When it comes to its ongoing campaign against Iran, the Trump administration currently holds a decidedly dismal record. Despite months of intense aerial bombardments designed to wear down the Islamic Republic, Washington has failed to break the country’s military posture. Nor has it been able to bend Tehran’s political will at the negotiating table. Yet, despite seven months of persistent setbacks, U.S. officials maintain an optimistic outlook, firmly believing they have finally turned the page in this protracted geopolitical conflict.
In pursuit of this strategic pivot, the United States has implemented a fresh wave of rigorous sanctions while maintaining its ongoing naval blockade of the country’s southern coast. By aggressively throttling Iran’s access to vital outside commerce, American officials have concluded that the Islamic Republic will soon face a stark choice: concede to Washington’s demands or face total economic collapse. "We are going to economically asphyxiate this regime," declared U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on September 1.
There is no doubt that Washington has dealt significant material damage to Iran over the course of the conflict. However, the Islamic Republic does not believe it is unraveling. In fact, Tehran increasingly operates under the assumption that it will successfully defeat the United States—a perspective driven by developments on the ground. The Iranian government did not merely survive the initial U.S. and Israeli bombardment; it retaliated ferociously, inflicting notable damage on American military bases throughout the region and effectively obstructing maritime traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz.
While everyday citizens are paying a hefty economic price—grappling with the direct fallout of wartime destruction and Washington’s crippling trade cutoffs—a vast segment of the population has rallied around the national flag. Many ordinary Iranians appear to accept these severe hardships as a necessary sacrifice if their country is to mount a credible defense. Consequently, Tehran has grown increasingly emboldened. While Iranian officials may occasionally diverge on specific tactical approaches, they remain wholly united in their overarching strategic ambitions: evicting U.S. forces entirely from the Persian Gulf, forcing Washington to lift all economic sanctions, and compelling the United States to formally accept Iran’s status as a major regional power.
This ambitious agenda might sound overly audacious to outside observers, particularly given that Iran has been materially weakened by months of warfare. Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic remains convinced that these long-held aims are well within its reach. Tehran believes its armed forces can systematically drive U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf by continuing to strike American military installations directly, while simultaneously leveraging diplomatic and political pressure from Arab nations to persuade the United States to draw down its footprint. Furthermore, Iranian strategists calculate that by wreaking havoc on regional energy markets, they can successfully force Washington to lift its punishing economic restrictions. In essence, Tehran’s core theory of victory rests on the belief that it can outlast its adversary, absorbing punishment and inflicting enough financial and strategic pain until the United States ultimately decides to abandon its containment policy altogether.
CLOSING RANKS
No independent observer doubts that Iran has been severely battered by the war. Months of sustained American and Israeli bombing runs have heavily damaged the nation’s industrial base and critical infrastructure, causing unemployment to spike and pushing a larger share of the population into poverty. Washington’s sweeping sanctions and active naval blockade have simultaneously fueled rampant inflation. Furthermore, the U.S. and Israeli militaries can point to numerous tactical successes, most notably the targeted assassination of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Yet, from a broader strategic perspective, the conflict has yielded deeply unintended consequences. U.S. planners originally anticipated that punishing aerial bombardments and an aggressive campaign to degrade the Iranian economy would swiftly bring the Islamic Republic to its knees. Those assumptions proved false. Washington also hoped that the assassination of Khamenei would trigger a massive, regime-ending antigovernment uprising across the country. That political calculation failed as well.
Instead of sparking a revolution, Khamenei’s death galvanized the Islamic Republic’s most ardent supporters. Night after night, crowds marched through the nation’s major urban centers, eventually drawing in ordinary Iranians from various political backgrounds who chose to rally in defense of their homeland. Before the outbreak of hostilities, neighboring Turkey had anticipated accommodating roughly 70,000 Iranian refugees fleeing the conflict. In reality, very few citizens chose to flee. As the war progressed, a counter-movement emerged: many expatriate Iranians living abroad actually returned home, including long-exiled cultural figures, journalists, and well-known political personalities, such as singers Mohsen Namjoo and Bijan Mortazavi.
This surge in domestic nationalism should not be misconstrued as a sudden political endorsement of the Islamic Republic’s ruling clerical establishment. Many Iranians remain deeply unhappy with their government’s internal governance and past crackdowns. However, this domestic anger has been temporarily subsumed by an overwhelming sense of outrage directed at Washington.
Prior to the war, the majority of Iranian citizens were deeply skeptical of the official state narrative claiming that the United States was bent on their country’s ultimate destruction; many actively hoped that Tehran would pursue a diplomatic opening for better relations with Washington. However, the bombing of Iranian population centers and U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated rhetorical threats to annihilate the nation’s civilization—including public statements suggesting he might "blow the entire nation up" and drive it "into hell with no chance of survival"—fundamentally shifted public attitudes. Today, Iranians across the political spectrum widely believe that the United States intends to obliterate their country, or at least force it into total capitulation to every American demand.
This profound psychological shift was consistently apparent during extensive conversations with Iranians of diverse political ideologies. These interviews began when Washington first launched its bombing campaign against Iran in June 2025 and have continued steadily, mapping the evolution of public sentiment over the duration of the conflict. While the vast majority of respondents expressed deep distress and anger toward their own government following the violent crackdowns that met the mass protests of January, opinions shifted drastically as the war dragged on and Trump amplified his destructive rhetoric.
"We believed so much in the American promise," Ali, a 45-year-old longtime dissident who has spent years imprisoned for his political activism, explained. "Yet with this war and everything that Trump and his administration have said and done, it’s obvious the Americans sold us a false bill of goods. They want nothing but Iran’s total submission, and that’s not acceptable to us."
Mahsa, a writer and artist in her 30s, expressed similar disillusionment. "Everything we believed the United States stood for—freedom, respect, and democracy—I now see as lies," she said. "As angry as I’ve been at our state over the years, this is our homeland, and no outside country has the right to kill our leaders and drop bombs on our children and attempt to destroy us."
It is little wonder, then, that Khamenei’s July funeral procession drew millions of mourners despite the active wartime conditions. During the ceremony, participants distributed red flags symbolizing a collective desire for retribution. Shortly thereafter, Iran launched attacks against commercial vessels navigating the Strait of Hormuz, decisively shattering the precarious cease-fire that had been brokered between the two nations just three months prior.
Many U.S. officials continue to operate under the assumption that tightening economic pressure will eventually force a domestic political reckoning—that if they suffer enough economically, ordinary Iranians will rise up to overthrow their government, or that the Islamic Republic, fearing for its institutional survival, will ultimately submit to American ultimatums. However, analysts note that this strategy overlooks Iran’s long-term preparations. Over the past 15 years, the country has deliberately engineered its economy to withstand sustained economic warfare. Iranian authorities have forged robust trade relations with neighboring states and achieved near self-sufficiency in essential agricultural production. As a result, even though inflation remains exceptionally high and the broader economy is hurting, cities and towns across the country have largely avoided catastrophic shortages of vital goods and services.
"It’s incredible how well-run everything has been inside of the country," noted Hamid Reza, an engineer who regularly travels between Isfahan and Tehran for work. "Things are expensive, but there have been no shortages whatsoever across the country. Everything has been managed internally with a lot of care."
This resilience does not mean that Iranians feel optimistic about their collective future. They remain deeply anxious, yearning for a return to stability and much-needed economic relief. Crucially, however, they do not view the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign as an act of liberation. Instead, they perceive it as gratuitous foreign aggression. The resulting wave of defensive nationalism has successfully blurred traditional political fault lines within society and significantly diminished the short-term likelihood of a domestic uprising against the regime. In effect, the war has inadvertently reinforced the political standing of the Islamic Republic.
PAIN AND GAIN
Much like the broader population, the Iranian government has adopted a notably more hostile posture toward Washington since the outbreak of hostilities. The nation’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has steadily placed trusted hard-line loyalists—many of them closely tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—into critical national security positions, even as he continues to operate from secure, hidden locations. Figures such as national security adviser Mohsen Rezaei and Hossein Taeb, commander of Iran’s primary domestic paramilitary forces, firmly believe that deterring future military aggression requires a swift, uncompromising response to any foreign provocation.
These hard-liners remain deeply skeptical that Washington possesses any genuine interest in diplomacy. They point out that the United States has twice initiated military strikes against Iran during ongoing diplomatic negotiations and subsequently walked away from the memorandum of understanding signed in June, arguing that American commitments cannot be trusted. In their view, any sudden U.S. interest in renewed talks is likely a tactical feint masking preparations for fresh military strikes, similar to the run-ups observed in June 2025 and February 2026.
Conversely, Iran’s relative political moderates hold a slightly different outlook. This faction—which includes Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, former President Hasan Rouhani, and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif—has consistently argued that Tehran should continue exploring viable diplomatic pathways to resolve the conflict. Both Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf have publicly emphasized the severe economic hardships weighing on ordinary citizens.
Yet the political distance between these moderate figures and the regime’s hard-line leadership is narrower than it might appear to outside observers. As one regional analyst familiar with these internal dynamics noted, "No one is saying Iran should surrender." While these officials view economic relief as an urgent priority, their proposed solution is to compel Washington to fully implement the memorandum of understanding signed in June. From Tehran’s perspective, that agreement committed the United States to unfreezing all Iranian financial assets, lifting all economic sanctions, permanently halting military strikes against the country, and paying reparations—in exchange for little more than a renewed cease-fire and the resumption of commercial transit through the Strait of Hormuz, albeit under continued Iranian fee structures.
Since the end of the summer, senior figures like Rezaei and Ghalibaf have insisted that any meaningful diplomacy must begin with the United States returning to the terms of that memorandum. According to analysts tracking recent diplomatic engagements at the United Nations in New York, these moderate and pragmatic elites believe that President Trump is not yet prepared for genuine negotiations, concluding that he will only return to the negotiating table if he is forced to recognize Iran’s military resilience, which requires further increasing the costs of the conflict for the United States.
Consequently, Iran’s military behavior is expected to remain unrestrained and disproportionate. Should full-scale warfare resume, Tehran’s strategy involves projecting power across the wider region rather than restricting operations to its immediate geographic vicinity. The dominant consensus within Tehran is that predictability and caution will only invite heightened American pressure while failing to advance its primary strategic objectives: forcing Washington to withdraw all military personnel from the Persian Gulf and compelling the international community to accept Iran’s regional primacy.
Iran’s repeated drone and missile strikes against American military facilities and logistics hubs in Jordan, Syria, and across the Persian Gulf are explicitly designed to achieve this goal. To a measurable extent, these tactics have yielded results. The strikes have caused substantial damage to several U.S. military assets, forcing the Pentagon to relocate numerous operational activities and resources to Israel and Jordan, while increasingly relying on distant bases in the central Indian Ocean for logistical support. The persistent threat of Iranian retaliation even prompted Washington to temporarily withdraw its B-1 strategic bombers from a major base in the United Kingdom.
Concurrently, Tehran is working to persuade America’s Gulf partners to shutter U.S. military installations on their soil. To underscore this message, Iranian officials have openly declared that regional peace and security are directly contingent upon the complete departure of American forces, backing up the rhetoric by launching targeted strikes against Gulf states suspected of facilitating the U.S. war effort. While it remains unlikely that Iran will succeed in entirely ending the U.S. military presence in the Gulf, its disruptive campaign has already caused Arab capitals to think twice about their long-term reliance on the American security umbrella, potentially paving the way for a reduced U.S. military footprint in the region.
Even if Iran ultimately fails to drive the American military entirely from its neighborhood, it believes it can still secure economic concessions through financial coercion. To that end, Tehran has actively sought to drive up global energy prices—including oil, natural gas, diesel, and jet fuel—by striking critical energy infrastructure throughout the Gulf. Notable incidents include retaliatory strikes against Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas field (executed in response to an Israeli attack on Iran’s South Pars gas facility) and oil infrastructure situated near the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah port. Furthermore, Iranian forces have repeatedly targeted commercial tankers carrying oil and natural gas while attempting to consolidate direct control over the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran views as sovereign territorial waters. While the U.S. Navy has fought back aggressively to keep the crucial maritime chokepoint open for international shipping, these escort operations demand immense naval resources that Washington cannot sustain indefinitely.
Iran’s broader network of regional partners has also amplified its pressure campaign. Iraqi militias backed by Tehran have launched attacks against vital oil pipelines transporting Saudi crude to Red Sea export terminals, a move projected to markedly reduce global oil supplies for months. Meanwhile, Houthi allies in Yemen have maintained persistent attacks on Saudi oil installations while capturing vast new territorial ground and advancing toward the Bab el Mandeb Strait. This strategic positioning allows the Houthis to heavily menace the Red Sea, a critical shipping lane through which roughly 12 percent of global trade passes. These coordinated actions demonstrate that despite sustaining significant operational setbacks in places like Lebanon and Syria, Iran’s regional alliance network retains considerable operational capability.
STEADY AS SHE GOES
The United States may operate under the assumption that its comprehensive strategy has successfully cornered Iran, but Tehran strongly disagrees with that assessment. Iranian leadership does not view itself as being on its defensive heels or running out of diplomatic and military options. On the contrary, officials in Tehran increasingly believe that the country has successfully secured great-power status through its wartime performance.
This newfound confidence is reflected in official reactions to international diplomatic summits. Iranian state media and officials openly celebrated the enthusiastic reception afforded to Iran’s diplomatic delegation by member states during the September meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the non-Western BRICS consortium, viewing the events as proof of growing international respect.
To be sure, Iran continues to grapple with monumental domestic challenges and has yet to determine how to successfully translate its wartime resilience into enduring, peacetime economic gains. Nevertheless, the government and its military apparatus remain fully prepared to continue the fight if necessary. As one senior Iranian analyst close to the country’s policymakers observed, the prevailing belief within the establishment is that the Iranian people "are willing to endure economic pain and the suffering, if it means that [they] are going to win."
With the nation’s political elites firmly coalesced around a unified, uncompromising strategy, Tehran remains deeply confident that it can ultimately prevail simply by staying its current course, concluding that no fundamental compromises with Washington are necessary.
