Today, Iran and Israel are exchanging direct attacks and threats of full-scale war. On Tuesday, 3rd March, Iran launched around 200 missiles, including hypersonic missiles, at Israel, raising the tensions in the Middle East to unprecedented levels. Israel has threatened that it will make Iran “pay” for the attack. Just a few days ago, on 1st March, various Iranian media outlets confirmed that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, had been killed in the coordinated US-Israeli strikes that started on 28th February.
BREAKING: Supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, killed along with his family after US-Israel carried out airstrikes, Iranian media confirms. pic.twitter.com/aiui1SOAkx
— Gplus.com (@Gplus_com) March 1, 2026
With this backdrop of open hostility, it may sound unbelievable that Israel and Iran were once secret partners. However, if we go back a few decades, it will be easy to recall that both Israel and Iran were working together as secret allies, targeting a common enemy, Iraq.
A common enemy: Saddam’s Iraq
In the 1960s and 1970s, long before Iran became an Islamic Republic, it was ruled by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. At that time, Iran had friendly ties with the West and maintained close, though mostly quiet, relations with Israel.
Both countries saw Iraq as a major threat. Israel was surrounded by hostile Arab regimes. Iran, under the Shah, feared Iraq’s rising Arab nationalist leadership and its ambitions in the region. Iraq’s push for dominance, especially under Saddam Hussein, worried both Tehran and Jerusalem.
This shared concern laid the foundation for deep cooperation. Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and Iran’s secret police SAVAK worked together to support Kurdish insurgents inside Iraq. The idea was simple: weaken Baghdad from within.
By 1958, Israel, Iran, and Turkey had formed a secret intelligence-sharing alliance known as “Trident.” The logic, as analyst Trita Parsi has explained, was that Israel needed alliances with non-Arab states on the “periphery” of the Middle East. Iran was the most important of them, not just because of its military strength, but also because it had oil, which Arab states refused to sell to Israel.
The Islamic Revolution changes everything
Everything changed in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution led by Ruhollah Khomeini. The Shah fled, and Iran transformed from a Western-leaning monarchy into a Sharia-based Islamic Republic. Khameini openly called the United States the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan.”
Publicly, Iran became fiercely anti-Israel. But geopolitics often works differently behind the scenes.
Just 18 months after the revolution, Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980. The Iran-Iraq War had begun. Saddam Hussein hoped to take advantage of Iran’s internal chaos and settle old territorial disputes, especially over the Shatt al-Arab waterway. The war would last eight brutal years and kill hundreds of thousands.
Despite their ideological hostility, Iran and Israel again found themselves facing the same enemy, Saddam’s Iraq.
Secret arms, quiet deals
Iran’s military was heavily dependent on American-made equipment purchased during the Shah’s time. But after the 1979 hostage crisis, when Iranian students held over 50 Americans captive for 444 days, the US imposed strict sanctions.
That left Iran desperate for spare parts and weapons. Israel stepped in.
In 1980, Israel secretly supplied Iran with spare parts for F-4 Phantom fighter jets, including 250 retreaded tyres. Without them, much of Iran’s air force would have remained grounded. Arms shipments continued through Europe, often via third countries.
From Israel’s perspective, preventing an Iraqi victory was crucial. Saddam’s regime was seen as a greater immediate threat. Weakening Iraq by helping Iran made strategic sense. There was also another concern, the safety of around 60,000 Jews still living in Iran. Keeping back-channel ties was seen as a way to protect them and allow emigration.
Even Khomeini, despite his harsh rhetoric, reportedly approved arms deals when told the weapons were Israeli. When a general pointed out the seller’s identity, Khomeini is said to have responded: “If you find these weapons, do you have to ask who the seller is?”
The Iran-Contra affair
The secret relationship became global news in the mid-1980s during the Iran-Contra affair. Senior officials in US President Ronald Reagan’s administration secretly facilitated arms sales to Iran, partly through Israeli channels, in exchange for the release of American hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Some of the money was illegally diverted to fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
The scandal damaged the Reagan administration’s credibility and exposed the complex web of covert dealings linking Washington, Jerusalem, and Tehran. But despite the controversy, arms transfers continued during much of the Iran-Iraq War.
From tactical partners to arch enemies
When the Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988, the fragile, secret alignment between Israel and Iran began to fade. After Khomeini died in 1989, Khamenei took over and continued a hardline anti-Israel stance.
By the 1990s, the geopolitical environment had shifted. Iraq was weakened after the Gulf War. The Soviet Union had collapsed. The strategic reasons that once pushed Israel and Iran together no longer existed.
Instead, Iran increasingly positioned itself as Israel’s main regional rival. It backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, groups that fought direct wars with Israel in 2006 and 2008. Iranian leaders regularly used rhetoric calling for Israel’s destruction.
2026: On the brink of war
Fast forward to today, and the hostility is open and direct. Iran’s nuclear programme, aggressively pursued under Khamenei despite US warnings, deepened tensions. Over the past year, Iran has also faced widespread anti-government protests across all 31 provinces due to economic instability and political repression. The regime’s crackdown on protestors drew global criticism and added to Washington’s pressure.
This volatile mix of domestic unrest, nuclear escalation, and regional proxy conflicts led to the recent coordinated US-Israeli strikes that killed Khamenei. In response, Iran launched massive missile attacks on Israel.
Israel is already fighting Iran-backed groups, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. These groups form what Iran calls its “Axis of Resistance.”
Today, the two countries are closer to all-out war than ever before.
Yet history shows that geopolitics is rarely permanent. Decades ago, Israel and Iran worked hand in hand to counter Iraq. Their partnership was built not on ideology, but on shared strategic needs.
Now, with missiles flying and leaders issuing threats, that chapter feels almost unimaginable. But it is a reminder that in the Middle East, alliances can shift, and yesterday’s secret partners can become today’s arch enemies.
