Imagine a country with a weak, almost nonexistent air defense system and no major ally ready to assist. Now picture a regime which most of its own people despise, whose decades-long defense strategy has eroded over the past two years. Finally, consider the world’s leading power amassing unmatched firepower off this country’s coast and threatening a large-scale operation unless the regime backs down on several key issues.
In this scenario, logic would push the regime to do everything to avoid war. Its opponent, however, has sent repeated messages pointing to its desire to change the regime’s course of actions rather than topple it. Yet Iran will not take that path. Its logic follows its own reasoning, while remaining far from irrational.
In the view of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and his inner circle, war — even under these conditions — remains preferable to any deal seen as surrender. He may make tactical concessions to buy time, but he cannot compromise the core principles of the Islamic Republic, especially at 86. Yielding on nuclear programs, ballistic missiles, or militias, as the United States demands, would betray his entire legacy and leave him exposed like a king without clothes, which would further weaken his standing at home.
Never give in, or the whole system could collapse: this is the lesson Iranians drew from Gorbachev’s experience and shared with their ally, Bashar al-Assad. In Syria, history eventually exposed the limits of this approach. But the Iranian regime remains far more united and resilient than its Syrian counterpart and faces no organized armed opposition within its borders.
In this standoff, the Iranian regime makes several calculated bets. The first assumes that U.S. President Donald Trump ultimately prefers a deal over an uncertain war. He might accept an enhanced JCPOA if he can present it as a domestic victory. This showcases the Iranians’ skill in playing for time while raising the stakes. They feign willingness to make major concessions, exhaust the opponent over every detail, and simultaneously threaten severe retaliation if a military confrontation occurs. If Trump yields, this scenario represents the ideal outcome, especially if it brings partial or full sanctions relief. If not, the regime moves on to its second bet.
The regime assumes the U.S. president will do everything to avoid a long war. With the midterms just months away and much of the MAGA base opposing the conflict, Trump risks significant political fallout at home. The stakes rise further if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, which channels 20 percent of the world’s oil, driving prices sharply higher. A few Iranian ballistic missiles slipping past U.S. air defenses to strike Gulf states could also put Trump in a very precarious position with his allies. The Iranian regime is therefore betting on a short war: severe enough to send a warning, but not enough to fundamentally shift the balance of power.
Last June’s war exposed the limits of its power. The Israelis dominated the skies and caused significant damage to their opponent at a far lower cost than expected. Yet the Iranian regime saw itself as victorious. It struck its enemy without relying on proxies and showed it could absorb the conflict. The longer the war continued, the more the regime believed it could gain from it.
The following is its third bet: that the U.S. will engage in a prolonged war, one the regime cannot prevent, yet one that will not alter the strategic balance. If its nuclear or ballistic programs suffer partial or total destruction, the regime believes it can rebuild them over time. If parts of its leadership, starting with the supreme leader, are eliminated, it expects that successors will follow the same path. No matter the scale of its losses, as long as it survives, it will see itself as victorious, much like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Martyrdom, central to its ideology, adds a sacred dimension to this sacrifice.
In Lebanon, however, Hezbollah had to sign an agreement that amounted to capitulation to end the war. Despite its rhetoric, it came out severely weakened and now faces the need to reinvent itself or risk disappearing. Iran is not Lebanon, and the Iranian regime is not its prized proxy. Yet Nasrallah, like them, believed he was outsmarting his opponent. He, too, bet that his militia could bend without ever breaking. He wasn't crazy; he simply failed to see that the rules of the game had changed.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour and was translated by Joelle El Khoury
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