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Tehran’s response last week to US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites was carefully calibrated. By launching a ballistic missile salvo at the US’ Al-Udeid Air Base — with advance warning and no casualties — Iran managed to send a message while avoiding provoking further US attacks. But notwithstanding the delicate Israel-Iran ceasefire US President Donald Trump announced last Monday, Tehran looks badly weakened and isolated after recent events — and ahead of potential US-Iran talks that Trump has said will resume this week.
As it reels from the damage caused by the US and Israel, Tehran’s need for de-escalation to hold is greater than ever. Iran’s attack on the US base in Qatar, the US’ largest in the region, mirrored its nonfatal response to the killing of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020 during Trump’s first term in office. The stakes had risen sharply after the Jun. 22 US airstrikes on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — three of Iran’s most sensitive nuclear facilities — which, even if the damage is disputed, piled more pressure on the Islamic republic after a week of Israeli attacks. But Iran’s response, which failed militarily, with Qatar- and US-operated defenses intercepting 18 of the 19 missiles fired, according to Qatari officials, was widely seen as a deliberate attempt to avoid escalation, prompting a drop in oil prices and regional sighs of relief.
“While bold in its symbolism, the Al-Udeid attack also betrayed Iran’s growing isolation and the desperation of a regime under pressure from within and without,” said Andreas Krieg, a regional security expert at King’s College London.
Tehran has repeatedly shown its desire to avoid escalation since the war in Gaza first erupted in 2023. That is more of an imperative now than ever given its “depleted munitions, the destruction of key military infrastructure and economic exhaustion,” as Krieg notes. Washington’s intervention in the conflict appears to have decisively shifted its trajectory, with Iran’s two big allies, Russia and China, failing to come to its aid.
“Recent events show, again, that the US remains by far the most influential external power in the Middle East when it comes to fundamental issues of war and peace and that Russia and China are far behind. And as expected, neither Russia or China did anything to help Iran,” Thomas Juneau, a regional security expert with the UK’s Chatham House think tank, said in a social media post.
And while Iran’s rapprochement with Gulf Arab states paid dividends in the conflict — with Gulf governments mediating and advocating for calm — another revealing aspect of the crisis has been the silence of Iran’s allies in the so-called “Axis of Resistance” since Israel’s onslaught began on Jun. 13. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza have both been severely weakened, and the Houthis in Yemen also failed to mount any serious response.
Even Iraqi militias have shown uncharacteristic restraint. Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, argues that the turmoil in the Middle East has pushed all these players into “survival mode,” increasingly concerned with their own interests. “Each one of these groups is not just a proxy of Iran but responding first to their own local interests. And for many of them right now, conflict was bad for business, and business means [they] need some stability,” he told a recent webinar.
Internal Cohesion
Iran has shown its continued ability to take swift tactical decisions in the conflict, but that could change if internal fissures grow.
Amid the chaos caused by the Israeli and US bombing campaigns, Iran’s strike on Al-Udeid on Jun. 23 did at least suggest that its core decision-making apparatus remained intact, despite the decapitation of its military and security leadership, and that its internal command structures continued to function, even under extreme duress.
But that unity may not last. Iran’s outlook is more uncertain than at any time in Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s decades-long rule, and in such circumstances, tensions within the regime could rise, including as the question of who succeeds Khamenei, now 86, becomes increasingly urgent. Iran’s political system has shown remarkable resilience historically, absorbing external pressures and suppressing dissent. But if its latest missile retaliation is deemed too weak by hard-line factions, internal fissures may grow, analysts say. Elements within the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), the backbone of the regime, could push for more aggressive action despite the risks. Conversely, perceptions of weakness and diminished legitimacy could fuel instability from the ground up, with Israel’s leaders urging Iranians to revolt.
The conflict could accelerate a domestic recalibration, says Krieg. “The deaths of senior IRGC commanders during the conflict, coupled with a more risk-prone posture by younger military elites, suggest that a generational shift is under way,” with possible implications for “command coherence.” Meanwhile, as Iranian reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian continues to seek a way to get sanctions lifted through negotiations, former US diplomat Jeffery Feltman argues that the supreme leader, who he once met, has different priorities. “Khamenei’s goal is regime survival,” he told a Brookings Institution webinar last week, adding that “deterrence and succession,” rather than negotiations, are likely his top concerns.
Indeed, in his first speech after the ceasefire was announced, the supreme leader struck a defiant note last week, claiming Iran had emerged “victorious” and had given the US a severe slap, while Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi indicated on Sunday that the US had to rule out more strikes before negotiations could resume.
Deterrence Options
Tehran’s nonmilitary deterrence options in any future conflict, like cyberattacks and closing the Strait of Hormuz, are limited and highly risky.
Iran’s parliament recently approved a motion to close the strait, through which about 20% of global oil production transits daily. But doing so would cause havoc to the global economy and likely provoke furious responses from both the US and China, not to mention the Gulf Arab states, while also further damaging Iran’s own fragile economy. That suggests it only becomes a real possibility if the regime’s existence is threatened.
But Iran looks set to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, pending a decision by Khamenei, after parliament and the Guardian Council both approved the move. It could also withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and move to develop nuclear weapons, assuming its centrifuges and stockpile of highly enriched uranium were not all destroyed. The country has also emerged as a strong cyber power, with the capacity to inflict serious damage by attacking critical infrastructure. But doing so similarly risks disproportionately strong counter-responses.
For now, all eyes are on whether the ceasefire holds. But Chatham House’s Juneau argues that, while in the past Israel’s conventional military advantage was largely kept in check by Iran’s unconventional assets, notably its missile and drone programs and its support for regional nonstate actors, this idea is becoming obsolete. “The new reality is a more unequal regional balance of power, in which a weakened Iran has no good options left to defend its shrinking influence, while Israel benefits from much greater room for maneuver,” he writes.
Simon Martelli is the editor of Energy Compass and Oliver Klaus is Energy Intelligence’s Dubai bureau chief. A version of this article originally appeared in Energy Compass.