The commander of the foreign wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was upbeat as he addressed a rally marking the 36th anniversary of the uprising that ushered in theocratic rule.
"We are witnessing the export of the Islamic revolution throughout the region," Qassem Suleimani, the increasingly public head of the elite Quds Force, said last week. "From Bahrain and Iraq to Syria, Yemen and North Africa."
While grand declarations regularly feature in speeches commemorating the 1979 revolution that ousted the Shah, this year Suleimani's words carry more meaning. As it attempts to negotiate a nuclear deal that would free its economy from sanctions, Shiite Iran's influence is increasingly visible from the Gulf of Aden to the Mediterranean. Sunni states, especially those like Saudi Arabia that have waged proxy wars with Iran in a fight for regional supremacy, are uneasy.