At the end of November, two aging clerics gave speeches in Tehran reflecting on the lessons to be drawn from the summer’s Israeli and American strikes on their country. The contrast between the men’s visions shows just what sort of pickle Iran now finds itself in.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared total victory. “Without a doubt, the Iranian nation defeated the Americans and the Zionists in the 12-day war,” he said triumphantly on November 26. “They failed to achieve any of their goals.”
Speaking a day earlier, Hassan Rouhani, a former president and a rival of Khamenei, recommended instead that Iran stop underestimating its adversaries and focus on using diplomacy to deter another war. “Unfortunately, we are still in the state of ‘no war, no peace,’” he said before a group of his former cabinet ministers. “There is no feeling of security in the country.”
Only one of these clerics appears to have the authority to enforce his vision. Khamenei has been the single most powerful person in Iran, and its head of state, since 1989. Rouhani, by contrast, holds no official position and was barred last year even from running for a seat he has held on a supervisory body since 2000.
But appearances can be deceiving. The war dealt a harsh blow to Khamenei. For decades, the leader has congratulated himself on keeping Iran out of direct conflicts. But the past two years have seen the fall of one Iranian ally in the region, the Assad regime in Syria, and Israel’s battering of two others, Hamas and Hezbollah. Then came the June bombardment, which Khamenei spent hiding in a bunker; this cost him the respect of many in the Islamic Republic.
The decline of Khamenei’s powers has emboldened Rouhani and others to challenge his stance and offer alternatives. The Iranian establishment consists of multiple factions that disagree, often vehemently, over the path ahead. Many come closer to Rouhani’s thinking than to Khamenei’s. But so long as Khamenei remains alive and in power, his vision prevails, and the larger mood is one of uncomfortable stasis.
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The months since the 12-day war have been rough going for Iran. In September, the United States and Europe helped bring back United Nations–imposed sanctions that had been lifted in 2015. The country’s economy is in free fall. More than 60 percent of working-age Iranians are not employed. Iran remains one of only three countries—the others are North Korea and Myanmar—on the blacklist of the anti–money laundering outfit Financial Action Task Force. Even ratifying two international conventions (seen, for years, as prerequisites for coming off the list) hasn’t helped. A U.S. dollar now trades for a whopping 1.25 million Iranian rials, a historical high.
The country’s infrastructure is crumbling. Planned and unplanned electricity cuts are now a fact of life. The water crisis is so bad that experts warn of “water bankruptcy.” President Masoud Pezeshkian recently said that if Tehran runs out of water, his government might have to evacuate the city and relocate the capital. The repressive apparatus further weakens morale. Hundreds of people have been executed since the war. Several left-wing scholars have been arrested in recent weeks.
Neither Russia nor China has shown any interest in coming to Iran’s rescue. Mere days after the war ended, Iran’s defense minister attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Qingdao, China; some press reports claimed that China agreed to supply Iran with its long-range surface-to-air missiles, known as HQ-9s, and possibly Chengdu J-1o fighters as well. But the Chinese embassy in Tel Aviv denied the news. The Islamic Republic may have warm ties with China, but it would do well to remember that Beijing also does profitable business with Israel and Iran’s Arab rivals.
Tehran can expect even less from Russia. Iranian officials, including the country’s health minister, have been grumbling for some time about the lack of Russian support in the 12-day war. One official even claimed that the Russians worked with Israel against Iran. Speaking last month, Pezeshkian groused that countries Iran had considered “friends” had abandoned it, leaving Iran to rely on “God and the people” in wartime.
Nonetheless, the regime is doing its best to shore up its relationships and project an image of strength. Ali Larijani, the country’s national security adviser, has traveled to Russia, Belarus, and Pakistan, likely in search of military support. The regime has issued new primary- and high-school textbooks, including one, titled We Will Defend Our Iran, that touts Iran’s military and technological capabilities. Another, written by a well-known hard-line ideologue, promotes “victory based on faith” and “no fear of the enemy.” It shows a Palestinian child who tells her Iranian counterpart: “You are so lucky, Sara, to have security and freedom in your country. I have to always pass Zionist checkpoints.” Its cartoons mock Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
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As part of this tough talk, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which remains ideologically close to the supreme leader, has gone on blustering about closing off the Strait of Hormuz—the “world’s vital oil and gas artery,” according to the head of the militia’s navy, who in October seemed to threaten to choke off the strait if a war broke out. The Tehran Times, an English-language regime mouthpiece, affirmed Iran’s “readiness to deliver a crushing response to any military aggression.” Mohammadreza Naqdi, a top IRGC commander, took this rhetoric up a notch, declaring that if he ran a religious-tourism company, he’d start selling tours to Jerusalem, ludicrously implying that Iran and its allies were about to conquer Israel.
But the bravado rings hollow for most Iranians. They have not forgotten that Israel killed many of the IRGC’s top figures in the early days of the war, humiliating the militia. Naqdi was reportedly demoted due to suspicions that his office might have been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence. Iranians joke that at any top security gathering in Iran, a few people secretly speak Hebrew. Rouhani cautioned in his speech that Israel now dominates the region and can freely operate in Iranian skies. “It’s a dangerous thing when we lie and say we are a great power and our adversaries are weak and miserable,” he said.
The summer’s conflict has left the establishment braced for the possibility of a new outbreak of hostilities. Iran’s military commanders claim that the country would be prepared to launch many more than the 500 missiles it has already fired at Israel, and to include in these barrages long-range ballistic missiles called Sejjils, which it used only sparingly last time. Israeli analysts are aware that Iran would put up a tougher fight a second time around. But Israel retains a significant military edge over Iran and could also step up the damage it inflicts, or go further in trying to destabilize Iran politically or kill more of its leaders. Israel recently killed a top Hezbollah commander in Lebanon, reminding Iran of just how weak its position in the region has become. To underscore the point, Lebanese officials now openly tell Iranian officials to get lost.
As costly as renewed warfare would be for both sides, the greater peril by far would be to Iran, whose failing infrastructure and crisis-ridden economy make it prone to instability even in peacetime. That’s one reason the Rouhani faction and others are pushing to revive diplomacy that could avert a conflict and better Iran’s lot.
President Trump claims that his administration is already talking with Iran in pursuit of a deal. Some in Iran are hopeful that Saudi Arabia will act as mediator: The kingdom has mended its ties with Tehran, and its de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, has said he would like to see an Iranian-American understanding. In recent weeks, the Iranian press has buzzed with rumors that MBS took an Iranian message to Washington to give to Trump.
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But Khamenei has angrily denied these rumors as “an absolute lie,” adding that the United States “did not deserve to be contacted by the Islamic Republic.” Earlier in the month, Khamenei said that Iran could “assess” working with the U.S. only if Washington stopped backing Israel and removed its military bases from the Middle East.
These protestations can be taken with some skepticism. The leader struck much the same tone earlier this year, just before Tehran started enthusiastically negotiating with Washington. But the gridlock at the top of the Islamic Republic could make the job of Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, very difficult—if, for example, he isn’t given the power to compromise on key issues, such as Iran’s enrichment of uranium on its own soil.
Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister and current political prisoner, likens Khamenei to a captain who is running his ship aground but refuses to change course. “Vast and deep changes are inevitable, and everybody waits for a transformation,” Tajzadeh wrote in a recent article, “but nobody knows how and when changes will occur.” Eshaq Jahangiri, vice president under Rouhani, put the point even more plainly in a speech last month: “Nobody knows what to do about the future.”
