US, Israeli strikes on Iran were a gamble that reshaped nuclear debate - Survival

By calling negotiations with the United States “pointless” and “harmful,” the 86-year-old theocrat closed the door in advance, after which Pezeshkian delivered one of the harshest speeches of his career on the UN rostrum.

The choreography left no doubt: foreign policy remains Khamenei’s domain, and presidents, however reform-minded are confined to carrying out his script.

Since taking power in 1989, Khamenei has built a structure designed to withstand shocks. He has consolidated control over the military, judiciary and intelligence services, silenced dissent before it could spread, and constructed a security state that has absorbed everything from economic collapse to mass protest.

Khamenei’s doctrine is simple: so long as no foreign power places “boots on the ground” in Tehran, the Islamic Republic can survive.

Regimes in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan collapsed only when foreign armies physically invaded. Iran’s ruler wagers that Israel lacks the capacity — and Washington the will — to do the same in Iran.

Weapon of time

Airstrikes, sabotage and cyberattacks may wound the system, but the Islamic Republic has bunkers intelligence tools designed to outlast them. This is the logic of endurance: time, not compromise, is Tehran’s strongest weapon.

Yet the June war with Israel revealed how fragile that calculation may be. Precision strikes and AI-driven targeting allowed Israel to decapitate Iranian command structures in hours.

For the first time, senior officers rather than foot soldiers became the primary casualties, along with hundreds of civilians. In such a war, no bunker guarantees safety.

Khamenei’s confidence is shaped not only by military assumptions but also by diplomacy.

One formative lesson came in 1997, when a German court found Iran responsible for the assassinations of three dissidents in a Berlin restaurant. European states briefly withdrew their ambassadors in protest, only to quietly return them months later.

For Khamenei, this was proof that Europe’s resolve is fleeting, its economic and political interests overriding its outrage. He has leaned on that lesson ever since.

Sanctions, what sanctions?

Even now, as the snapback mechanism is reactivated, he assumes enforcement will fray. He expects Europe’s divisions and Washington’s caution to leave loopholes that allow Iran to keep exporting oil, especially to China and India, at discounted rates.

Sanctions, in the octogenarian’s view, are never airtight. They are survivable obstacles, not existential threats.

Khamenei’s rhetoric serves multiple aims: it projects deterrence abroad by drawing red lines; reassures loyalists at home by projecting strength; frames any Western retreat as weakness; and, above all, buys time.

The longer Iran resists, the thinking goes, the more likely international resolve will weaken—as it has before.

But the strategy is not without risk.

Internal unrest can erupt faster and wider this time. Sanctions may dig deeper into the economy, hollowing out the state’s support base. Warfare itself has changed in ways that undercut the assumption that endurance alone ensures survival.

Khamenei continues to rely on the playbook that has carried him through three decades: repression at home, resilience abroad and a conviction that the West will ultimately step back.

The gamble is that history will repeat itself. The danger is that this time, it may not.

Israel may launch a new attack on Iran within three months if the current trends continue, defense and security analyst Farzin Nadimi told Iran International.

“I think that within a maximum of three months, if such a decision is made, it will be carried out. If things continue on this path,” said Nadimi, a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute.

Both sides had drawn lessons from the 12-day conflict in June and neither sought a prolonged or costly war, he added.

Any Israeli decision, he said, would rest on advance planning and readiness of defenses. “If Israel makes such a decision, it must prepare a set of assumptions, and its defensive capabilities must be more ready.”

Nadimi pointed to recent US military deployments as evidence of enhanced preparation.

“Reports have indicated that the THAAD battery, which the United States had deployed in Israel, has now been increased. In other words, four launchers have been added to the existing six,” he said.

The 2015 nuclear deal set out a mechanism allowing UN sanctions to be reimposed within 30 days if Iran was accused of breaching its commitments.

That window closes at 8:00 p.m. Washington time on September 27. Yet even at this late hour, officials speak of talks more than they conduct them.

The US and Europe have made demands Tehran cannot meet in the wake of the 12-Day War: cooperation with the IAEA, clarifying the fate of 60%-enriched uranium, curbing the missile program, and striking a deal with Washington.

Tehran, meanwhile, signals readiness for “fair” talks but chiefly to show it did not slam the door.

Packages of blame

Western capitals have pursued “diplomacy backed by threats” since talks resurfaced in early 2025, and the war did not alter that approach.

Their demands serve less to reach agreement than to build the narrative: “We gave Iran a chance; it refused.”

Washington’s posture has been no more conciliatory. US envoy Steve Witkoff spoke of willingness to engage as late as Wednesday, but both Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref and Reuters reported Tehran’s messages have gone unanswered.

Tehran’s signals point the same way.

Officials from the Supreme Leader to Ali Larijani stress that negotiations must be “fair” and free of threats—framing the Islamic Republic’s line as: “We tried, they refused.”

This is less about diplomacy than about managing domestic opinion, with rival factions poised to pin the blame on one another once snapback hits.

Moscow and Beijing’s pause

In the stalemate, Russia and China floated a six-month delay at the Security Council—but few ever expected it to pass.

The point was never to resolve the crisis but to buy time, cast the West as obstructionist, and tether Tehran more tightly once sanctions return.

It may also be viewed as geopolitical gamesmanship: draining US and European bandwidth in the region.

Had Moscow and Beijing sought a solution, they could have mediated far earlier.

Where the failure bomb lands

The sanctions are now all but certain to proceed.

The war has left Tehran unable to concede, the West will not soften its conditions, and Russia and China are content with delay.

What remains is not crisis-solving but narrative-shaping: deciding where the bomb of failure lands.

For the US and Europe, the message is: “Iran squandered its chance.” For Tehran: “We negotiated, they refused.” For Russia and China: “We offered diplomacy, the West rejected it.”

As a senior European diplomat told Al-Monitor this week: “The negotiations have failed, and snapback will occur.”

It was a verdict on talks but also the opening line of the autopsy of a lost decade since the deal in 2015.

Richard Nephew, a former US negotiator in past Iran nuclear talks, commented on a report by London-based Amwaj Media that said Iran had offered to allow immediate UN inspections at its Natanz nuclear facility in exchange for European support of a Russian-drafted resolution to delay the return of sanctions later today.

“No deal. First, this isn’t the only access required. Second, the CSA applies to all safeguarded material, not just Natanz. Third, accepting the conditioning of CSA obligations in general is a mistake,” Nephew said in response to the reported offer.

“Iran signed the safeguards agreement. It should fulfill it.”

According to the Statistical Center of Iran, GDP shrank by 0.1% in the spring, ending 17 straight quarters of expansion. Industrial and mining output, which grew 5.9% last spring, fell to -0.3% this year, while agriculture plunged from +2.3% to -2.7%.

Severe water and electricity shortages disrupted production across both sectors, hitting farms and factories alike.

With the so-called snapback of international sanctions due on September 2, Iran faces a narrowing path to growth—and a worrying prospect of rising unemployment and public discontent.

Mounting debt

A separate Central Bank report shows government debt to the bank surged 63% year-on-year as of June, reflecting the administration’s failure to meet revenue targets.

Officials say only 60% of projected revenues were generated in the first five months of the year, worse than in previous years and well short of the levels needed to stabilize public finances.

Since 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions, about a third of Iran’s annual budget has gone unrealized.

The IMF now estimates public debt at 37% of GDP and climbing. This trend is likely to accelerate if sanctions further limit oil revenues.

Record capital flight

The Central Bank also reported a net capital account of -$21.7 billion for the last fiscal year—the highest on record and 2.5 times greater than in 2020.

Capital flight has been accelerating since 2020, as businesses and households move assets abroad to escape currency depreciation and political uncertainty.

The scale of outflows highlights both a collapse in investor confidence and the inability of the banking system to hold foreign exchange inside the country.

Oil gains vanished

Iran earned $66 billion from oil, petroleum products and natural gas exports last year, a 17% increase. Including non-oil goods, total exports reached $115 billion, $27 billion more than imports.

On paper, that left the goods trade in surplus.

But the services sector recorded a record $12 billion deficit, dragging the overall trade balance for goods and services down to just $13 billion.

Combined with the $21.7 billion in capital flight, much of the hard currency generated by oil exports is effectively leaving the country.

The result is sustained pressure on Iran’s already fragile foreign reserves and further instability in the rial, which hit a record low of 1.08 million to the dollar on Thursday.

The bottom line is that Tehran’s extremely hard-gained oil cash is being wiped out by falling output, runaway debt and unprecedented capital flight—leaving the country perilously exposed just as fresh sanctions loom.