The world stubbornly asks Iran the wrong question. For nearly half a century, Western capitals, think tanks, intelligence agencies, diplomats, and journalists have been trying to understand: what does the Islamic Republic want? The question seems logical. Yet, it is within this very logic that the fundamental error is hidden. The Islamic Republic is a political form that emerged after the 1979 revolution. Iran is a state-civilization, a strategic memory, and a geopolitical organism that has existed in its current political configuration for about five centuries.
When Washington, London, Paris, or Tel Aviv confuse these two levels, they get the exact same result time and again: failed calculations, broken deals, escalation, sanctions without ultimate effect, and wars that begin as a pressure operation but end as a global crisis.
Iran cannot be understood solely through the prism of mullahs, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, nuclear centrifuges, Shia proxies, or anti-American slogans. All of this is important, but secondary. Iran's primary code is older than the current regime. It was born not in 1979, but in geography, in the traumas of the 19th century, in the memory of imperial humiliation, in the struggle for control over its own resources, in the experience of foreign pressure, and in the conviction that weakness in this region never remains an internal state-it immediately turns into an invitation for a foreign army, a foreign ambassador, foreign intelligence, and foreign dictate.
Iran is not a regime. Iran is a survival instinct
The Safavids, the Qajars, the Pahlavis, and the Islamic Republic were completely different political systems. They spoke different languages of legitimacy, relied on different elites, and viewed religion, the West, the military, and modernization in vastly different ways. Yet, in a foreign policy sense, there is a rigid continuity between them. The rulers changed. The logic remained.
This logic is simple: Iran's internal space cannot be protected solely within its borders. The Iranian plateau is surrounded by the Zagros Mountains to the west and the Alborz to the north, borders deserts, and opens up to Central Asia, South Asia, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and the Persian Gulf. This is not a cozy national fortress. This is a crossroads of imperial routes. Every major land power moving across Eurasia collided with Iran. Every maritime power claiming influence in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf was forced to take Hormuz into account.
Hence flows the fundamental lesson of Iranian strategy: whoever sits solely on the plateau eventually loses part of the plateau. Whoever pushes the defensive line outward gains a chance to survive. Therefore, Iranian foreign policy has almost always sought not isolation, but depth-buffer zones, allies, dependent groups, political channels, religious networks, trade routes, energy leverage, and military capabilities beyond its own borders.
Hormuz is not a strait. It is a button on the remote control of the global economy
Today, this logic is most vividly visible in the Strait of Hormuz. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2025, about 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products passed through Hormuz per day, which is approximately a quarter of the world's maritime oil trade; furthermore, a critical portion of LNG supplies from Qatar and the UAE passed through this route.
This is why Iran, even without being equal to the United States in conventional military power, is capable of influencing the behavior of global markets. It can lose in aviation, be outmatched in an ocean fleet, lack a global network of bases, and still possess a lever that causes a nervous reaction in Tokyo, Beijing, Delhi, Singapore, London, and Washington. Geography in this case is stronger than the abstract statistics of military budgets.
In May 2026, Reuters recorded that amid the war with Iran, Brent held above 110 dollars per barrel, WTI was above 103 dollars, and tanker movement through Hormuz remained significantly below pre-war levels. This is the real power of geography: Tehran may not control the world, but it is capable of ensuring that the world feels the price of pressuring Iran.
Three fears that govern Tehran more powerfully than ideology
Three convictions run through the entirety of Iranian history.
First: weakness invites intervention. The Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 deprived Iran of vast Caucasian territories. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 divided the country into spheres of influence without any real consideration for Tehran's will. For Iranian political memory, these are not museum dates, but proof of a simple rule: if a state lacks the capacity for deterrence, its sovereignty begins to be managed by others.
Second: sovereignty is not sold as a commodity in the diplomatic market. The Tobacco Protest of the early 1890s, the struggle to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951, the resistance to foreign control over the nuclear program under the Shah and after the revolution-these are different episodes of the exact same reflex. Iran can bargain over details. But it perceives any demand that looks like an acknowledgment of a subordinate status with extreme pain.
Third: Iran does not consider itself merely a regional power. This is a fundamental point. The West often analyzes Iran as a Middle Eastern problem. But Iran itself views itself as a power at the intersection of regions-the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Persian Gulf, South Asia, the Levant, and global energy. The 1979 revolution was not just a Middle Eastern event. It altered the balance of the Cold War, internal US politics, Islamic movements, oil security, the logic of the American presence in the region, and the entire architecture of relations between the West and political Islam.
The Shah and the Ayatollahs argued about God, but thought about the exact same thing
To an outside observer, it might seem that the Shah's Iran and the Islamic Republic are two opposite worlds. In a cultural, ideological, and symbolic sense, this is true. But in a strategic sense, the fracture is far smaller than it appears.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a US ally, purchased Western weapons, built relations with Israel, and spoke the language of modernization and anti-communism. Yet, when it came to the nuclear program, military autonomy, and Iran's status, he displayed the exact same sensitivity to external oversight as current Tehran. For the Shah, nuclear energy and technological sovereignty were not only a matter of development, but also a symbol of status. Iran did not want to look like a second-rate state permitted to buy reactors but barred from having full control over the technological chain.
The US National Archives and studies on 1970s nuclear policy show that even under the Shah, Tehran resisted American conditions that it perceived as a limitation of sovereignty and an attempt to place Iran in a dependent position.
In other words, the argument was not just about Islam, revolution, or anti-Americanism. The argument was about status. And status for Iran is not a diplomatic luxury, but a means of survival.
Syria, Lebanon, Iraq: why Iran fights far from home
The Iranian strategy of forward defense was not invented by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Even under the Shah, Iranian intelligence worked with political forces in Lebanon, attempting to contain Nasserism and Pan-Arabism far from its own borders. Studies on the role of SAVAK in Lebanon cite a characteristic formula used by an Iranian officer: the threat must be contained on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea so that blood is not spilled on Iranian soil.
Decades later, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the families of those killed in Syria and Iraq almost the exact same thing: if the Iranians had not fought there, they would have had to fight the enemy in Kermanshah and Hamadan.
Here it is, the true continuity. One regime was monarchical, pro-Western, and secular. The other is revolutionary, Islamist, and anti-American. But their strategic phrase is one and the same: if you do not stop the threat far away, it comes home.
The nuclear program is not just a bomb. It is a language of status
The West often views Iran's nuclear program as a separate non-proliferation issue. This is technically correct, but strategically incomplete. For Iran, the nuclear program is not just a collection of centrifuges, uranium stockpiles, and facilities in Natanz, Fordow, or Isfahan. It is a tool of deterrence, a symbol of technological sovereignty, and a political test: does the outside world recognize Iran as a subject or treat it as an object of control.
The IAEA, in its report for May 2025, estimated Iran's total stockpile of enriched uranium at 9247.6 kilograms, including 408.6 kilograms of uranium in the form of UF6 enriched up to 60 percent. Experts from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation noted that such a stockpile of 60 percent uranium already holds strategic significance and, with further enrichment, could yield material for several nuclear warheads.
Yet, this is precisely where the main error of pressure begins. When Iran is demanded to completely abandon its deterrence architecture, this is perceived not as a request to become more moderate. It is perceived as a demand to return to a state of vulnerability. And in Iranian historical memory, vulnerability always ends in foreign dictate.
Every strike on Iran makes Iran more Iranian
Over recent decades, nearly the entire toolkit of coercion has been deployed against Tehran: sanctions, financial blockades, cyberattacks, assassinations of scientists and commanders, support for regime opponents, diplomatic isolation, strikes on allies, threats of direct war, and direct military pressure. The problem is that none of this destroyed the Iranian strategy. In many cases, it accelerated it.
Sanctions were supposed to force Tehran to back down. Instead, they pushed it toward circumvention financial channels, shadow trade, technological autonomization, and tighter cooperation with non-Western centers of power. Strikes were supposed to limit the regional network. Instead, they convinced the Iranian elites that without such a network, the country would find itself one-on-one with the American military machine. Pressure on the nuclear program was supposed to halt enrichment. Instead, it became an argument in favor of an accelerated accumulation of potential.
The Iranian system knows how to turn external pressure into internal proof of its own righteousness. This does not mean it is invulnerable. It is vulnerable economically, socially, technologically, and politically. But its vulnerability does not automatically translate into compliance. Sometimes it produces the opposite result-consolidation, mobilization, and a refusal to compromise.
"Axis of evil" - the speech that buried the window of opportunity
One of the most telling episodes is US President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" speech in 2002. After September 11, Iran cooperated on Afghanistan, participated in the Bonn process, helped shape the post-Taliban political architecture, and sent signals that limited engagement with Washington was possible. The reformist camp of President Mohammad Khatami took internal risks because it believed that cooperation could yield a response.
The response was the public enrollment of Iran among the enemies. For Washington, this was an ideological formula. For Tehran, it was a confirmation of an old suspicion: the United States does not want a modus vivendi, it wants capitulation or regime change. After this, the space for pragmatists narrowed, and the arguments of the security apparatus began to sound more convincing. They could say: we warned you.
This episode is important not as an historical grievance, but as a model. Every time Iran takes a limited step forward and receives an expansion of pressure in response, the camp inside the system that says "a treaty with the US is a trap" grows stronger. And every time, Washington wonders why the Iranian side becomes tougher.
Trump wants a deal. Iran wants conditions under which the deal does not look like capitulation
The current crisis of 2026 demonstrates the exact same trap once again. The administration of US President Trump is trying to combine military pressure, the threat of new strikes, and talk of a deal. Reuters recorded that Trump spoke of the possibility of a swift end to the war, but simultaneously warned of new strikes if an agreement is not reached.
From Washington's point of view, this is a tactic of coercion. From Tehran's point of view, this is an attempt to force Iran to sign a document at gunpoint. And these are precisely the kinds of documents that Iranian political culture accepts worst of all. Iran can make a compromise if it looks like an exchange of interests. But it is nearly incapable of accepting an agreement that will be read domestically as an admission of defeat.
Following the transition of supreme power to Mojtaba Khamenei, which was reported by Al Jazeera in March 2026, this logic did not disappear. On the contrary, the military context made it even more rigid: a new leader cannot begin his rule with a concession that will be perceived as an historical humiliation.
Why Washington wins battles but fails to achieve the endgame
American power is immense. The United States is capable of launching strikes, blocking financial channels, assembling coalitions, destroying facilities, pressuring Iran's allies, and managing a global system of sanctions. However, Washington's problem is that it frequently mistakes tactical success for a strategic result.
To destroy a facility does not mean to destroy a program. To eliminate a commander does not mean to eliminate a network. To destroy a warehouse does not mean to destroy motivation. To collapse a currency does not mean to secure a political capitulation. In the case of Iran, this is particularly vital: the country is accustomed to thinking in long cycles, outwaiting pressure, paying a high price, and betting on the fatigue of its adversary.
The analogy with Vietnam is appropriate here. Henry Kissinger and American strategists long proceeded from the assumption that escalating pain would force North Vietnam to accept the American definition of victory. Yet Hanoi fought differently—for time, endurance, and the exhaustion of the political will of the United States. Iran operates in a similar fashion. It does not have to defeat the United States in the classical sense. It only needs to avoid losing until the moment Washington requires an exit.
The Iranian network is not a web of fanatics, but a safety net system
Iran's regional network is frequently described as an ideological "axis of resistance." This is accurate, but insufficient. For Tehran, this network is not merely about ideology, but serves as a security perimeter. Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestinian groups, maritime levers, cyber resources, and missile forces—all of these are elements of distributed deterrence.
The purpose of such an architecture is to ensure that any strike on Iran does not remain a localized episode, but becomes a problem for the entire region and the global economy. This is precisely where its effectiveness lies. The United States wants to isolate the theater of conflict. Iran expands the theater. The United States wants to talk about nuclear facilities. Iran shifts the conversation to Hormuz, oil, tankers, insurance rates, US bases, Washington's allies, and the domestic cost of escalation for global markets.
Therefore, the demand to dismantle this entire architecture looks to Tehran like a demand to remove a seatbelt before a crash. The West may consider this system a source of threat. And in many ways, it is right. But Iran considers it a protection against destruction. Without recognizing this difference, diplomacy turns into a theater of mutual misunderstanding.
The fundamental paradox: the stronger the pressure, the less space remains for a concession
Western logic frequently stems from a simple formula: increase pressure, raise the price of resistance, and force Iran into a concession. Yet in the Iranian case, pressure has a dual effect. It does indeed raise the price of resistance. At the same time, however, it raises the political price of a concession.
If Tehran concedes after threats, strikes, and a blockade, it will look like capitulation domestically. If it concedes after negotiations where its security interests are acknowledged, it can be sold as statesmanship. The difference is fundamental. This is precisely why an agreement built on humiliation is unsustainable. It may be signed, but it will not survive. It will be sabotaged, revised, bypassed, or used to wait for a moment of revenge.
What can actually work
A realistic policy toward Iran must begin neither with sympathy for Tehran nor with the justification of its actions. This is not about romanticizing the Islamic Republic. This is about sobriety. Nuclear proliferation is dangerous. Iran's regional networks have indeed produced violence. The missile program alters the balance of power. Pressure on shipping through Hormuz hits the global economy. All of these are real problems.
Yet they can only be solved with an understanding of the other side's motivation. An agreement that demands strategic nudity from Iran will not work. An agreement that includes real security guarantees, clear verification mechanisms, the phased lifting of sanctions, the recognition of Iran's legitimate interests, and the limitation of the most dangerous elements of its program stands a chance.
Iran will not abandon deterrence. But it can agree to a form of deterrence that is more transparent, more limited, and less explosive. This is the true space for diplomacy. Everything else is rhetoric for press conferences.
The endgame that Washington refuses to acknowledge
The main difficulty for the United States is not that there is no interlocutor in Tehran. There is an interlocutor. The problem is that Washington too often asks that interlocutor the wrong question. It asks: what does the regime want? Instead, it should ask: what does Iran want as a state that has survived imperial humiliations, the division of spheres of influence, coups, wars, sanctions, isolation, and the constant threat of foreign intervention?
The answer is unpleasant, but clear. Iran wants status, depth, deterrence, and a guarantee that its destiny will not be decided without it. This desire will not vanish with a change of supreme leader, president, government, or the composition of the National Security Council. It was not born with the Islamic Republic, and it will not die with it.
Until the West understands this, it will repeatedly walk through the exact same door: sanctions, threats, strikes, escalation, an oil shock, nervous negotiations, a broken deal, and new escalation. And each time, it will wonder why Iran does not behave like a regime driven into a corner.
Because Iran does not think like a cornered regime. It thinks like an old power convinced that if it yields space today, a foreign army will be at its gates tomorrow.