In 1978 when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was forced to leave Iraq where he had been in exile since 1963, Assad suggested him refuge in Damascus. Assad regarded the Islamic revolution in Iran in February 1979 as an opportunity to further implement his policies. Although he was against any Islamic movement, but as the Iranian one was a Shia movement he found an ally in the new Iranian government. The new government of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran promptly abolished Iran's ties with Israel and Egypt and turned hostile towards these states. Assad established an alliance with Iran, whose political and social principles — except those concerning Israel and the United States — were dramatically opposed to Ba'athist doctrines. Assad consistently extended military and diplomatic assistance to Iran during the Iran–Iraq War in order to secure legitimacy and support for his rule in Syria and his policies in Lebanon. He used the potential threat from Iran to manipulate Arab states in the Persian Gulf into continuing their financial and diplomatic support for Syria, weakening and possibly toppling the Iraqi government, and subsequently employing Iraq and Iran for "strategic depth" and as allies in Syria's confrontation with Israel, thus emerging as leader of the all-Arab struggle against Israel. Assad repeated that the Iran–Iraq war should not have occurred since it was waged against a potential ally of the Arabs and diverted the Arabs' attention, resources, and efforts from their real enemy, Israel. According to Assad, most Arab countries had been wrongly led to support Iraq in an unnecessary war against Iran, rather than support Syria in its vital national-historical struggle against Israel.