Cafes in bustling Central London are always full of tourists, of which many moneyed ones come from the Arab world. Once, I found myself deep in conversation with a young Saudi architect, who, in a moment of rare candour, shared his thoughts on what he termed the "slaughtering of Gazans" over the past year.

"We are in distress," he sighed. "We young Saudis can see Gaza being flattened, but my country stays silent." These are brave words from a Saudi, no doubt on foreign land. But then, it's a country where the closest thing to freedom of speech is the freedom to agree with the monarch.

But what really made the conversation interesting was his view on Iran's missile strike against Israel on October 1. "Iran is the only country standing up to Israel and America," he said in admiration and relief. A Sunni Saudi praising a Shiite Iran is like an Iranian praising Israel. It should give Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a sleepless night.

Two weeks ago, an avalanche of missiles rained down over Israeli skies, causing limited damage but sending shockwaves through the Muslim world. From Jakarta to Jenin, the celebrations were will - people cheering as though it was Israel's final defeat. Screams, slogans, sheer disbelief. Never mind that Israel's inevitable retaliation, which is yet to come, could be even more spectacularly deadly. For them, the mere fact that someone - anyone - had dared to defy Israel was enough. Forget logic. This was emotional catharsis at its peak.

It is not surprising then that Tehran's defiance against Israel and the US is making the Islamic Republic more popular across both the wider Shiite and Sunni communities. It is important to recall the 2006 Lebanese war, when Iran's active support to Hezbollah against Israel generated a surge in support for Iran across the Muslim world.

"The Iranian people's revolution is just the beginning of the revolution for the entire Islamic world." Those were the words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the man who kickstarted the 1979 Iranian Revolution and essentially declared his intention to export Iran's brand of Islamic revival far and wide.

While policymakers and analysts in the West tend to fixate on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its well-trained armed militias, they are really just scratching the surface. Sure, the IRGC's militia network packs a punch, but that's only one part of Iran's influence. The real thing happens behind the scenes, where Iran has built a whole soft-power empire across West Asia - and beyond -thanks to........

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