With a seismic shift in the political plates of the Middle East under way, the answer to this question has become abundantly clear.
Under the dual leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran and its proxies have been actively supporting subversive movements in the region with the ultimate goal of bringing down governing pro-Western regimes.
It is for Iran a historic opportunity. By hijacking legitimate expressions of democracy and self-determination, Iran's inimical objective is to simultaneously undermine US influence and entrench Islamic goals. This is the future Middle East Iran wants to build.
In the words of Khamenei, this "widespread awakening of nations" needs to be supported wherever it can be found. "We don't distinguish between Gaza, Palestine, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen. It is not an issue of Shi'ites and Sunnis - it is the protest of a nation against oppression," he has said.
In nearly every regional capital where there is domestic unrest, the malign influence of Iran can be found. In Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has accused Iran of fomenting trouble among the majority Shia population. And in Yemen, the Speaker of the parliament, Yehi Ali ali-Rai, accused Tehran of funding and arming Shia rebels in its north.It is a view shared by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who recently told a Senate appropriations committee, "We know they (Iran) are reaching out to the opposition in Bahrain. We know the Iranians are very much involved in the opposition movements in Yemen."
The ramifications of political change in these two countries would be far-reaching, as both are currently key US allies.
Bahrain is home to the US Fifth Fleet, an armada of aircraft carriers, submarines and more than 15,000 military personnel and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has given significant assistance in the fight against al-Qa'ida.
In contrast, the opposition movements in Bahrain and Yemen are openly hostile to a continuing US presence.
In Egypt, the growing influence of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, and its ties to Iran, is also cause for great concern.
Soon after the fall of Egypt's pro-Western president Hosni Mubarak, leaders from the Brotherhood travelled to Iran for an Islamic Unity Conference.
It was there that Kamal el-Helbawi, a former spokesman for the Brotherhood, praised the Iranian regime "as a model of resistance against the West's domination" and Ahmadinejad as "the No 1 figure of the Muslim world". By bringing the Muslim Brotherhood into its orbit, Iran is inching closer to its strategic goal of encircling its mortal foe, Israel. It is no coincidence that in recent weeks we have seen a resumption of mortar and rocket attacks into southern Israel, a bus bombing in Jerusalem and the apprehension of the vessel The Victoria seeking to smuggle a 50-tonne cache of sophisticated Iranian weapons from Syria to Gaza via Egypt.
Iran, having cemented its ties with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, will do all it can to draw Cairo away from its treaty with Jerusalem. Were this to happen, the regional power balance would shift dramatically. Not content with its activities in Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, Iran continues to frustrate progress in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In testimony to the Senate foreign relations committee last year, General David Petraeus, then commander of US Central Command, detailed Iran's activities in Iraq saying, "Qods Force also maintains its lethal support to Shia Iraqi militia groups, providing them with weapons, funding and training".
He went on to say that in Afghanistan, Iran has "hedged" its support for the Karzai government in Kabul, "providing opportunistic support to the Taliban". This support has included training Taliban fighters in Iran. In an interview in Britain's Sunday Times, one Taliban commander said of Iranian support: "Our religions and our histories are different, but our target is the same; we both want to kill Americans."
And that is it, the essence of the Iranian strategy in today's Middle East - the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Indeed, no longer constrained by historic enmities with Sunni brethren in the region, Iran will do anything it can to strike a blow against the US and its allies.
This includes waging what Khamenei called earlier this month an "economic jihad" against Iran's enemies.
Using its leverage as the president of OPEC and the cartel's second-largest producer, Iran has resisted calls for supplier nations to boost production as Libya's output as fallen. Only time will tell how Iran will play the oil card as the events in the region unfold.
Whether it is economic, political or military pressure, Iran is determined to deploy every weapon to destabilise legitimate democratic movements and undermine the coalition of Western interests in the Middle East. It is a tactic that is having its desired effect.
Unless there is urgent and co-ordinated international action to strengthen genuine reformers and exert pressure on pro-Western autocrats to reform, Iran's pernicious influence will rapidly grow. The longer Iran is left unchecked, the worse the situation in the region will become.
Josh Frydenberg is the federal member for Kooyong
