Seeking to calm the global economy, President Donald Trump this week declared victory over Iran while cautioning, “We don’t want to leave too early.” Meanwhile, US intelligence finds that the Islamic Republic is nowhere near collapse, and the new supreme leader is vowing to block the vital Strait of Hormuz. Middle East Policy’s free special issue, Washington’s War on Iran, investigates the regime’s persistence and its vulnerabilities, from its adjustments after Israel’s 2025 bombing campaign to its missile and cyber capacities, its strong link between ideology and clerical-military leadership, and its deep-seated hostility to the United States.
The 14 free-to-read articles in this special issue explain the development of a Sunni-Israeli alliance against Iran, how the Islamic Republic tried to take advantage of the US-China rivalry, and Tehran’s attempt to develop a regime-preservation network by looking East. The studies also explore the country’s weaknesses through the voices of protesters, data on poverty, and a probe of its oil trade under crippling sanctions. The issue concludes with a look at the parallels with the 2003 Iraq invasion, including the groupthink that produced the American strategy. If you find this newsletter useful, please forward it to others you believe will benefit, and please follow us on the social media platforms X and LinkedIn.
The key area of analysis this week is why the regime has been able to cling to power. In their analysis of Iran’s asymmetrical warfare, driven by its relative lack of power and decades of sanctions, Gawdat Bahgat and Anoushiravan Ehteshami show that the strategy is built on three pillars: naval attacks, sabotage through cyberspace, and ballistic-missile capabilities.
While there have been some reports of internet disruptions linked to Iran, the key to its effort so far has been severe disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump claims that US and Israeli attacks have destroyed the regime’s navy, but this may discount the asymmetrical threat of sea-based attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). “Small high-speed boats are difficult to detect and identify, and enjoy a great deal of flexibility and maneuverability,” Bahgat and Ehteshami write. “On the other hand, they suffer from major limitations in firepower and endurance.”
It appears that two weeks into the war this is working. However, the authors note, “closing the Strait of Hormuz would cause Iran tremendous economic damage. Thus, this option would be considered only under an attack on the Islamic Republic and could have serious global economic repercussions.” These words are certainly prescient.
The third pillar of Iran’s defense, ballistic missiles, is tackled by Ali Bagheri Dolatabadi’s examination of Israel’s 2025 bombing campaign. While in the first week of the war less than 10 percent of Iran’s missile launches penetrated Israel’s homeland defenses, his data show, in the second week this went up to 15 percent. This major weakness could be exploited in the event of a long war, and it appears that the Islamic Republic has altered its strategy and may be holding missiles in reserve.
Bagheri Dolatabadi also relates how after the 12-day war of 2025 the regime prepared for the next US-Israeli attacks. Among the changes, it restructured the Supreme National Security Council to increase coordination across the armed forces and elevated senior diplomat Ali Larijani as its leader. Larijani’s expertise could prove effective in wartime, though as a relative moderate, he could also seek opportunities for dialogue. The regime also rooted out suspected spies for Israel and strengthened laws against sabotage activities, and it upgraded civil-defense warning systems and air-raid shelters.
We will see how this plays out as the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, gains control. Thomas Buonomo comprehensively explores the mindset of Khamenei’s predecessor, his father, who was killed on the first day of the Iran War. Buonomo identifies some of the personal and emotional roots of the elder Khamenei’s hostility toward the United States, including American support for the corrupt shah, whose regime repeatedly arrested and imprisoned the cleric. But there were many more rational reasons for Khamenei’s enmity:
- US backing for the 1980 invasion by Iraq
- Israel’s invasion of Lebanon
- President George W. Bush’s linking Iran to 9/11
- the swift US-led regime changes on Iran’s borders.
Buonomo acknowledges that Khamenei’s reactions were generally rational. After the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, he sought negotiations with Washington, and he accepted the 2015 nuclear deal. However, Buonomo shows that Khamenei, regardless of his good reasons to be suspicious of Washington, often overplayed his hand and exposed the regime to pressures from inside and out.
Hadi Sohrabi agrees that the Islamic Republic’s key vulnerabilities were from the people. His examination of Iran’s clerical-military alliance relates the power of “the mullahs’ grassroots connections with the masses” and, more important, their incorporation into the state machinery. The “army of preachers” was thus long able to rally the periphery’s support for the government. This was fused to the IRGC’s coercive firepower, which we have seen increase as the soft power of religion increasingly failed to unite the country.
Sohrabi sees key threats to the state as likely to come from a clerical split between reformers and hardliners and, more important, from economic deprivation and popular grievance. Indeed, we saw this in the leadup to the Iran War, with protests put down by force, and thousands reportedly killed.
While the regime in this case was able to outlast Trump’s patience, it seems far more likely that change will come from within—unless it is compromised by the very Israeli and American attacks aiming to spur a revolution. Bagheri Dolatabadi argues against those who believe that killing “the head of the snake” through air power will spur the people to overthrow the regime. “While many Iranians are dissatisfied with their government’s economic and political performance, they are deeply concerned about foreign attacks that could reduce their country to a failed state like Sudan, Somalia, or Libya,” he writes. “Targeting the state’s territorial integrity and threatening its fragmentation is a red line.”
You can find more incisive examinations in The Israel-Iran War, our previous special issue on the 2025 campaign against Iran’s nuclear capacity. And check out the real-time analyses of the new conflict from the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy.
Middle East Policy, Washington’s War on Iran—special issue
TEHRAN’S PERILOUS POSITION
The June 2025 Israeli War: Iran’s Assessment and Regional Consequences
Ali Bagheri Dolatabadi, 2025
Jordan’s Role in Establishing a Sunni-Israeli Alliance
Ronen Yitzhak, 2026
Iran’s Strategies in Response to Changes in US-China Relations
Sara Bazoobandi, 2024
CAN REGIME CHANGE SUCCEED?
Clerics and Generals: Assessing the Stability of the Iranian Regime
Hadi Sohrabi, 2018
Iran’s Supreme Leader: An Analysis of His Hostility Toward the US and Israel
Thomas Buonomo, 2018
Iran’s Defense Strategy: The Navy, Missiles, and Cyberweaponry
Gawdat Bahgat | Anoushiravan Ehteshami, 2017
Iran and the SCO: The Quest for Legitimacy and Regime Preservation
Nicole Bayat Grajewski, 2023
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC’S SOCIAL & ECONOMIC CRISES
The 2022 Iran Protests: The View from the Streets
Rauf Rahimi | Sajjad Rezaei, 2025
Bargain and Barter: China’s Oil Trade with Iran
Shirzad Azad, 2023
Poverty in Iran: A Critical Analysis
Arvin Khoshnood, 2019
ECHOES OF THE IRAQ INVASION
Invading Iraq: The Road to Perpetual War
Ronald Bleier, 2002
Reinventing Iraq: The Regional Impact of US Military Action
Judith Yaphe, 2002
Drinking the Kool-Aid
W. Patrick Lang, 2004
Coping with Kaleidoscopic Change in the Middle East
Chas W. Freeman Jr., 2013
BOOK REVIEWS
Javad Heiran-Nia, Iran and the Security Order in the Persian Gulf
Reviewed by Mahmood Monshipouri
Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez, How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare
Reviewed by Bahram P. Kalviri
Robert J. Lieber, Indispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in a Turbulent World
Reviewed by A.R. Joyce