Wars end at the negotiating table, and the current US-Iran conflict will be no exception. Despite the delay in signing the “memorandum of understanding” between the two countries, a deal that President Donald Trump has described as “great” and “wonderful,” while Tehran insists it has imposed its own terms, it is important, before the expiration of the 60-day deadline set for the negotiations, that oil prices fall, benefiting the American consumer; that the World Cup in the United States proceeds successfully; and that Tehran turns its attention to burying Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on July 4, 126 days after his death.
Tehran’s rulers have neither raised the white flag nor declared that they have “drunk the poison chalice,” as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did at the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Yet a significant shift is taking shape, one that points to geopolitical changes ahead. At its core lies an American strategy that has moved toward decisiveness, mirrored by Israel’s own approach. This makes it necessary to examine the implications of that shift and reflect carefully on where matters may stand after the war, far removed from the rhetoric of triumphal speeches.
When Khomeini announced nearly 38 years ago that he had accepted the poison chalice, that moment gave fresh momentum to the project of “exporting the revolution,” aimed at establishing an Iranian Islamic model that transcended borders and national identities. The project targeted the region from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Khomeini himself defined its context and objectives, promising a different Islamic model capable of confronting the prevailing international order.
The overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime provided a major boost to that project, particularly through the fateful decision by Iraq’s administrator, Paul Bremer, to dissolve the Iraqi army, allowing Tehran to begin filling the resulting vacuum. It was not long before Iranian officials boasted of controlling four Arab capitals. It can now be said with confidence that President Trump’s decision to kill Qassem Soleimani, the leading symbol of Iran’s expansionist project, was, among other objectives, an important early step toward forcing that project into retreat after it had fractured states across the region and shaken their stability and the security of their peoples.
In the weeks following the outbreak of the US-Iran war, different concerns and priorities began to emerge inside Iran. It was therefore neither insignificant nor inconsequential when Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf declared that “Iran did not win, but it endured,” and that on the basis of that endurance it could move toward “striking a deal with the Americans.” Such a deal would close the chapter on a confrontation that has lasted for decades.
Equally noteworthy was President Masoud Pezeshkian’s statement that “Iranians are hungry despite sitting atop oil and gas.” This concern is both major and central. Protecting the regime, protecting its leadership, and turning attention inward have moved to the forefront. The challenge has become how to safeguard the system and prevent “change”- a theme that featured prominently in President Trump’s rhetoric and even more so in Israeli discourse. It is still too early to conclude that Iran has fully accepted that it can no longer return to the situation that existed before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and its consequences for Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and for Iran itself, its Revolutionary Guard, and its political order.
It is likewise premature to say that Tehran has accepted the reality that its expansionist project is no longer on the rise, or that it is unable to preserve what remains of its regional proxies and, by extension, its influence across the region. Nor should one dismiss what General Esmail Qaani proposed regarding a “new resistance security belt extending from the Strait of Hormuz to Bab el-Mandeb, and from the Gulf to the Red Sea,” because “in the blink of an eye” Tehran could return to its previous course, despite the sharp criticism voiced by President Pezeshkian, the only official elected by Iran’s people: “Martyrdom is a great triumph, but it is absolutely unacceptable for the enemy to be able to assassinate our leaders so easily.” All of this points to the growing priority of regime security and delicate internal balances, especially after Iran’s regional proxies proved unable to provide the external defense the regime had hoped for.
The question that presents itself, amid what appear to be carefully orchestrated demonstrations calling for the downfall of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Abbas Araghchi, a member of the negotiating team, is this: Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the era of the “Islamic Revolution,” which ushered in a period of transcending borders and national identities? Or is Iran, following a framework agreement with the Americans, moving instead toward becoming a hardline nation-state that may one day return as a source of danger to its surroundings, benefiting from the continued presence of the Supreme Leader at the center of the political scene, even if the current period has been marked by his prolonged absence from public view and public speech?
It is a strong possibility, one that may today appeal to figures who still hold power on the ground, such as General Ahmad Vahidi and his associates, though they must also fear the anger of a hungry population. Having seen their nuclear gamble fail, they are likely to cling to the “Strait of Hormuz- the second nuclear card,” which Tehran will not easily surrender as a source of strategic leverage. The strait has become one of the world’s most important arteries of trade and energy, and Washington knows that Tehran understands that a permanent American maritime stranglehold is unsustainable.
