Iran prepared for a protracted war

The core factor in determining the future of Iran would be "the dynamic between the regime and its people," an unnamed western official said Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Article content

Donald Trump has said the United States’swar with Iran will end when he decides — when, as he put it, “I feel it, feel it in my bones.”

Article content

But it will not only be up to the U.S. president. Over the past week, as the conflict has escalated and sent shocks through the global economy, Iran’s leaders and military commanders have signalled that — far from a quick capitulation — the Islamic republic plans to silence its guns on its own terms.

Article content

Article content

Article content

“Everybody is fixated on the vacillations of Trump, but it’s completely missing the fact there’s a massive country with its own agency,” said a western official. “What is at play is pretty much the whole raison d’être of the regime, which is to survive and resist.”

Article content

Article content

Iran views the conflict as an existential threat, is desperate to restore its deterrent and wants to ensure its foes are not willing to pay the price of future attacks, a person close to the regime, diplomats and experts said.

Article content

All this suggests it is digging in for a protracted war of attrition, they said, and will only stop if it receives guarantees as part of any ceasefire deal that the U.S. and Israel will not resume attacks.

Article content

“Iran says, ‘we need a guarantee and won’t retreat even if the war continues for one year,'” an Iranian close to the regime said. “If Iran is destroyed, the whole region is destroyed.”

Article content

Spearheading the regime’s retaliation is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the 180,000-strong elite force, which has spread chaos around the region with missile and drone attacks on U.S. military bases, Gulf infrastructure and international shipping.

Article content

Article content

“The guards are ideologically motivated, they are not scared to die,” the Iranian said. They are “convinced this was regime change and if they agree to a ceasefire [the U.S. and Israel] will come back”.

Article content

Article content

That means, if Trump was to declare “victory” and halt the U.S.’s bombardment of Iran, the danger is Tehran could keep up its attacks on Israel and the Gulf even in a battered, weakened state and continue holding shipping hostage in the Strait of Hormuz.

Article content

Trump, who described Iran’s military as “decimated”, said at the weekend that Tehran wanted to hold talks but he has not made a deal “because the terms aren’t good enough yet”.

Article content

But Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, shot back, describing claims that the republic wanted a truce or negotiations as “delusional”. Araghchi also denied a report that he had reopened a channel of communication with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, saying the claim was designed to calm rattled energy markets.

Article content

Regional officials say there is no movement on diplomatic efforts to end the war from either side. And Israel’s killing on Tuesday of Ali Larijani, a conservative but pragmatic regime veteran, is expected to further set back hopes of a resumption of talks. He would have been integral to any diplomatic process, a regional diplomat said.