Taha Özhan
The war that Iran faces today cannot be explained solely by military balances, imperialism, a national history trapped in a vicious cycle, or diplomatic standoffs. This tension takes shape at the intersection of a state’s modernization struggles, the remnants of a revolution, an imperial memory, its social imagination, and an unending fear of foreign intervention. When it comes to Iran, war becomes not only a test of borders or the state itself, but also of historical narrative, identity construction, and political reasoning. For this reason, every attack on Iran can be read in Tehran not merely as a strategic threat, but as a historical repetition or a vicious cycle. Every external intervention is perceived as a continuation of past partition plans, coups, and occupations. Every internal crisis turns into a new chapter in the unfinished story of modernization. To understand Iran, one must see not the current atmosphere of war, but the mental and historical framework that continuously reproduces this atmosphere. At this point, the issue is not only what Iran does or will do, but how Iran sees itself and how it interprets the world. Indeed, Iran is struggling with its crises in a state of constant slippage, mentally living in the past while physically trying to exist in the present.
Whatever we say about Iran, it is impossible not to get caught in the labyrinth of history. For that same history is, on the one hand, the source of Iran’s vicious cycle, and on the other, the source of the ‘blessings’ that make Iran what it is. On one side, an ancient civilization and tradition; on the other, a modern state that has failed to fully emerge from within this deep history over the past centuries. On one side, the natural security it has gained thanks to the unique opportunities offered by its geography; on the other, the curse of natural resources in the past century. It is an exceptional pragmatism that simultaneously derives religion from history, sectarianism from geopolitics, and faith from political conflict, while at the same time constructing its own prison. A social imagination that, with a shifting memory, cannot achieve historical synchronization and oscillates within 2,500 years. The effort to focus on the future or the present is always extinguished by a feeling of being defeated by time. An existence that extracts consciousness from pain and life from mourning. A mind condemned to self-enslavement by a political theology invented within a spiral where history does not die, the dead cannot be buried, and those buried cannot become history. A political mindset that attempts to protect itself from present problems and future threats by transforming history into a nostalgia that is a belief in an innocent past and that cannot escape from its fetal position, which serves as a comfortable refuge. An imagination trapped in temporal tension, settling its revenges in the past and seeking victory in the present.
In the broadest sense, all of these have been the factors shaping nearly all the political and social crises that Iran has experienced since at least the beginning of the 20th century, regardless of specific actors. In other words, Iran’s modernization has been trapped in a vicious cycle of constant interruptions, unable to cross a critical threshold. Even when focusing solely on the 20th century within the centuries-old narrative of Iranian political and social history, it’s inevitable to observe this phenomenon. However, it is necessary to be fair here. Because, at least in the 20th century, while there were aspects of the vicious cycle that Iran experienced that stemmed from itself, the imperialist aggressions also came with a heavy cost. Today, Iran faces another imperialist moment it has experienced repeatedly throughout the last century: a weary country, even exhausted, for two centuries, caught in a power crisis oscillating between Moscow and Western capitals.
Skidding in the Labyrinth of History
The irony of history is that the US, which defended Iran’s territorial integrity against Soviet pressure in 1946 and enlisted the UN for this purpose, is today launching a bloody invasion attempt to bring Iran down. This is, of course, not Washington’s first intervention in Iran. Since the CIA-backed coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953, we have witnessed the accumulation of American interventions in Iran over decades, culminating in a bloody plan of invasion. At the beginning of the last century, Iran, which was attempted to be divided from the north and southeast by Russia and England with a Sykes-Picot-like agreement, has been subjected to external interventions since 1907. However, at a time when Russia was preoccupied with the Russo-Japanese War and Germany was rising in Europe, the Anglo-Russian plan became ineffective as Iran responded internally to this aggression with the ‘Constitutional Revolution.’ During the 1905–11 Constitutional Revolution, the Iranian Parliament was bombarded by the Russians. Even though partition did not occur, Iran spent the following years caught between foreign intervention and an internal crisis of consolidation. In this short period, recorded as the İstibdad-ı Sağir (Lesser Despotism), the pro-constitution parliament was bombed and many prominent leaders were executed. What stands out here is that in later years as well, Iran was only able to repel foreign intervention when it possessed internal legitimacy.
Similarly, another turning point occurred in 1951 when Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953 by a joint coup of the CIA and MI6 following his move to nationalize the management of energy resources controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. With Iran once again losing its leadership due to foreign intervention, a period began in which the ‘Pahlavi absolutist rule’ was consolidated with Western support. This coup would later pave the way for the revolution. The new leadership that emerged with the Islamic Revolution was also subjected to foreign intervention. First, a year and a half after the revolution, Iraq attacked Iran, initiating one of the longest and bloodiest wars of the 20th century. In the midst of the war, in 1981, a bombing at the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party killed 74 people, including one of the system’s most important figures, Ayatollah Beheshti, along with ministers and members of parliament. A month later, another bombing at the prime minister’s office killed many people, including the president and the prime minister. Since then, apart from the hot war, Iran, which has been crushed under a rather brutal embargo war for half a century, has not only failed to achieve internal normalization but has also come to the present day under the weight of external interventions.
The latest in a series of interventions that Iran experienced repeatedly throughout the 20th century, all resulting in the loss of its leadership, is the American-Israeli attack. From Iran’s perspective, while this development has nothing entirely new compared to past experiences, it also has different dynamics due to the transformations since 1979, especially in the post-Khomeini era. Indeed, the wave of attacks that began with the impossible mission of ‘regime change’ turned, in less than a week, into the dream of ‘map change.’ Regardless of the direction it takes, the undeniable truth is that the main goal of US and Israeli aggression appears to be to inflict a severe blow on Iran in every aspect, transforming it into a ‘failed state’ like Iraq after ‘the Gulf War.’ Unlike in Iraq, the US aims to integrate Iranian oil into a fully exploitative system, just as it was before 1951, as a crucial element of the ‘energy empire’ it is trying to build.
In many ways, Iran’s 20th century began with a half-century delay on June 20, 1951, when the Iranian flag was raised over the headquarters of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Khorramshahr, ending British dominance. Neither the Constitutional Revolution and the collapse of the Qajar dynasty, nor the Pahlavi rule and its radical secular modernization efforts, nor the Russian-British occupation constituted continuous crises for Iran. Each had its own specific context and causes. With the nationalization of energy resources, Iran would henceforth experience its political tensions along a single axis. At the center of these tensions were energy resources. Iran, situated in a region containing nearly half of the world’s oil and natural gas resources, has been condemned to instability except during periods when it was subject to the West’s system of relations with petro-states. It should not be misleading that after 1979, Iran responded to this imperialism in an active ideological way that transcended nationalism, often producing wrong responses that, due to ideological impasses, also plunged itself into a major crisis. Due to its history and scale, even if it wished, Iran cannot enter into a continuous and heavy relationship of exploitation with the West like the petro-states around it. Even if Iran were to undergo a radical regime change as desired by the US and Israel, it would be inevitable that, despite this change, it would eventually embark on a new quest for independence, following a different path and with its own unique dynamics.
From the Axis of Resistance to a Para-State
Two major turning points played a decisive role in Iran’s inability to normalize after the revolution. The first was Iraq’s attack on Iran, launching a Western-backed war that suffocated the revolution. Especially in the post-Khomeini era, or in other words, after the Iraq War, the war had lasting and structural effects on the inability of Iranian politics to rationalize and normalize. The issue of survival evolved from a state of war into a political function that continuously shapes what is considered normal in Iran. It would not be wrong to say that today, the identity and mindset of nearly all its leadership have been shaped by the Iran-Iraq War. In other words, a state that had been experiencing a crisis of statehood since the Qajar era, and which only began to minimally extend its reach across Iran during the Pahlavi period, saw its already fragile process of centralization and institution-building take on a new character with the Iran-Iraq War. Trapped within a ‘world of resistance,’ Iran moved away from being a rational state and transformed into the world’s largest ‘resistance organization.’ While this situation may be understandable to a certain extent, after the Iran-Iraq War and the end of the Cold War, instead of rationalizing, Iran drifted into even greater disorientation. In particular, reactivating its nuclear program, which actually began during the Shah’s era, also closed the doors to rationalization. With this period, Iran entered an era of ‘perfect isolation.’ However, it is important to note that Iran was not subjected to isolation solely by the West and Israel. Tehran experienced three forms of isolation simultaneously, two of which were of its own making. Alongside international isolation, regional and national isolation also emerged, trapping Iran in an inescapable vicious cycle.
The second pillar of this vicious cycle again involved Iraq. Rather than viewing the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 as both a national and regional threat, Iran treated it as an opportunity to create space for its long-stagnant system. Accompanied by sectarian politics, it codified its geopolitical craving as a strategy and intervened in Iraq with the hunger of decades. The use of proxy force, which emerged under very specific circumstances during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s, was directly extended to Iraq at the state level, opening a highly problematic new chapter. This page marked the beginning of a period in which Iran’s regional isolation was now enclosed with thick walls. It was inevitable that advancing to power in an Arab country through sectarian dynamics would simultaneously trigger sectarian and ethnic reflexes across the region. As these reflexes strengthened, Iran’s regional isolation deepened. As resources were spent financing the ‘Shiite Crescent,’ the livelihoods of millions of Iranians shrank, Iran’s regional alienation increased, and most importantly, it largely severed the regional sympathy it had gained through the revolution, as well as its emotional and intellectual ties with Islamic movements. Meanwhile, as the largest country in the world under sanctions, social demands within Iran increased over the decades. As these demands grew, organizational reflexes became more pronounced, and as a result of its transformation into a full-fledged security state, ‘perfect isolation’ emerged. On the other hand, as its regional expansion (Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen) increased, Iran displayed an outward vitality that masked incurable internal ailments, much like a bodybuilder trying to conceal organ failure through artificial displays of strength.
Attempting to extract another major opportunity from the Second Iraq War, Iran in fact secured a hollow sectarian victory that would once again turn into a curse. Despite these grave and, due to its organizational mindset, inevitable mistakes, another opportunity arose before Iran: the Arab uprisings. Panicked by regional change, Iran once again made a grave mistake, adopting a position against the regional demands that gave rise to the Arab Spring, under the pretext that the ‘axis of resistance,’ which it sees as its geopolitical backyard, was resisting, thus exhibiting reflexes similar to the Israel-Gulf axis. However, if Iran had taken the right stance, especially in Syria, which became the final nail in the coffin of the Arab Spring, both Iran and the region could be completely different today. Had it supported change instead of trying to keep the Baathist dictatorship in power in Syria, neither Palestine, nor Lebanon, nor Iran itself would be in their current state. The Iran policy, which serves Israel’s intolerance of any state with democratic legitimacy around its borders, has led to the deaths of nearly a million people in Syria. In Iraq, instead of the establishment of a primitive sectarian and ethnic political division, it could have paved the way, albeit problematic and slow, for normalization based on constitutional citizenship. In Lebanon, instead of creating space for an armed force that one lacking the capacity to militarily fight Israel, to paralyze the country’s politics after the end of the occupation, the path could have been cleared for a normalizing Lebanon, which Israel did not desire. However, instead of all this, Iran, believing it could gain geopolitical power by pursuing a utopian “axis of resistance,” invested in proxy organizations and paramilitary groups, thereby surrendering Tehran to an organizational mindset. Ultimately, Iran has transformed into a ‘para-state’ with several armies and police forces simultaneously, political institutions riddled with authority confusion, an economy with several different currency prices, and a situation reminiscent of the Qajar era at the beginning of this century, where everyone maintains their own fiefdom in their chosen field/sector. Therefore, “perfect isolation” was constructed within a complex and heavily tutelary system built on a foundation of complete distrust between parallel centers of power.
Perfect Isolation: The Anatomy of Three Encirclements
Another important point here is that being in a continuous proxy war enabled the constant reinforcement of Iran’s military cadres. This reinforcement mechanism, due to the political-economic ground and career path it created, on the one hand poisoned institutional processes, and on the other hand led to the rationalization of investment in proxy forces, ultimately preventing the termination of proxy wars at a certain point.
On the other hand, the problem of ‘absence of a ruling party’ that emerged in other countries after social revolutions around the world during the same period also threw the concentration of power in the political sphere into chaos. This led to governments that were far more fragmented, dependent on coalitions and balances of tutelage, and prone to factional survival struggles. Over time, the president and his cabinet came to be called the government; conversely, the network of parallel institutions operating under the informal and discretionary authority of the leader came to be referred to as the state or the system. Decades of isolation have pushed Iran not only outside the realm of global developments but also out of the realm of history, severing it from the belief that its own actions could shape the future. In a society that falls outside of history, politics narrows, nostalgia expands, and even war begins to appear as a violent means of re-entering history.
During this period, Iran convinced itself that it had become a serious geopolitical power by attributing great significance to the relatively low-cost ability of any organization to disrupt a state, a region, social fault lines, or an economy. By investing in proxy forces, it weakened its primary power; by shaping the nature of its relationships with intermediary actors, it deepened the crisis of trust with its real counterparts; and by becoming addicted to the world of intelligence, it lost its conventional diplomatic capacity due to the guerrilla tactics it transformed into a way of doing politics. When it sought to heal this festering wound and normalize the situation, the current underground state’s bitter economic and political climate led to a legitimacy crisis within the country; it also failed to establish healthy relations with its neighbors and the world, becoming increasingly to organization each time.
Having spent the first decade after the revolution in a world of war imposed upon it, Iran spent the following decade trying to compensate for the heavy costs of that war. The 1990s were, in a sense, years of counter-revolutionary tension. This was also a period when oil prices hit historic lows, limiting resources. Caught between the two-headed rule of Khamenei and Rafsanjani, Iran witnessed Khatami, seen as a democratic figure amidst debates on economic liberalization and fundamental rights and freedoms, win the election overwhelmingly (with 80% turnout and 70% of the vote) against the established order. Once again, Iran had an opportunity to break its ill-fated historical pattern. In a global climate shaped by liberal winds, Khatami made efforts to break Iran’s international and domestic isolation. He reestablished relations with the United Kingdom for the first time since 1979. While easing economic sanctions partially with Clinton, the United States even issued a statement that could be interpreted as a form of apology for the 1953 coup. Ironically, their hesitant honeymoon attempts with the US, which they had called the “Great Satan” for years, vanished when the new US president, Bush, included Iran in the “axis of evil” after 9/11. Then, an interesting historical rhythm, unique to Iran, began to re-emerge. The rise of hawks in the US indicated a potential resurgence of conservatives in Iran. And that’s exactly what happened. The conservatives won the municipal elections in 2003, the parliament in 2004, and the presidential election in 2005.
The counter-revolutionary process in Iran had ended, but even the conservatives were unaware of what the new chapter would be. With the removal of both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, whom it considered its enemies, by the US, Iran suddenly found itself in a vast geopolitical situation that it could not control. At the same time, these years coincided with record-high oil prices, after decades of prices remaining below $20 from the mid-1980s to the millennium. In the years following the shift in power in Iran, oil prices reached $150, providing the means to irresponsibly finance the “new revolutionaries” and Iran’s activities in the geopolitical space opened by the invasion of Iraq. While this created a misleading sense of fiscal capacity, the underlying economic dynamics were in fact entering an irreversible decay.
During the same period, economic bottlenecks were also being constructed, regularly mobilizing the streets and, for the first time since 1979, even bringing bazaar merchants into protest. The capital transfer movement, which has entered the literature as the construction of a non-public public sector, was implemented with the election of Ahmadinejad. While many entities operating within the system with different dynamics (revolutionary foundations, religious and social support institutions, asset and pension funds, parallel military structures, etc.) benefited from this capital transfer, they also established a super-institutional system of corruption and inefficiency that became structural in the economy. This led to the emergence of an economy that became practically ungovernable, even if there had been a desire to manage it. With its industrial and production infrastructure severely restricted by the West’s harsh embargo regime, the economy has turned primarily to energy and mineral resources, while costly grey economic activities have increased in an attempt to circumvent the sanctions. This situation transformed austerity into a constant tool of governance, and scarcity in every sense generated an unimaginable profit mechanism for those with privileged access. In a country where a third of households are forced to live below the poverty line, a system has emerged that Iranians call a “resistance economy,” where the people live in seemingly endless deprivation. As a result, Iran has been condemned to a per capita income even lower than that of Iraq, which has spent effectively 30 of the past 50 years under active war, occupation, internal conflict, and severe sanctions.
The “New” Supreme Leader, Same Name: The Victory of Military Tutelage
Under these circumstances, despite all its problems and democratic shortcomings, including the election of Ahmadinejad in Iran, the system did not face a major legitimacy crisis. Having almost wasted years in which global conditions, energy prices, and regional dynamics were largely calm and advantageous to Tehran, Iran is now facing a major legitimacy crisis due to the heavy social and economic costs that have arisen. Beginning with the 2020 parliamentary elections, voter turnout fell below 50 percent in all subsequent elections, effectively revealing the public’s disengagement from the country’s political system. Just as there are multiple exchange rates for currency, different segments within the country began to live in entirely separate worlds. There is now a complete disconnection between the Iran where the broad masses live and the Iran that lives within the world of the axis of resistance, exercising its privileges within the arbitrage space created by sanctions and its own mismanagement. The “dispossessed” and “oppressed,” to whom the revolution had promised social justice, have been replaced by “eligibles” who are able to leverage privileges within the system.
Despite all this severe polarization and even fragmentation, it is important not to forget that Iran has both the security instruments to keep the government afloat and a certain level of popular support sufficient to maintain the power of the current regime. Moreover, as US-Israeli aggression shifted from aiming to forcibly change the government that the people were unhappy with to rapidly targeting the alteration of Iran’s borders, the legitimacy debate within the country shifted to a completely different ground, revealing a reflex to protect internal unity against external threats.
Despite all its crises, it would not be realistic to claim that Iran’s leadership has become as isolated as the Shah once was. Similarly, it is clear that the Iranian regime will not hesitate to use violence on a scale that the Shah could not employ when his power was in crisis, just as it did in Syria. Today, Iran, under attack from imperialist and arrogant forces, has transformed into a state that is crumbling but whose silhouette remains standing from its ruins, paralyzed but somehow functioning, having lost its legitimacy but maintaining its power, without friends but finding support from geopolitical balances. Therefore, what America and Israel are waging war against is the silhouette of a paralyzed, even collapsed, Iran. The silhouette cannot be changed by external intervention. Iran, as in its history, will decide its final direction through its own internal dynamics.
The war initiated by the United States against Iran represents, in every respect, a new phenomenon that has dismantled international norms in an unprecedented way, despite the many violations and problems the world has faced over the past 80 years. At least in the post-1945 period, there is no comparable example. On the one hand, we are faced with a war that inverts the hegemon–vassal state relationship; on the other, a war launched without clear political objectives, seemingly driven merely by the possession of overwhelming force. It is a war conducted with little regard for regional or global geopolitical and economic consequences, marked by daily inconsistency and an unprecedented level of unseriousness. The world has never witnessed a hegemonic power handle war in such a charlatan-like manner. The American administration and its elites appear to have turned into George Bergeron from Vonnegut’s dystopian story, with strategic parasites implanted in their minds by Israel. As they are dragged into the war with Iran, they are unable to comprehend the truth, even though they are seeing it. For any shred of common sense is instantly extinguished by the Zionist noise exploding in their ears, just like in Vonnegut’s story. However, this alone is not sufficient to explain why the United States, under what is described as Zionist captivity, has waged war on Iran. U.S. interventions in Iran have, after all, been continuous for three-quarters of a century. Iran was not spared foreign intervention either when it embarked on a radical secular transformation resembling early 20th-century Kemalist reforms, nor when it attempted to rationalize its relations with the West.
When viewed as a whole, the conflict with Iran reveals U.S. aggression as a continuous strategy. In the period from 1951 to the post-revolution years, hybrid or asymmetric warfare was waged using tools such as coups, economic pressure, proxy forces, the use of regional actors, and political manipulation, thus avoiding direct conflict. The open attacks carried out by the United States and Israel since June 2025 have taken the form of conventional interstate war; however, this does not represent a new phase but rather a direct and visible continuation of the same strategic aggression. The fundamental element linking these two periods is the objective of keeping Iran under constant control and pressure. Therefore, the U.S. attack on Iran is not a new development but the continuation of a 75-year-long war. For Iran, the real crisis lies not in the immediate destruction caused by the latest U.S. aggression, but in how Tehran will rebuild its political, economic, social, and geopolitical wreckage afterward.
Moreover, authoritarian structures rooted in social revolutions, rather than those resulting from external interventions or military coups, possess a far greater capacity for survival. As seen in similar cases, such regimes over time construct a monolithic ruling elite and repressive apparatuses sustained by unwavering loyalty. Iran is one of the most typical manifestations of this historical pattern. However, while such a structure may create a foundation for resistance, a country of Iran’s scale must at some point reach a moment that enables normalization, generates prosperity, and builds friendships. Otherwise, even if Iran can withstand external pressure in the short term, its real crisis will unfold through the pains of internal normalization.
Two weeks have passed since the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. Many of the predictions made at the start of the war proved to be wrong. On the other hand, the predictions of those who seriously studied Iran within its historical, social, and geopolitical context were also confirmed. It is true that Iran’s governance has, over time, become indefensible due to grave mistakes. However, this does not in any way rationalize the brutal attack launched against it. Within Iran’s nearly two-century-long spiral of crises, the ‘post-Islamic Revolution period’ does not represent a single, distinct parenthesis. It should not be forgotten that Iran faced similar external interventions both during its period of radical secularization and when it attempted to take its first steps towards democratization. Whether through Russian-British occupation plans in the early 20th century or the 75-year strategy of subjugation led by the United States, these interventions have had little to do with Iran’s ideological orientation. As in other cases, the determining factor has been the nature of Tehran’s relationship with the intervening power or axis. This is precisely the demand for “total surrender” that the US has been arrogantly repeating lately. This is where the crisis arises. Given its scale, history, social imagination, and political theology, Iran is not a country capable of sustaining “total surrender,” even if it wished to. It is impossible for Iran to achieve a military victory against the United States. However, it is also impossible for the US to create a Gulf state out of Iran, or even a post-World War II Germany or Japan.
All of this makes it difficult to predict the direction of events, increasing uncertainty to extreme levels, especially due to a new dynamic the world is experiencing. This dynamic stems from the Washington administration, which is being experienced for the first time in US history. With an attitude that can only be described as charlatanism and arrogance, this irresponsibility, which shows absolutely no regard for all customs, international law, or even minimal legality, global relations, and geopolitical balances, is disrupting the global and regional landscape. Neither Iran nor the rest of the world has the capacity to intervene in the United States’ transformation from an empire into a crude, corporate-style nation-state. Moreover, the “American Problem,” which now tops the list of global issues and even threats, is felt in our region along with the “Israeli Problem.” The world outside our region at least has the opportunity to address and resolve the “American Problem” often on a bilateral level with Washington. However, our region also has to contend with the “Israel Problem,” which has turned America’s crisis of transformation from empire to nation-state into an opportunity and has literally held hostage the broader US policy in the Middle East. Even if the US were to halt its war tomorrow, it goes without saying that Israel would already be using Iran as a battleground, just like Gaza and Lebanon.
The killing of Khamenei through U.S.-Israeli attacks would, in essence, be a tactical rather than a strategic success. Given both the complex network underpinning Iran’s leadership and the absence of a coherent strategy in Washington for such a move, the overall balance of the war would not fundamentally change. It is true that a war without clear objectives presents dilemmas for the United States. Washington currently faces a Hobbesian choice: either de-escalate and risk appearing weak, or expand the war aimlessly and fall into a trap similar to the one faced by Johnson during Vietnam. However, contrary to common belief, an aimless war could be far more destructive for Iran than one with defined parameters. A war lacking clear geopolitical objectives may evolve into a strategy of outright devastation and destruction, leaving Iran to bear severe economic and social costs for years to come. In this sense, it is plausible that Iran could face a trajectory similar to Iraq’s transformation into a collapsed state after the Gulf War. At this stage, neither Iran’s desperation nor the United States’ overwhelming military superiority will bring the ongoing conflict to an end. The decisive factor appears to be the global energy market. By threatening the Red Sea through the Houthis, Iran is taking advantage of a unique geographical location that allows it to squeeze global supply chains from both sides of the Arabian Peninsula. This asymmetric warfare strategy attempts to force Washington to reach an agreement not through bombs, but through pressure on energy prices.
Vision Surplus, Capacity Deficit: The Dilemmas of War
There is no military way out for Iran. Under the “perfect isolation” it has endured for years, the only visible short- and medium-term exit for Iran may be to break this isolation. At this stage, Tehran can do little more than try to ease its ‘international isolation’ through limited military supply from countries such as China and Russia. However, this will not fundamentally change the nature or the problems of the severe sanctions environment it faces. Secondly, Iran must break its “regional isolation,” to which it has itself significantly contributed. Yet, after the unavoidable confrontations it has initiated with all its neighbors and the still-fresh memory of post-2003 developments, easing this regional isolation will not be easy. Here, Iran has two potential avenues, if it can make use of them. Firstly, despite the ongoing war, most countries in the region, with the exception of the UAE, do not want a weakened Iran with the potential to generate further crises. Second, countries with a certain level of regional weight understand that in a “collapsed Iran” scenario, Israel would quickly cease to be merely a problem and become a direct threat. Through these two dynamics, Iran may be able to partially alleviate its regional isolation in the medium term. However, for this to happen, Tehran must definitively shift from engaging through proxy forces to direct state-to-state relations with regional countries. At a time when it faces an existential threat, Iran must abandon its obsession with signaling geopolitical reach through proxy and subcontracted actors. Here, Yemen can be addressed later due to its instrumental function. However, it needs to pave the way for a new normalization, primarily in Iraq, as well as in Lebanon.
Finally, Iran must break its ‘national isolation.’ In fact, this is the only opening Tehran has. Because this isolation is entirely a problem that Iran has created on its own. Since the early 20th century, Iran has struggled to overcome its normalization pains. This war, in fact, presents Iran with a golden opportunity. Moreover, unlike the other two forms of isolation, it has the ability to de-escalate its national crisis in the short term and normalize it in the medium term, if it so desires. The long-standing governance crisis in Iran has now reached a point where it is no longer manageable. In reality, the system of Velayat-e Faqih (the Supreme Leadership), which effectively concluded with Khomeini’s death, has been artificially sustained for years through borrowed time and will. The problem is not inherently the existence of the Velayat-e Faqih (the Supreme Leadership) system or a Veli-yi/acting Faqih (the Supreme Leader) position within a political system. Because the existence of a democratic deficit, or the fact that a system is not of the nature of a known liberal democracy or similar, does not mean that it is an unacceptable form of government. The problem in Iran stems from the chaos created by the fact that the Supreme Leader (Veli-yi Faqih), while at the same time at the head of the system, has his will manipulated by almost dozens of different institutions of tutelage, parallel structures, and centers of privilege. In other words, much like a deist mechanism, although there is a highest, most powerful, even spiritual authority, it does not actually control daily operations and vital decisions, but rather operates a world of heavy tutelage through its intermediaries. In other words, rather than a system governed by the absolute will of the Supreme Leader (Veli-yi Faqih), one could speak of a leadership position wielded by a heavy tutelary regime. At this point, it is possible to misunderstand the transformation in the post-1988 regime in Iran without realizing that a new power matrix emerged in Iran following the end of the Iraq War, caused by the return of soldiers from the front. The developments of that period, which built upon the current crisis, subjected the Velayat-e Faqih (the Supreme Leadership) system, which began with Khomeini, to a serious transformation. In other words, the system is not so much a ‘Mullah Regime’ as it is clichéd in the West, but rather a typical secular power structure operating in a world of intense power concentration and competition.
Although Iran appears to be governed by a Supreme Leader (Veli-yi Faqih), real power has largely shifted to the Revolutionary Guards since 1988. Following the Iraq War, Rafsanjani’s efforts to keep the Revolutionary Guard out of politics by integrating the army into the post-war reconstruction process and implementing a large economic transfer played a role in creating this situation. The military’s control over the economy, a familiar mechanism in military-backed regimes, expanded further under Ahmadinejad through privatizations (or rather, transfers of economic power to semi-official entities) and political appointments. As a result, while clerics remain at the top symbolically, the military has become the primary center of power. This transformation is one of the most fundamental challenges Iran faces today in managing the threats it confronts. However, this problem is also a bottleneck for which Iran has no solution.
Iran is now experiencing its second transition of Supreme Leader (Veli-yi Faqih) since the Islamic Revolution. Although not often remembered these days, the transition period following the first Supreme Leader change in May-June 1989 witnessed far more intense debates than the current one that followed Khamenei. The legal framework was effectively abolished, and ‘unable to find an Ayatollah’ for the position in Iran, they resolved their issue with Khamenei by agreeing on a weak and constitutionally unqualified figure as a ‘temporary solution’ after competition between the actors. What is noteworthy is the level of political pragmatism displayed then, including constitutional amendments, restructuring of powers, and even the abolition of the Prime Minister’s office. Today, Iran stands at a similar turning point.
The de facto implementation of a monarchical system, which Khomeini had openly opposed, was the greatest self-destruction Iran had inflicted upon itself since the war began. Moreover, the election of Mojtaba Khamenei was actually not an unexpected development. However, making this choice would have been a grave mistake even if Iran were not under heavy attack today. Just two years ago, I wrote that Mojtaba Khamenei would be re-elected unless there was a change of mindset in Iran. The possibility of making this prediction lay in the unlikelihood of the deadlocked system in Iran opening up. However, the fundamental dynamic behind the continued emergence of the same outcome in Iran, even under the threat of invasion or fragmentation, stems not only from the existing deadlock but also from the weight of military tutelage and the de facto dysfunction of the Velayat-e Faqih (the Supreme Leadership) system. On the other hand, Khamenei, whose father was also chosen 37 years ago with similar reasoning and the assumption that he would be an ineffective figure, as part of Rafsanjani’s pragmatic design, has emerged today not so much for reasons stemming from himself, but rather as a product of the system’s need for balance. Therefore, rather than Iran choosing its new leader, the military establishment, which controls a network of military and economic power, preferred a name that suited it.
This development will make it more difficult for Iran to break its national isolation in the coming period. Unable to overcome its national isolation, Iran will face serious difficulties in generating internal legitimacy and public consent in a scenario where the war ends. Having lost many of its resources, it will be deprived of both the means to provide even limited relief to the masses and the economic flow that would satisfy the privileged elite. Tehran’s options are extremely limited. Iran will not be able to end its crisis unless it allows competitive elections, enabling Iranians to govern the country. Since the past has seen many different ways of dealing with this crisis, the possibilities of suppressing and covering up problems with heavy state violence when necessary will also diminish. It is highly probable that, given the severely limited resources available, repression will become far more brutal, similar to the Assad regime.
As in May–June 1989, constitutional pragmatism may offer Iran its most rational path forward. However, today Iran lacks a figure like Rafsanjani. It remains to be seen whether Larijani, who has been effectively ruling Iran for months, will be able to demonstrate such pragmatism. Opening the path to competitive elections would not necessarily end military tutelage but could at least weaken it. The unremarkable nature of the newly elected figure, coupled with the apparent inability of the movement that overthrew the Shah to overcome its internal crisis stemming from a return to a monarchical model, suggests that the only path forward for Iran is to pave the way for competitive elections, a step that will contribute to internal consolidation. Because for Iran, how the war ends no longer matters much. They face a brutal force with which they cannot fight or negotiate. For years, despite a significant military and economic ‘capacity deficit,’ Iran has been a state that possesses a considerable ‘vision surplus’ within its political theology and historical mythology. This situation has repeatedly dragged Iran into adventures it could never sustain.
The US that it faces today has an exaggerated excess of capacity and a very serious vision deficit. This prevents Washington from conducting war as an extension of politics. When war ceases to be an instrument of politics, political objectives and geopolitical purpose disappear. This lack of vision is what leads America to be dragged into wars where it repeatedly fails to achieve its goals despite having excess capacity. There is no reason for Iran to be an exception. It is inconceivable that Tehran could remedy the capacity gap it has been unable to close since the beginning of the last century during wartime. However, it can rationalize the excess of the vision it has provided for nearly half a century. Moreover, a similar effort was made in the years immediately following the revolution, particularly during the period from Rafsanjani’s second term up until 2005.
Iran’s Only Way Out: Letting Iranians Govern Iran
For more than a century, Iran has been a country that has been choked in a way without precedent. Whenever the hands trying to suffocate it loosen their grip even slightly, it constructs a mechanism that traps itself in a vicious cycle it cannot govern, and thus continues to experience its crises. Understanding Iran is far more difficult than judging it. This country, which has been revolving within the same vicious cycle for over a century, can be defined neither solely by the innocence of a victim nor solely by the accountability of a perpetrator. Iran has arrived at the present as the simultaneous victim of both its own organizational mindset and external interventions. The war it faces today is the most brutal manifestation of this dual entrapment.
Yet history, as it has done before, once again opens a door for Iran. This door does not lead through military victory, but through internal rationalization. Only one path remains before Iran: to finally complete the two revolutions it initiated but left unfinished in the past century, and to take a decisive step toward democratic normalization. Competitive politics, civilian oversight, and national reconciliation-these are not unfamiliar concepts for Iran, but thresholds it has repeatedly sought to reach and been repeatedly pushed back by external interference or its own internal dynamics. This is neither an expression of surrender nor of abandonment. On the contrary, it is the only legitimate ground upon which Iran can build its future by embracing its own historical legacy.
For Larijani, as someone who has studied Kant for years, the message Kant would give today is clear: Sapere aude—dare to use your own reason! This is not merely a matter of personal consistency for Larijani, who has effectively been governing the country since last summer. For Iran, in a Kantian sense, the issue is not to wait for ideal conditions, but to do what is right today. Iran has no other defense than to enter the normalization process after a century-long delay. This, in fact, is the resource it urgently needs to manage its current crisis. This resource could be to end the tutelage system, at least at the level of genuine elections, thereby enabling the emergence of a government in Iran that is truly elected and governed by Iranians, and ending the legitimacy crisis. Through its remarkable stance during the war, the Iranian people have both demonstrated and effectively imposed the urgent need for legitimacy upon a system that has long constrained them. Now, it is up to Larijani to read this reality!