Iran’s rulers are now in a stronger position than before the war began
Their supreme leader and top commanders were killed. Military bases, factories and bridges were reduced to rubble. Their economy has taken blow after blow. Yet Iran’s authoritarian rulers believe they have emerged from this war in a stronger position than when it began.
After six weeks of an intense U.S.-Israeli campaign and with a temporary cease-fire in place, Iran’s leadership isn’t conciliatory as it enters into renewed negotiations with the United States. Instead, it has a new set of maximalist demands.
“Good morning to victory! Today, history has turned a new page,” Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, wrote on social media the day the cease-fire took hold. “The era of Iran has begun.”
Just surviving the U.S.-Israeli war was a triumph for the Islamic Republic and its supporters — proof of their ability to withstand an onslaught from two of the world’s most powerful militaries, and confirmation, in their view, of the ideology of resistance that helped sweep the clerics into power in 1979. They also maintained firm control of the domestic sphere and continued to enact repressive force, despite a population that is broadly dissatisfied with their rule.
“They managed to overcome, in their view, two superpowers,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence. For Iran’s theocratic rulers, he said, that is a “divine win.”
On top of that, Iran may feel it is in a stronger negotiating position than before the war.
Its continued ability to exert its will over the strategic Strait of Hormuz — despite bombardment that U.S. and Israeli officials assess to have largely destroyed Iran’s air force and navy — has provided a tried and tested means for wreaking havoc on the global economy. Iran aims to finish the war with effective control over this shipping lane, through which a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes.
“It’s actually more of a leverage than the nuclear program ever was,” said Hamidreza Azizi, an expert on Iran security issues at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “Now they are in a better position to bargain.” [Continue reading…]