(Bloomberg) — As US President Donald Trump\u2019s latest ultimatum to Iran to agree to a ceasefire deal approaches, hardliners now in charge in Tehran are relishing the idea of escalation and a region-wide conflict.<\/p>\n
The US and Israel have taken out layers of senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps over the course of the nearly six-week war, but those who remain are girding for a protracted battle, with little fear of Trump\u2019s threats to destroy civilian infrastructure. This could spark an upsurge in fighting that would further engulf Middle Eastern countries and exacerbate what has become a global energy crisis.<\/p>\n
An Iraqi militia tied to the IRGC warned on its Telegram channel Tuesday that if Trump acts on his threat to broadly obliterate Iran, then it would target the Red Sea port of Yanbu to \u201cplunge the world into an energy war.\u201d Saudi Arabia has been using the Yanbu terminal to export almost 5 million barrels of oil a day to get around Iran\u2019s blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe group of people who are institutionally and personally invested in the resilience and survivability of the regime are now in command and control,\u201d said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at London-based Chatham House. \u201cThey are going to be hard to convince that the time to deal is now and that\u2019s why the terms and conditions that Iran keeps putting on the table are so maximalist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s demands include guarantees it won\u2019t be attacked again by the US and Israel, the right to control Hormuz and the lifting of longstanding economic sanctions. Trump wants Tehran to reopen the strait, give up its nuclear program, end its support for proxy militant groups and accept restrictions on its missile program. On Tuesday, he said Iran\u2019s \u201cwhole civilization will die\u201d if a deal isn\u2019t reached.<\/p>\n
Vakil said the dominant hardline faction in Iran doesn\u2019t want to concede too early, while the weaker reformist group is \u201clooking to find an off ramp\u201d because it believes Tehran has significant leverage now with its control of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s increasingly clear that Iranian leaders like President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who might be more open to a deal with Trump, don\u2019t have a full grasp of what\u2019s going on militarily, said a European official whose government remains in contact with them, and requested anonymity in order to speak freely.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s threats to destroy civilian infrastructure including water and power facilities \u2014 potential war crimes under international law \u2014 aren\u2019t likely to sway the regime, Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said in a series of posts on X on Monday.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHis threats to decimate Iran have not moved a regime which, since its inception, has shown itself willing to destroy the country and its people rather than compromise its power or ideology,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
The idea that Iran is ready for a long war no matter the cost has dominated the messaging in recent days from both inside Iran and its proxies in Iraq and Lebanon.<\/p>\n
\u201cHormuz won\u2019t be accessible to the enemies and let them know that if they want to do it by force then there won\u2019t be oil and gas terminals left,\u201d Abu Hussein Al-Hamidawi, commander of the IRGC-backed Ktaib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, said in a statement on Monday. Naim Qasem, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, told the Lebanese people to prepare for a protracted battle and more sacrifices.<\/p>\n
A social media message circulated by Iranian state media last week and attributed to Esmail Qaani, who commands the IRGC unit known as the Quds Force, said \u201cget used to the new regional order.\u201d He spoke of a \u201cunified command center\u201d with the proxies including Yemen\u2019s Houthis.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Iran\u2019s hardliners, the longer they draw out the war, the worse the Americans will look,\u201d said Matthew Levitt, an expert on Iran and its proxies and director of the counter-terrorism program at the Washington Institute think tank.<\/p>\n
Iran is also increasingly telling Gulf states that their US security alliances and hosting of American bases are liabilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bases that the enemy has set up in your countries are not only being used to attack us, but they are also hotbeds for sowing discord and division among Muslim nations,\u201d Mohammad Reza Mavalizadeh, governor of Iran\u2019s southwestern Khuzestan province, said on Iranian state TV on Sunday, addressing Gulf Arab leaders.<\/p>\n
But that strategy shows signs of backfiring already. In wealthy Gulf states, despite their frustrations with the war, Iran\u2019s aggression is drawing them closer to the US, and even Israel in the case of the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur main security partner is the United States \u2014 we will double down on our relationship,\u201d Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE\u2019s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, told reporters on Saturday.<\/p>\n
–With assistance from Samy Adghirni.<\/p>\n