At the time of the US-Israeli strikes that began the war with Iran on 28 February, Tehran’s clerical regime was thought to be highly vulnerable. US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, suggested it was “probably weaker than it has ever been”.
The Islamic Republic had just survived one of the most serious challenges to its 47-year rule in a weeks-long, nationwide uprising, which was brutally suppressed at the cost of deepening international pariah status and mounting domestic opposition.
That uprising was fueled by an economic crisis, which was itself a product of Iran’s international isolation and heavy sanctions against it. The leadership faced an uncertain succession with an ageing and ailing supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s military and nuclear programmes, intended to serve as deterrence, had taken a battering over the 12-day war with Israel and the US last year.
On the eve of the war, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, argued that a shock-and-awe campaign could bring about regime change.
But six weeks on, with a shaky truce in place, Iran’s opponents are facing a different and more dangerous beast.
Emboldened regime
The killing of Khamenei and other top regime officials has left a new generation of younger and more radical leaders in place, analysts believe.
The military has weathered the US-Israeli onslaught while maintaining a persistent rate of fire at the Gulf states, US bases, and Israel. Domestic opposition has failed to materialise. And the regime is tapping lucrative new revenue sources via the Strait of Hormuz, and a sanctions regime that may be unravelling.
As US and Israeli leaders struggle to explain to domestic audiences what was achieved in this war, Iran has emerged from this round of fighting with renewed confidence.
“The regime feels emboldened,” said Dina Esfandiary, a Gulf security specialist and Middle East lead at Bloomberg Geoeconomics. “They feel they have made gains, and they have control of the Strait of Hormuz. They didn’t necessarily want a ceasefire.”
Danny Citrinowicz, formerly Iran lead in Israel’s military intelligence department, now at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, assessed: “Tehran arrives at the negotiating table…with the perception that its hand is on top”, and will not make “substantive concessions.”
Smoke rises after Iranian missile strike on US naval base in Bahrain (Photo: Getty)Resilience under fire
Iran’s military has suffered severe blows over one of the most intense bombing campaigns in modern history, according to conflict monitor Airwars. The US and Israel carried out more than 17,000 strikes over 40 days, targeting Iran’s missile and drone complexes, nuclear sites, and wider military infrastructure.
But Iran’s “mosaic doctrine” of distributed and decentralised assets appears to have held up under fire, while a network of underground missile cities have proved tough nuts to crack.
The US and Israel claimed to have decimated Tehran’s missile capabilities in the first days of the war, citing a sharp decline in fire from the opening salvos. But the rate of drone and missile fire has remained steady since. A recent US assessment suggested just one-third of Iran’s missiles had been taken out.
Sources in Iran further point to the shooting down of US aircraft after Donald Trump claimed to have wiped out the country’s air defences as a major morale boost.
The Iranian military has been able to demonstrate that its facilities can survive bombardment, launching munitions from sites in locations such as Yazd and Kermanshah that have been repeatedly attacked, according to open source investigators and independent military analysts.
Influential hardliners have sought to claim escalation dominance, having argued that largely symbolic responses to previous US and Israeli attacks have eroded deterrence and brought more serious assaults.
In one case, when Israel attacked the South Pars gas field in southern Iran, the Iranian military announced a list of energy sites across the region that would be targeted in response. Several targets sustained heavy damage, including the world’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) in Qatar. Trump then ordered Israel to end attacks on energy plants.
Sina Toossi, an Iran expert at US think-tank, the Center for International Policy, believes the regime’s ability to absorb the US and Israel’s blows and maintain a threat has strengthened Tehran’s position relative to its foes.
“The state was able to absorb significant military pressure, continue retaliatory strikes, and leverage the Strait of Hormuz in ways that reshaped the strategic balance,” he said. “That has reinforced a narrative of resilience and deterrence inside Iran.”
“At the same time, the US is now returning to talks after having already expended its most significant source of leverage, the threat of war.”
Cargo ships waiting near the Strait of Hormuz (Photo: Reuters)New sources of wealth
The state’s parlous finances will face new challenges even if the ceasefire lasts.
Iran’s steel industry, a leading employer and source of export revenue, has been heavily damaged and could take years to recover. A massive reconstruction effort will be required after more than 115,000 civilian structures were damaged or destroyed, according to the Red Crescent.
But the regime may have new sources of wealth. The tolls Iran is imposing on Hormuz could be worth more than £100bn a year, according to one estimate, while the US appears to lack leverage to force a return to the status quo. Trump has even floated the idea of sharing toll revenue, describing a potential “joint venture.”
The President has also held out the promise of sanctions relief if a deal is agreed, which could allow Tehran to re-enter global markets it has been shut out of for decades, and potentially unlock frozen assets worth tens of billions of pounds.
The regime has already enjoyed a taste of sanctions relief via a US-issued temporary waiver on Iran’s seaborne oil, which allowed its first sales to India in seven years. The widening energy crisis has also driven up the cost of oil and the value of Iran’s exports.
Internal opposition goes Awol
Trump and Netanyahu claimed that a weakened Iranian regime could be vulnerable to challenge from below. “Our joint action will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands,” Israel’s leader said at the outset of the war.
But threats to the regime did not materialise during the war, as the regime maintained a firm grip domestically. Arms supplies to Kurdish factions did not lead to an insurgency. Student protesters did not return to the streets they were recently gunned down on.
The monarchist opposition led by Prince Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of Iran’s last Shah, struggled for traction as it sought to chart a course between backing the US-Israeli assault and sympathy for Iranian people suffering under the bombs.
“Pahlavi has not had a good war,” a former senior Middle East diplomat said.
A source in Tehran told The i Paper that the would-be monarch had failed to seize a moment of opportunity.
“(During the protests) in January, the anger directed at the Islamic Republic, the advertisements by dissident media, and stories youngsters heard from their grandparents, led to a wave of support for Pahlavi,” they said.
“But after the brutal and bloody crackdown of the protesters, he called them the necessary victims. He supported the Israeli war on Iran twice. I don’t think he will ever have a chance to redeem himself.”
Reza Pahlavi has ‘not had a good war’, says an ex-diplomat (Photo: Paul Morigi/Getty)Dangerous lessons
The US-Israeli war has not delivered regime change, but it has changed the regime, according to analysts, who suggest its current form may be more dangerous.
Dr Andreas Krieg, a Gulf security expert at the War Studies Department of King’s College London, said Iran’s leadership has been “transformed into a regime that probably resembles a military dictatorship more than a theocracy,” with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – the elite force of the Iranian military – gaining power and influence.
That dynamic is likely to accelerate the longer Iran makes revenue from Hormuz, he added, with the IRGC positioned to siphon cash into its own channels to reinforce its dominance.
Military chiefs may have learned dangerous lessons from the past few years of diplomacy and war.
“Those in charge of the IRGC now will be battle hardened and will have learned the lesson that pragmatism and diplomacy has backfired,” said Krieg, citing two US-Israeli attacks during negotiations. “But the only time Iran used force, it was rewarded.”
Recent Israeli media reports cite claims from the country’s defence establishment that Iran’s new leadership is “more extremist” than before the war.
Nimrod Novik, a former Israeli diplomat and adviser to prime minister Shimon Peres, cites the main fear about an emboldened and radical Iranian regime.
“The possibility is their lesson from the 40-day war might: let’s go nuclear, as the ultimate deterrence,” he said.
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