Wars always upend assumptions. In 1983 the Islamic Republic of Iran instructed Hezbollah terrorists to “take spectacular action against the United States Marines,” according to American military officials. Hezbollah did so a few weeks later by bombing the U.S. Embassy and Marines in Beirut. Since then, American officials and political commentators of both parties have averred that a U.S. attack on Iran would provoke a forever war in the Middle East.
PREMIUM A US Air Force B-2 Spirit taking off to support Operation “Midnight Hammer” at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, on June 20, 2025(AFP FILE)
Even as the theocracy’s popularity among the Iranian populace tanked in the 1990s and 2000s, American officials saw any foreign intrusion as a gift to the regime, sure to revive its domestic fortunes. They assumed that the Iranian people, under threat, would set aside their grievances and tolerate, if not embrace, their Islamist overlords.
The aftermath of this summer’s 12-day war should bury these assumptions. The Islamic Republic’s leaders have always celebrated their martyrs, hypercharging the traditional Shiite embrace of salvation through suffering. They fill the streets with murals of the dead. Fiery speeches and large demonstrations greet the wrapped corpses of fallen heroes. When a U.S. drone strike killed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, the mullahs made the most of his death, summoning tens of thousands of the wailing faithful for funeral processions. Such staged rituals mobilize the regime’s core supporters, energize the leadership, and intimidate the sullen citizenry.
During the 12-day war, Israel killed around 30 Iranian generals and several nuclear scientists. In total, more than 400 Iranian VIPs might have died. These weren’t battlefield losses but men killed at home, in their offices or in similar locations. Israel’s intelligence services and military successfully penetrated the Islamic Republic’s defenses. Such operational dexterity impressed President Trump, likely spurring him to join the attack.
In the aftermath, the regime has issued mournful press releases, painted a few more murals, and set up life-size cutout images of the hallowed dead at the Tehran airport to welcome foreigners. But there have been no massive state-orchestrated rallies. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spent the war in various bunkers, reportedly plotting his succession. His occasional appearances and speeches have hardly been the inspirational, righteous oratory the faithful might expect from God’s personal representative. He has become terse, disconnected and aggrieved. Meanwhile, President Masoud Pezeshkian awkwardly brags about surviving the Israeli strike.
There’s no glory in national disgrace. Staging demonstrations to celebrate men who died in their apartments doesn’t uplift the revolutionary cadre’s morale. Instead, the mullahs and the IRGC have launched a vicious campaign of repression. In the name of cleansing the country of informers, Iranian authorities have arrested about 20,000 people and executed 262. This isn’t about counterespionage; it’s about intimidating a society that hasn’t rallied around the flag.
This isn’t how many American officials expected the Islamic Republic to behave after being bombed. When selling his Iran nuclear deal, President Barack Obama dismissed those who thought that “surgical strikes against Iran’s facilities will be quick and painless.” His deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes was more damning. “The default view in Washington is that if there’s a challenge in the Middle East, the U.S. has to solve it,” he said. “Our basic point has been, no, sorry, we learned the opposite lesson from Iraq. It’s not that more U.S. military engagement will stabilize the Middle East. It’s that we can’t do this.”
On June 4, only a few weeks before the U.S. let loose the B-2 bombers, right-wing talk-show host Tucker Carlson tweeted: “The first week of a war with Iran could easily kill thousands of Americans. . . . An attack on Iran could very easily become a world war. We’d lose.” Clearly, he was mistaken.
However much Americans incorrectly forecast the war’s results, the shock in Iran—the failure of strategic imagination—was far worse. Today, fear permeates Tehran. The regime is unconvinced that the war has ended. Last month, Rahim Safavi, a senior military adviser to Mr. Khamenei, told Iranian media, “We are in a stage of war, and this [current] situation may collapse at any moment.” Accordingly, the Islamic Republic is trying to do with diplomacy what it failed to do with missiles and proxies. Ali Larijani, a longtime functionary adept at deluding Western officials, has taken over leadership of the Supreme National Security Council. “The path to negotiations with America is not closed yet,” he says. The regime is again talking to Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors the theocracy accuses of spying for Israel.
By dangling an offer of talks, Iran’s clerical oligarchs are hoping to create divisions between Jerusalem and Washington and to entice the Europeans to be more patient about snapping back United Nations sanctions. Diplomacy could provide time for a battered regime to regain its bearings and, if the Russians or Chinese help, to enhance its defenses.
The combination of Mr. Trump’s unpredictability and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bellicosity has unsettled the mullahs as never before. But awe is a perishable commodity in international politics. The Middle East is all about hard power. Despite being discombobulated, fearful of the Iranian citizenry and uncertain about their leadership, Iran’s ruling elites still remain tough, die-hard men who believe they’re doing God’s work. They are down, but far from out.
Mr. Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.