scale of the true danger of this project.

The Fundamental Difference Between the Two Projects

Many people ask: which is more dangerous?

The question itself is a trap that should be avoided, because the two projects do not operate independently of one another. Each feeds the other organically.

Iran filled a vacuum left by Arab incapacity in confronting Israel. Hezbollah did not arise in a vacuum but from the womb of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982. The Houthis did not expand in a vacuum but amid the collapse of the Yemeni state. Iraqi militias did not grow in a vacuum but after the destruction of the Iraqi nation-state by the United States.

Each time an Arab state collapses or is struck, the Iranian project enters through the back door.

Conversely, Iran uses the existence of Israel as a pretext to justify its expansion, telling Arabs: I resist Israel on your behalf, so allow me to build bases in your countries. This is a form of blackmail far removed from any genuine form of resistance.

The two projects function as complementary projects for the destruction of the Arab region even while they appear to confront one another. Confronting one without confronting the other does not solve the problem but deepens it. Whoever confronts Iran alone leaves the door open to Israel, and whoever confronts Israel alone leaves the door open to Iran.

Nevertheless, it is essential to distinguish between the nature of the two threats in order to understand how to confront each of them.

The Iranian project operates from within. It penetrates the structure of the nation-state through proxies, militias, and sectarian networks. It fragments societies and builds parallel states within the state. It exploits a social base represented by Shiite communities in some Arab countries. Confronting it therefore requires precise political, social, and cultural tools—not merely military force.

The Israeli project operates from above. It imposes itself through military power, technological superiority, and American support. It does not require a popular base because it depends on the balance of power rather than the balance of hearts. Confronting it therefore requires building genuine Arab power: military, economic, technological, and political.

The conclusion is clear: neither project is absolutely “more dangerous” than the other. Both represent existential threats to the Arab nation, but they operate through different mechanisms and require different strategies of confrontation.

The Third Project: The Project of the Nation-State

Faced with these two expansionist projects, the Arabs do not have the luxury of neutrality or the luxury of retreating individually, with each state isolating itself.

The duty of the moment—after what has occurred in this war, which will not be the last to reshape the face of this region—is to build their own project: the project of the nation-state.

What Does the Nation-State Project Mean?

First, it means sovereignty:
that the Arab state be master of its own decision, not an arena for the conflicts of others. Tehran does not decide who rules Baghdad; Washington does not decide who rules Damascus; Tel Aviv does not determine the borders of Palestine.

Second, it means cooperation:
Arab states building a genuine system of cooperation based on shared interests and mutual respect—a form of Arab unity built not on slogans but on joint projects in energy, food security, technology, and security.

Third, it means building internal strength:
because a region that does not possess its own power will remain an arena for the imposition of others’ power. Building strength begins with building the state, not with building militias.

Fourth, it means development:
the first objective of the state should be the construction of the Arab human being—educating, healing, employing, and empowering them. A strong state is not one that possesses missiles alone but one that possesses a strong economy, a cohesive society, and free citizens.

Fifth, it means non-interference in the affairs of other states:
that the Arab state respect the sovereignty of its neighbors just as it demands that they respect its sovereignty. It does not export militias, plant proxies, or ignite sectarian strife.

A Collective Project

This project does not belong to a single state. It is a collective Arab project that every Arab state can adopt and contribute to.

Egypt, however—with its long historical experience in building the state, its central geographical position, its demographic and cultural weight, and its political moderation—is well positioned to serve as a central pillar of this project. Not in the sense that Egypt leads everyone, but in the sense that the Egyptian experience in preserving the nation-state can serve as an inspiring model for the region.

Egypt did not allow political Islamist groups to seize the state. It did not allow militias to replace the army. It did not fall into chaos despite enormous pressures.

That alone is a powerful lesson for anyone who wishes to understand the difference between a state and a militia.

Conclusion

This reading is not merely political analysis; it is a position.

It is a position that says Arabs are not compelled to choose between two expansionist colonial projects, nor are they compelled to become fuel for the wars of others or an arena for the ambitions of others.

It is a reading that affirms that the project of the nation-state and comprehensive Arab cooperation is the only response to those who seek to drag the region into their own projects.

The question that must now be asked is not:

With whom do we stand?

But rather:

What must we build?