Iran International
The hard-won ceasefire in Gaza is only the beginning, not the end of the crisis in Middle East. On the surface a fragile calm has settled over the region, but Iran's role in any new order remains undefined.
Without engaging Iran in a diplomatic process or decisively chastising it on the battlefield - genuine peace may remain elusive. Iran remains a key regional player capable of shaking the fragile detente.
While a punishing US-Israeli war battered its nuclear and military capabilities, a wounded and isolated Iran could yet be a spoiler for long-term stability.
Washington has yet to extract any meaningful concessions from Iran, neither by force of arms nor increasingly onerous sanctions.
The "dark cloud" US President Donald Trump repeatedly described Iran posing in the region may yet lower over any peace agreement.
For decades, Iran has been a central force of instability in the region. Now, following the October 10, 2025 ceasefire, it finds itself in a weakened position: an economy strangled by sanctions, diminished armed allies in the region and growing international isolation.
History shows that whenever Iran has felt cornered, it has not stepped back but rather sallied forth. It expanded its war with Iraq into the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s, announced continued uranium enrichment in defiance of UN sanctions and directed proxy attacks on key Saudi Aramco oil facilities in 2019.
This pattern suggests that mere containment does not restrain Tehran but provokes even more unpredictable behavior.
Waning crescent
Trump, however, seems convinced that Iran is ready for peace. In an address to the Israeli Knesset on Monday, he said, “Iran has informed us that it fully agrees with this deal,” even extending an offer of “friendship” to Tehran.
But why does Trump believe the Iran can be coaxed into a Mideast order at peace with Israel, which would violate the essence of the Islamic Republic's state ideology?
In his drive to declare victory and end the war, Trump may be too invested in his own narrative of success. He argues that strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities forced Tehran out of the field and paved the way for peace.
Yet was Iran’s menace really confined to the underground halls of Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear laboratories?
A glance at the so-called Shi'ite Crescent of Iranian influence in the Middle East - now very much on the wane still perceptible - suggests otherwise.
Iran has not renounced its nuclear activities and remains a vocal patron of armed Islamist movements.
The Arab world’s role is now decisive. In July 2025, the Arab League - working in an unprecedented joint move with Western powers - called for the disarmament of Hamas, stripping the group of its resistance legitimacy and disconnecting it from Iran’s paramilitary project.
The statement, urging Hamas to surrender its weapons and release hostages, marked a fundamental shift in Arab policy.
The success of Trump’s ceasefire plan now depends largely on Arab leverage. Gulf states, as key financiers of Gaza’s reconstruction, can condition their aid on Hamas’s compliance, including complete disarmament.
If the Arab world takes that path, how will Tehran respond? Capitulation seems unlikely. Iran sees Hamas as a pillar of its anti-Israel strategy, and its disarmament as a direct blow to Tehran’s regional influence.
Iran in response could intensify proxy operations - through Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping or renewed militant activity in Iraq and Syria. Yet Iran’s current weakness - economic exhaustion, diplomatic isolation and recent military setbacks - might also push it toward negotiations.
Trump’s political bet
That is the political bet Trump is making. Still, Iran’s absence from the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, followed by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s sharp post telling Trump he was Israel's dupe, suggests talks remain far away.
The new Middle East order is no longer centered on the “axis of resistance” but on shared security and economic interests between Arab states and Israel.
Iran has gambled everything on its ideology of resistance and lost.
Its likely response will combine several tracks: rebuilding its regional standing through soft diplomacy with Arab neighbors, increasing pressure on Israel from secondary fronts like Lebanon or Syria and maintaining strategic ties with Russia and China as counterweights to the West.
At this moment, Trump is watching and waiting, ready to resort to force if Iran reacts, or to let Tehran drift into diplomatic irrelevance if it does not.
Either path could lead to a historic shift: the gradual erasure of Iran from the region’s balance of power and possibly its eventual collapse from within.
“Trump is operating in a new paradigm and wants to unilaterally impose his power on the world,” Kamal Kharrazi said in an interview with Khamenei official website, adding Israel acts under green light of the United States.
Kharrazi is veteran theocrat Khamenei's top foreign policy advisors and heads the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations. Members of the body are handpicked by Khamenei and its reports and advisories have often presaged major policy shifts by the ruling system.
His remarks carried on the official website of Iran's top decision-maker appear to represent one of the closest approximation of the Supreme Leader's view on the recent Gaza truce and Trump's role since it was clinched over the weekend.
“While we must not shy away from negotiations and should remain at the table, we must also ensure that nothing is imposed on us, and if they try, we must stand firm,” he added.
'Missile are no up for negotiations'
“The issue of missiles and the issue of resistance are not issues that Iran wants to negotiate on,” Kharrazi added.
Members of the body he leads are by handpicked by Khamenei and its reports and advisories have often presaged major policy shifts by the ruling system.
A senior Iranian lawmaker said last week that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has lifted all limits on the range of Iran’s missiles, previously capped at 2,200 kilometers (about 1,367 miles), signaling a potential major shift in Tehran’s defense posture following the punishing June war.
The stance was echoed by other Iranian officials, who emphasized that there would be no negotiations over the missile program’s range.
“Americans will take the wish of reducing Iran’s missile range to below 500 kilometers to the grave,” Armed Forces Judiciary chief Ahmadreza Pourkhaghan said during a meeting with Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force commanders, according to state media on October 7.
Kharrazi also warned that Israel seeks to dominate beyond its borders and that Iran must always be prepared.
“We must be vigilant against Israel’s future plans for the region and even the world. Though they are a small minority, they seek to dominate the region and the world by relying on great powers; hence, we must prepare for resistance starting today,” Kharrazi said.
The book, titled “Israel Annihilation Plan: The Islamic Republic's Strategy for the Destruction of the Zionist Regime,” was presented at an event in Iran's holy city of Qom.
The presentation suggested that despite a Gaza ceasefire which could tamp down region-wide conflicts over the past two years, Tehran was far from retiring its hostility and harsh rhetoric toward its regional arch-enemy.
Alireza Panahian, a cleric close to supreme leader Ali Khamenei, praised the authors during the unveiling ceremony, calling the book a valuable step in elaborating on the views of Khamenei and his predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini.
'Khamenei a hero'
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Khomeini, Iran has made opposition to Israel a core feature of its state ideology.
Under its founding leader, Israel was denounced as a “Zionist regime” lacking legitimacy, and it was cast as a symbol of Western imperialism in the Muslim world that must be annihilated.
Over time, this rhetoric has been echoed and expanded by his successor Khamenei, who has repeatedly called Israel a “cancerous tumor” and forecast its eventual demise.
In the ceremony held at Qom's Shrine of Hazrat Fatima Masoumeh, Panahian said “in the aftermath of the 12-day war (with Israel in June), the Supreme Leader’s name is recognized worldwide as that of a hero who stood up against the global order of domination."
Israel launched a surprise military offensive in June, striking Iran’s military and nuclear facilities as well as targeting top officials. Iran retaliated with salvos of drones and ballistic missiles.
'Israel's Irreparable defeat'
Author Ali-Asghar Mohammadi-Rad told attendees the book delved into "the theoretical and strategic foundations of Iran's plan to end the life of this regime, as well as an analysis of Israel's irreparable defeats in the recent battle."
"In the final chapter of the book, the connection between the recent 12-day war and the Islamic Republic of Iran's grand strategy of collapsing the Zionist regime is explained, and it is shown that this battle is part of the process of realizing that same strategic plan," he added, according to Tasnim news agency.
The book's back-cover blurb praises the October 7, 2023, attack by Tehran-backed Hamas militants as "a wake-up call for Iran and the entire world."
"The global public—poisoned by the stench of lies and worldliness spread by their rulers—needed to hear the cry of Palestine’s oppression, and the fabricated oppression of (Jewish people in) the Holocaust should sound for them as a bell of disgrace and a cry for freedom," it said.
