“To survive and thrive, revolutions need an enemy—and Khomeini had found that enemy in the US.”
—Mohsen M. Milani, Iran’s Rise and Rivalry with the US in the Middle East
What follows war for a state like Iran? Sanction-choked, militarised, and surrounded. Is rarely peace. It is either transformation or obliteration. But what kind of transformation? In the wake of Israel’s recent strikes on Iran’s nuclear scientists and facilities, with American approval, and amid a wider regional war that has ground Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza down to a husk, the question becomes urgent. Iran has retaliated, of course, and continues to launch drones and fire ballistic missiles. Its remaining capable partner, the Houthis in Yemen, still seems to have some fight left. But it is clear that the deterrence doctrine built over decades—Mohsen Milani calls it Iran’s “forward defence”—is faltering. What comes next may not be a negotiated climbdown, but a lurch into existential crisis.
The language of Israeli officials in recent days has shifted from targeting capability to shaping outcome. US hawks, emboldened by Trump’s second-term foreign policy free-for-all, are talking once again of regime collapse. They have been gagging for the chance to destroy Iran, forgetting entirely the lessons of Iraq—where toppling a regime unleashed chaos rather than compliance. Iran, they insist, must be brought to heel, not just in its nuclear ambitions, but in its very architecture. This is not a question of strategic containment; it is a civilisational struggle, and in such struggles, destruction is often rebranded as salvation.
Game on.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 13, 2025
Pray for Israel.
An Empire in Waiting
Milani’s account reminds us that Iran’s rise and its bid to become the indispensable regional power—was not inevitable. It was forged in the crucible of the 1979 revolution, tempered in the Iran–Iraq War, and crystallised in the power vacuum left by America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. Each expansion of Iranian influence—into Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Gaza, and Yemen—was driven by the logic of insecurity. A revolutionary regime, surrounded by hostile powers, backed by a deep history of colonial humiliation, sought survival not in retreat, but in projection.
What the Islamic Republic built was not an empire, but a network: a constellation of actors unified less by ideology than by opposition—to the US, to Israel, to the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf. And that network, Milani notes, was always asymmetric: cheap, localised, rooted in sectarian and social grievance. But it was also vulnerable. When Hamas is pulverised, Hezbollah weakened, and Assad fleeing Syria for Moscow, Iran’s power starts to look less like a web and more like a noose.
“When Hamas is pulverised, Hezbollah weakened, and Assad fleeing Syria for Moscow, Iran’s power starts to look less like a web and more like a noose.”
The Deterrence Doctrine Has Failed
Iran’s regional policy, Milani explains, rests on four pillars: expansion of influence, the Axis of Resistance, tactical balancing with powers like Russia, and a self-sufficient military-industrial base. But all four are now under severe strain.
Its proxies have been degraded. Hezbollah has taken staggering losses in south Lebanon. Hamas, devastated by Israel’s genociadal scorched-earth campaign in Gaza, is now a shadow of the force it was a year ago. Only the Houthis retain viable strike capability, their drone and missile attacks from Yemen occasionally disrupting Red Sea shipping or hitting Israeli territory—but they, too, are under relentless US bombardment.
Its balancing act with Russia is fraying. Putin has extracted drone technology and diplomatic cover, but little protection in return. And its military industry, while impressive given decades of sanctions, has not prevented deep Israeli penetration1 of Iranian infrastructure, nor has it deterred direct strikes on nuclear personnel.
The promise of strategic depth has collapsed. Tehran looks surrounded, not buffered. And the regime knows it.
And yet even within this dangerous lurch toward escalation, there are signs of hesitation. If not restraint, then strategic calibration. According to senior US officials speaking to Reuters, Israel had an opportunity in recent days to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The proposal was reportedly vetoed by President Trump. “Have the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we’re not even talking about going after the political leadership,” one official said. It’s a telling quote. Not because it implies moral lines that might be crossed, but because it reveals the transactional calculus behind state murder. This is the same Trump who, in January 2020, had no hesitation in ordering the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, blowing him apart on Iraqi soil with a drone strike. The difference here is not ethics, but strategy. Khamenei is the system’s spine. Removing him could unravel too much, too fast, and too unpredictably.
Israel, by contrast, rarely waits. It acts not as an agent of American strategy but in ruthless pursuit of its own. The strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, on scientists, on Hezbollah command posts and Hamas battalions, serve Israeli interests above all. That the US cheers from the sidelines or steps in to finish the job is less coordination than convergence. Israel gets what it wants—regional dominance, strategic intimidation, the illusion of deterrence—while the US retains its long-game: regime collapse without boots on the ground, war without occupation.
In the end, the Iranian people pay the price for both.
What Comes After War?
So what follows? There are four possible futures, none of them mutually exclusive.
1. Regime Collapse.
This is the scenario most openly salivated over in Washington and Tel Aviv: a collapse from within, accelerated by economic breakdown, internal dissent, and elite fracture. But Milani’s analysis cautions against such wishful thinking. The IRGC, the deep state, and the security apparatus remain formidable. The memory of the Shah’s fall, which haunts the Supreme Leader’s inner circle, has bred a ruthlessly efficient internal counter-revolutionary machine.
And yet, collapse is no longer unthinkable. If the Axis is dismantled. If inflation surges. If youth revolt reignites—as it did in 2009, 2017, and 2022—then the centre may not hold. Khamenei is ageing. The succession is unresolved. Power vacuums, once confined to the periphery, could reach Tehran.
2. Invasion or Total War.
This remains the darkest possibility. As Milani notes, Iran’s insecurity is not paranoid fantasy. It is encircled by US bases, hemmed in by nuclear states, and targeted by precision strikes. What was once hypothetical, total war, is now a live scenario. Israel may already have started the heavy lifting: targeted assassinations, cyber sabotage, and surgical strikes on nuclear sites. What follows may not be a full-scale invasion by Israel, but a handover to the United States to complete the task—mop-up, regime decapitation, and systemic dismantling.
The temptation will grow inside Trump’s administration to go further. To destroy Iran’s remaining military infrastructure. To decapitate leadership. To attempt a short, sharp war under the pretext of pre-empting a nuclear breakout. But this is not Iraq 2003. Iran’s population is large, its terrain complex, its military deeply embedded. A war of that scale would ignite every dormant conflict in the region. Blood running in the streets from Lebanon to Bahrain.
And it would not bring democracy. It would bring collapse and chaos.
3. Revolution.
The left must take this possibility seriously. Not in the triumphalist sense, but in the dialectical one. The Islamic Republic was born of revolution. It is not invulnerable to another. But this time, the forces arrayed are different. The street is angry but fragmented. The workers’ movement is suppressed but alive. The youth are radical but politically diffuse.
If the regime falls, what rises in its place? There is no guarantee it will be progressive. The US and its allies have already prepared the ground for a client transition: a technocratic, Western-aligned government that restores capital flows and normalises relations with Israel. Even the discredited Pahlavi monarchy circles in exile, whispering of restoration and Western tutelage. In other words, a return to the pre-1979 order. With all the repression but none of the illusions.
4. Reaction and Realignment.
The final possibility is that war does not bring collapse, but retrenchment. Iran may double down—tightening internal repression, consolidating its remaining alliances, seeking deeper ties with China and Russia. The Revolution survives, but as a garrison state, stripped of its outward ambitions, turned inward, consumed by survival. A Shia North Korea, with oil and unfinished dreams.
What It Means for the Left
For the international left, none of these outcomes are easy. Solidarity with the Iranian people must not become cheerleading for US or Israeli war. Opposition to the regime cannot become acquiescence to empire. The challenge is to hold two truths: that the Islamic Republic is authoritarian, repressive, and anti-socialist—and that its enemies are worse.
Milani reminds us that anti-Americanism is not a mere ideology in Iran. It is a historical memory, a survival strategy, and—at times—a rational response. But it is also a trap. The left in Iran has been crushed by both the Islamic Republic and its imperial enemies. Any post-war scenario must begin with the question: where are the workers, the women, the students, the trade unionists? Where is the popular will?
“The Americans and their allies always threaten Iran,” Khamenei once said. “Meanwhile, they expect that Iran reduce its defensive power. Is this a joke?”
It isn’t a joke. It’s a doctrine. It’s called domination.
Footnotes
- Israel are now claiming air superiority over much of Iran stating “The aerial road to Tehran is effectively open,” ↩︎
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