Analysts divided on whether Iran’s war assessment matches battlefield reality
DUBAI—Iranian officials believe the country has emerged as the dominant power in the region after the U.S. and Israel failed to achieve their main goals in the war that began in February, according to the Wall Street Journal. As long as Tehran cements this status by securing control of the Strait of Hormuz and dominating the Persian Gulf economies, the rest—including sanctions relief—will eventually follow, the officials said.
“This is the only way: recognize the new Iranian order in the Strait of Hormuz,” said Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, according to the Journal. The parliament’s speaker and lead negotiator with the U.S., Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, added: “The Strait of Hormuz will only open with ‘Iranian arrangements,’ not American threats.”
The U.S. withdrew a Treasury Department waiver issued last month that allowed the sale of Iranian oil on international markets, a critical source of revenue for the sanctions-strained Iranian economy. The withdrawal followed Iranian attacks on vessels attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz via Omani territorial waters, bypassing the Iranian side of the waterway. Tehran argued that its actions were justified by a memorandum of understanding with the Trump administration that specified maritime traffic would flow via “Iranian arrangements.” American officials disagreed, calling the attacks an act of terrorism.
The U.S. so far has not shown the ability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, the Journal reported. Fresh rounds of military activity by both sides have fallen short of resuming all-out war. The U.S. has not targeted Tehran, and Iran has limited itself to largely ineffective attacks on American military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Iran has not resumed attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Journal that the Islamic Republic’s takeaway from the war is that “concessions are won through coercion—by attacking its neighbors, threatening the Strait of Hormuz and driving up the price of oil.” He added: “Like Putin’s Russia, the Islamic Republic believes that its security depends not on the prosperity of its people, but on the insecurity of its neighbors.”
Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the inconclusive nature of the 40-day full-scale conflict between February and April has left both sides claiming victory. “The reason the Iranians are playing hardball at the moment is because they are trying to put pressure on President Trump, understanding that the war is unpopular in the U.S. and that the Strait of Hormuz has strangled the world economy,” she told the Journal. “They’re going for brinkmanship because they seem to be operating from the perspective that they’ve got the upper hand.”
Not all analysts agree with Iran’s self-assessment. Salman Al-Ansari, a Saudi geopolitical analyst, told the Journal that Iran’s perception of itself as a new regional hegemon is delusional given how much its military has been degraded, its proxy network weakened, and its economy suffocated. “All it has left is bullying, piracy, noise and the ability to act as a spoiler,” he said. “These are not the qualities of a hegemon, but of a thug.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior Central Intelligence Agency official dealing with the Middle East, said the Iranians do not believe President Trump wants to resume full-scale war, so they are likely to keep pushing. “Fundamentally, the Iranians don’t believe that Trump wants to go back to war, so they are going to just push and push,” he told the Journal. “But there is so much that can go wrong. If one of these exchanges causes a mass casualty event in which U.S. soldiers are killed, Trump will go crazy. So this is not risk-free.”
The shifting balance of power in the Gulf has been visible in diplomatic signals. Attendees from three of the six Gulf states that were struck by Iranian missiles and drones last spring—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman—attended the recent funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran, according to the Journal. The Saudi delegation was made to listen to what many in the region perceived as a deliberately insulting verse from the Quran, the Journal reported, with the implication that the Saudis belonged to the camp of disbelievers. The remaining Gulf states that stayed away, including the United Arab Emirates, are nevertheless engaging in direct contacts with Tehran.
“They have reached the conclusion that they are facing the tyranny of geography—the Islamic Republic is still there, President Trump is not going to be president of the United States forever, and they have to live side by side with the Iranians,” said Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran and Shiite Axis program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, according to the Journal. “They have to face the reality.”
Adding to the complexity, it remains unclear who actually calls the shots in Tehran at a time when the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not appeared on video or in person since he was believed to have been injured in strikes that killed his father in February, the Journal reported. Several hard-line factions competing for power have bitterly criticized last month’s memorandum of understanding with the U.S. and have a clear interest in escalation that would scuttle it.
“Decision-making in Iran is now in chaos,” said Mehran Haghirian, executive director of research at the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation think tank, according to the Journal. “There is clearly a faction that doesn’t support negotiations. Many of them want to prolong this as much as possible, because every day that is passing is strengthening the regime and limiting the room for any postwar political reform.” He drew a parallel to the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, which he said allowed the Islamic Republic to eliminate rivals at home, the Journal reported.