For more than five decades I have cultivated close personal and professional ties with Iran: many visits, extensive travel across the country, advisory roles on industrial and economic issues, conference speaking, and numerous publications. That exposure has given me insights into Iranian society inaccessible to most outsiders, while also creating inevitable biases. Those caveats aside, the recent joint US–Israeli military assaults on Iran in 2025–2026 — and the belligerent rhetoric that preceded them — demand sober analysis. Beyond the White House bombast, what does this campaign achieve? Can American and Israeli force crush a civilization whose identity and resilience are rooted in seven millennia of history?
Iranians are conflicted. Many want greater freedom, economic opportunity and normalcy after years of sanctions, repression and economic collapse. Yet the mass bombing and the swaggering threats from President Donald Trump and his inner circle have alienated as many as they might have impressed. Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other senior figures have used language and posturing that, to many Iranians, sounds like a Bond villain’s script. That shrill tone — combined with the trauma of decades of external interference — reinforces resistance rather than encouraging capitulation.
Who are the Iranians? Broadly, three groupings dominate contemporary public sentiment. First are regime loyalists — devoted officials, senior military, much of the clergy, and conservative lower-income constituencies — perhaps 30% of adults when combined. They rallied after the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in late February 2026 and the swift succession of his son. Second is an urban, educated cohort (roughly 40% of adults), concentrated in Tehran, Karaj and other cities, mainly 18–35, who seek liberal reform, political freedoms and rapprochement with the West. They have supplied most anti-regime street protests but are unarmed and fragmented. Third, about 30%, are middle-aged to older citizens who, weary of instability, value order, family responsibilities and incremental change rather than violent upheaval.
Why has no mass uprising toppled the Islamic Republic? External exhortations from Washington to “rise up” reveal striking ignorance about Iranian history and psychology. Steve Witkoff’s public puzzlement about why Iran will not immediately capitulate exposed a failure to understand national pride forged by the Iran–Iraq War and by repeated interventions and betrayals dating back at least to the 1953 coup that overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh. Iranians deeply distrust foreign promises, having seen Washington call for uprisings elsewhere and then withhold support, with catastrophic consequences for those who answered the call. Domestic security apparatuses — the IRGC and Basij militias — are well organized and brutal in suppressing dissent; anti-regime demonstrators are mostly unarmed, leaderless and vulnerable. Many who want change fear violent overthrow, preferring nonviolent, internally driven reform.
The idea of a clear, credible alternative leadership is likewise illusory. Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi is presented in some Western circles as a ready-made replacement. Yet his appeal is limited mainly to older émigrés and a minority inside Iran nostalgic for the pre-1979 monarchy. He lacks governance experience, misreads Iranian sensitivities — notably by signaling friendliness toward Israel — and is widely viewed as disconnected from the contemporary aspirations of Iran’s youth. Even the US president has suggested he is not a credible national leader.
Ozymandias is an apt metaphor for the Trump White House’s posture. Shelley’s poem warns about rulers whose grandiose self-image collapses under the weight of changing contexts and unforeseen developments. Trump has repeatedly performed as such a figure: bombastic claims of victory, triumphalist pronouncements, and gratuitous insults toward anyone perceived as an adversary. That personal narcissism shapes policy. The 2025–2026 campaigns — from the “Twelve Day War” to the far larger Operation Epic Fury — were launched amid glaring deficiencies in planning, inconsistent objectives, and public messaging that alternated between gloating and tactical ambiguity.
Two figures exemplify the administration’s swagger: Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance. Hegseth’s theatrical briefings and bellicose pronouncements — “They are toast,” “We will hunt you down” — convey confidence but reveal poor appreciation of asymmetric conflict and the political aftermath of bombing civilian infrastructure. His mixture of evangelical conviction and crusader rhetoric, and his effort to normalize a Christian-centric worldview within the Pentagon, alarm many who see a breach of constitutional neutrality and dangerous sectarian ambitions in foreign policy. Vance shares an aggressive, punitive tone and appears to endorse the idea that American power can, and should, impose a particular cultural and religious order.
This administration’s hubris repeats familiar strategic mistakes. Past US interventions — Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan — show that superior firepower seldom secures durable political outcomes. Military defeat can devastate infrastructure and inflict horrific civilian casualties, but hearts, minds and sustainable governance require reconstruction, legitimacy, and long-term political settlements. The White House’s daily triumphalism over Iran risks underestimating the long-term costs: insurgency, regional destabilization, humanitarian catastrophe and global reputational damage.
Psychological dynamics matter. Research indicates higher-than-expected prevalence of callous, narcissistic or psychopathic traits in leadership circles and corporate boards; some observers worry that similar pathologies pervade the current administration’s inner circle. Such traits — grandiosity, lack of empathy, impulsivity — can aggravate decision-making blind spots and impede prudent counsel. Clinical screening of leaders is a controversial idea, but the concept highlights the dangers of concentrated power untethered by institutional checks, sober expertise and moral constraint.
What might follow? Iran’s deep-rooted nationalism and historical memory of foreign meddling suggest that mass capitulation is improbable. A short-term military campaign might degrade capabilities and inflict suffering, but defeating a state in the coercive sense does not guarantee the emergence of a liberal, stable successor regime friendly to Washington. Worse, external intervention can unify disparate Iranian factions against an external enemy — the very opposite of the intended consequence.
Practical lessons are straightforward. Know your adversary and know yourself better. Avoid hubris, simplistic slogans and the allure of quick fixes. Prioritize diplomacy, credible support for internal nonviolent reformers only when it aligns with their aims, and careful planning for post-conflict governance if force is used. Finally, temper triumphal rhetoric with sober recognition of the human and geopolitical costs of war.
Perhaps one day Iranians will be able to greet the new year with the hopeful invocation “Sad saal beh, az in saalha” — may the next hundred years be better than these. Until then, caution should prevail over grandiose assertions of irreversible victory.
