BROADCASTS.com

After months of tension and hostility in the Middle East over the Gaza-Israel conflict, Iran has publicly stated its desire to avoid a regional conflict. It has however displayed its military force on several fronts.

There have been missile strikes. Iran targeted militant bases in western Pakistan leading to a retaliatory back-and-forth with Pakistan. With attacks on Iraq and Syria, Tehran said it was targeting Islamic State and Israel's Mossad spy agency - both of whom it claimed were behind the deadliest domestic attack on Iranian soil since the Islamic revolution \u2013 an attack in early January that killed almost a hundred people in the southern city of Kerman.

Iran has been using proxy groups too - the so-called \u201cAxis of Resistance\u201d \u2013 to carry out attacks on Israel and its allies to show solidarity with the Palestinians. The axis is a grouping of Iran-backed militant groups including Houthi militants in Yemen who have been responsible for disrupting shipping in the Red Sea and have been targeted by US and UK air strikes aimed at deterring them. Other members of the axis include Hezbollah in Lebanon and various groups in Syria and Iraq. Tehran insists that the groups act independently but that the coalition shares its goals. Iran\u2019s stated aim is to roll back US influence in the Middle East and it stands ideologically opposed to Israel.\n \nIran\u2019s grown closer to China and Russia too, the latter more so since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022. What does Iran hope to gain from these relationships?

We also ask how Iran wants the current Israel-Gaza conflict to end.

So this week on The Inquiry we\u2019re asking \u2018What does Iran want?\u2019

Experts: \nNegar Mortazavi, Iranian journalist and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy.\nKirsten Fontenrose is a non-resident fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council\u2019s Middle East Programs. \nProfessor Maryam Alemzadeh, Associate Professor in History and Politics of Iran at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) and a Middle East Centre Fellow.\nSuzanne Maloney is the vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy.

CREDITS:\nPresenter: Charmaine Cozier\nProducer: Philip Reevell\nResearcher: Matt Toulson\nProduction Coordinator: Tim Fernley\nEditor: Tara McDermott\nTechnical Producer: Nicky Edwards

Image: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei

Image Credit: Anadolu/Getty