For decades, the supreme chief of Iran sought to balance his ideological hostility towards the United States and Israel with a pragmatic desire to avoid total war.
But now that US President Donald Trump has joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fight in the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei faces the most substantial decision of his almost 40 years in power. Is he looking for a diplomatic compromise with Trump, does he seek to degenerate or try to keep the conflict contained in Israel?
After the American president has ordered the bombing of the main nuclear sites of Iran – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – in the early hours of Sunday, the supreme chief of the Republic wanted to show that the regime, beaten and Ensangoué, is still able to fight and will not be intimidated to submission.
But the initiates in the regime suggested that Khamenei does not degenerate against the United States and risks a more severe response which causes more destruction of the Republic. Instead, they say, Iran’s main response will be to intensify attacks on Israel.
“Let Trump be happy and feel victorious, we are not going to enter a great war with the United States,” said a regime. “The United States only attacked three sites. If they wanted to make a great war, they would have destroyed more places, but they did not do it. ”
US vice-president JD Vance insisted that the United States was “not at war with Iran” on Sunday, but with its nuclear program. “We have no interest in prolonged conflict. We have no interest in boots on the ground,” he told NBC, adding that the Trump administration does not require a change of diet.
The Iranian regime will however continue to shoot Israel-as it did a few hours after the American attacks and not to submit to an unconditional ceasefire. The revolutionary guardian of Iran said that he had drawn 40 missiles from “new generations” in Israel a few hours after the American strikes. Israel said more than 20 missiles had been dismissed, but no death reported.
“When Iran accepted a ceasefire during the 1988 Iraq war in Iraq, the commanders said they had lacked ammunition. Now, the commanders say that we resist firmly and retaliated. Iran will in no way ask a cease-fire,” said the regime initiate.
A second initiate regime said that Iran had no choice but to provide “an overwhelming response to the United States” – but would do it by attacks against Israel, which sparked the war with waves of strikes on the Islamic Republic last week.
“It is natural that Iran intensifies its attacks against Israel because it was Netanyahu who dragged the United States at war with Iran,” said the initiate.
He added that the closure of the Hormuz Strait – through which more than a quarter of the Maritime Brutes in the world – could be considered if the conflict intensified.
Analysts warned that there was a risk that the regime could rush to develop a nuclear bomb in order to restore its deterrence and that it had succeeded in diverting part of its uranium stock enriched near the Ford and Natanz weapons note to secret locations.
The first initiate regime said it was not yet an option considered by management.
“We should have been very naive to keep our uranium enriched in these sites – enriched uranium is now intact,” said the initiate. “But that does not change anything because we do not intend to use it. Iran does not have and will not seek nuclear weapons.”
On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Tehran had “a wide range of options available” and calculated his response, warning that the United States “crossed a very great red line”.
The Iranian guards said that the United States had “placed on the front of military attack” by attacking peaceful nuclear installations in the country.
Iranian officials have warned in recent weeks that if the United States has attacked Iran, the Islamic Republic could react by targeting American bases and assets in the region, as well as energy facilities in the Gulf.
Khamenei warned last week that Trump “should know that any American military commitment will undoubtedly lead to irreparable damage”.
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East at Chatham House, said that Khamenei could return to his strategy to try to “degenerate to defuse” – withdraw, but in a way that reduces the risk of a more ferocious American response and leaves the door to open diplomacy.
“They are more supervised than ever and they need to find a ramp out of ramp,” said Vakil. “With the few options that grasp them, it is the only scenario that has meaning that provides a rescue buoy to the diet.”
Iran could, for example, strike a base used by some of the 2,500 American soldiers in neighboring Iraq, she said. Such an attack, with prior warning, would cause a minimum of damage.
It is the tactics used by Tehran after Trump ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the most powerful Iranian military commander, while he was at Baghdad airport in 2020.
The regime responded by pulling a large missile dam in two bases in Iraq welcoming American troops. It was the biggest attack on an American base in decades, but Tehran used rear channels to telegraph the attack was going to arrive, and without reported deaths, and the two parts seeking to avoid a war in its own right, they withdrew from the edge.
The strikes of the United States have been on a much more severe scale: the very first direct American attack on the Republic at a time when it faces an existential threat and its most vulnerable point since the 1979 revolution caused the theocratic system.
Even before the American attack, the strikes of Israel had already decimated the best ranks of Iranian military command and destroy many of its launchers and missile plants.
This is why Emile Hokayem, at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, said “the whole argument on priority to priority on the survival of regimes requires a context and nuances”.
“Khamenei’s calculation has failed disastrously and his prudence will be seen by many within the system within the framework of the debacle of Iran,” said Hokayem. “It is always possible that this new political dynamic in Tehran can lead to a desire to go hard in the neighborhood, with more climbing – it could explode.”
If Iran chose to launch attacks across the Gulf, it could use its arsenal of missiles with a shorter range, which are more precise and, given the distances, would leave defenses in the Gulf with less reaction time.
He could also seek to draw in regional activists that he supports which are part of the so-called axis of resistance.
But its most powerful and most important proxy, Hezbollah was seriously exhausted by the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon last year.
Tehran could try to mobilize Shiite activists supported by Iran in Iraq, who have American bases, facilities and troops in this country.
Houthi rebels in Yemen could also respond and have already threatened to attack American naval ships in the Gulf, as they did before.
The militant movement has already seriously disrupted traffic across the Red Sea since it launched attacks on merchant ships in the Vitale Commercial Trade Road following the attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023 against Israel. The Houthis resisted an intense one month’s American bombing campaign that ended in May when Trump suddenly called the attacks, while praising the “ability of the rebels to resist punishment”.
But Vakil said that a critical factor is what Netanyahu does. He upset Trump’s attempt at Iran to obtain an agreement to resolve the stand-off with Tehran for his vast nuclear program and has managed to attract the United States to the fight.
“We do not know if Trump has the influence on Netanyahu and it is important in what is happening next,” she said.
And if Trump seeks to return to diplomacy, the deep distrust of the regime towards the United States and the European powers has been exacerbated. For weeks, the main obstacle to an agreement was the refusal of Tehran to give up his right to enrich uranium as Trump asked. The question is whether the American bombing of the main Iran enrichment installations changes the calculation of Khamenei.
Trump, who called Iran’s “unconditional surrender” last week, demanded Téhéran “made peace” on Saturday evening or faced more intense attacks. Iran has promised not to capitulate American pressure.
“Last week, we were in negotiations with the United States when Israel decided to explode this diplomacy,” said Araghchi in an article on X. “This week, we had discussions with E3 / EU [the UK, France and Germany] When the United States has decided to explode this diplomacy. What conclusion did you draw?
