Iran’s former diplomats warn of prolonged regional war

The comments come as U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he would pause planned strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure for 10 days until April 6, saying the move followed a request from Tehran and that negotiations were continuing.

Iranian officials have confirmed receiving proposals for talks but say they are reviewing them while insisting Iran will not accept ultimatums.

The war, now entering its fourth week, has already drawn in multiple regional actors and heightened tensions around strategic chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz, raising concerns that a wider confrontation could disrupt global energy flows and destabilize the region further.

Saba Zanganeh, a former diplomat close to the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader, told the moderate outlet Fararu on March 25 that the conflict should prompt regional governments to reconsider their security policies and alliances.

He said regional governments have often acted as secondary players under foreign influence, worsening conflicts rather than resolving them. The current war, he added, offers a stark lesson that continuing the existing model will deepen regional crises.

He argued that decades of instability stem from what he described as “a flawed strategic paradigm shared by regional states and external powers,” which he said has repeatedly produced destruction and fragmentation in countries including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.

Hossein Mousavian, Iran’s former ambassador to Germany, offered a more confrontational assessment.

Speaking to Etemad Online, he said Iranian officials increasingly view Persian Gulf Arab states as partners in the conflict, sharing what he described as a common objective of the “complete destruction of Iran.”

Mousavian said Tehran is preparing for the possibility of a broader confrontation involving the United States and its regional allies.

Another former diplomat, Kourosh Ahmadi, suggested the conflict may last far longer than initially expected.

Speaking to Fararu, he noted that both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first suggested the war might last only four to seven days before revising their estimates to several weeks. Even those expectations may prove unrealistic, he said.

Ahmadi pointed to Iran’s ability to restrict or control shipping in the Strait of Hormuz as a decisive factor in prolonging the conflict. As long as Tehran maintains that leverage over one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints, he argued, the war is unlikely to end quickly.

“Israel seeks the collapse and incapacitation of Iran, not merely political concessions,” he said, arguing that Washington’s goals were more limited and often diverged from that of Israel.

Despite their different emphases, the three former diplomats share a similar underlying assessment: the current conflict risks evolving into a prolonged regional crisis whose consequences could reshape the Middle East for years.

Much of the commentary in Iranian media and political circles frames such a scenario as an opportunity rather than a risk for Tehran, arguing that deploying US forces on Iranian territory would expose them to capture by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and potentially inflict a political humiliation on Washington.

The idea has deep roots in Iran’s political rhetoric. Mohsen Rezai, the former IRGC commander who once floated the proposal of capturing US troops and demanding large sums for their release, now serves as a senior military adviser to Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.

Former IRGC commander Hossein Kanani Moghaddam said last week that one scenario allegedly considered by the United States involved focusing on Iran’s southern islands and attempting to seize them to gain control over Persian Gulf oil routes.

“If Trump were to deploy air and naval forces along with Delta Force commandos in a ground operation, the battlefield would shift entirely in our favor,” Kanani Moghaddam said. “By killing or capturing American soldiers, we could raise the level of US losses to a point where they would quickly regret their actions.”

He added that such losses could trigger a political backlash in Washington and even lead to impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

The prospect of an occupation of an Iranian island has also been linked in Iranian commentary to the broader diplomatic standoff between Tehran and Washington.

Despite Trump’s references to “constructive negotiations,” Iranian officials argue that US military threats undermine any possibility of diplomacy.

On March 25, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Iran had already experienced “two catastrophic examples” of trusting US diplomacy. “Over the past nine months, the United States has attacked Iran twice in the middle of negotiations,” he said. “This was a betrayal of diplomacy.”

In a March 23 interview with the Iranian outlet Fararu, Jalal Sadatian, Iran’s former chief diplomat in London, said Trump could not simultaneously threaten military action against Iranian territory while expecting Tehran to accept ceasefire proposals.

Sadatian also warned that Iranian retaliation could expand beyond direct confrontation with US forces. He pointed to the IRGC’s earlier warnings that electricity-generation facilities and desalination plants in regional countries could be targeted if Iran’s own critical infrastructure were attacked.

According to Sadatian, Tehran had long warned that any attack on Iran would trigger a broader regional war. He argued that Washington underestimated Iran’s willingness and ability to strike US bases across the region.

According to international media reports, including Bloomberg and Lloyd’s List Intelligence, Iran has begun charging oil tankers for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian outlets such as the state-owned Mehr News Agency and Tabnak—affiliated with Mohsen Rezaei, senior military adviser to Iran’s new leader—had previously reported that Tehran was considering the strait as a potential source of revenue for the Islamic Republic.

News reports say Iran is charging around $2 million per tanker. However, because U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from conducting international banking, it remains unclear what currency is being used and who ultimately receives the payments.

Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Ministry announced that various countries and oil companies should contact Tehran directly to coordinate safe passage.

The idea of monetizing control of the strategic waterway has also been echoed in Iranian political commentary. The IRGC-linked daily Javan wrote that it was Iran’s new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who first introduced the concept.

“He revived a forgotten historical truth in the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf,” the newspaper wrote on Tuesday, March 24.

In an editorial titled “The Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s Winning Card in the Post-War Order,” Javan argued that the waterway should become a strategic lever for the Islamic Republic and “the most important fund to compensate Iran’s losses in the war.”

According to the paper, this framework was outlined in Mojtaba Khamenei’s first message to the nation.

Under the heading “A Strategic Package for Compensation of Losses,” the editorial said Iran now needs a comprehensive, multilayered doctrine to prevent circumvention of its new arrangements. Taxes, it said, would be based on “the nature of the cargo” and “the degree of cooperation between the ship’s country of origin and the aggressors.”

Javan estimated that under such a framework regional states would need to pay $50 per barrel to compensate Iran’s losses and contribute to reconstruction efforts.

Ships belonging to Israel and the United States, it added, would be barred from the strait even under a different flag.

Under a section titled “Redefining Negotiations,” the paper said Israeli and U.S. vessels could use the waterway only if one sanction on Iran were lifted for each passage.

The argument rests on the claim—advanced by Iranian commentators—that international law allows states to levy fees to ensure the security of waterways under their control.

With control over several islands and strategic points in the Persian Gulf, and full control of the waterway’s northern shore, Iran holds a uniquely strategic position, the IRGC-linked daily argued.

The paper concluded: “This package sends a clear message to all players inside and outside the region: the era of imposing sanctions on Iran is over, as no country can benefit from Persian Gulf security for free.”

Whether the United States, regional states, or their partners in South Asia would accept Tehran’s unilateral framework and comply with its demands remains uncertain.

The decisive moment in a regime’s collapse is often not the formal end, but the tipping point before it: the moment when the state’s aura of inevitability breaks.

Borders may still be guarded, television may still broadcast, officials may still issue decrees. But something more important has changed. The system no longer functions with confidence.

That pattern runs through modern history. Regimes die when authority thins out, and the forces meant to preserve the system begin to hesitate, fracture, defect or simply wait.

In Russia in 1917, the monarchy’s fate was sealed not only by crowds in the streets but by the refusal of troops and Cossacks to suppress them.

In Iran in 1979, the Shah’s regime effectively ended when the armed forces declared neutrality.

In Romania in 1989, Nicolae Ceaușescu’s fall accelerated when the army switched sides.

In East Germany, the Berlin Wall lost its political meaning the moment the border opening made it unenforceable.

In each case, the end came after something deeper had already broken: the state’s confidence in its own ability to command obedience.

The sequence before collapse

This is why a tipping point is best understood not as a date but as a sequence.

First comes long erosion: economic decline, loss of legitimacy, social anger, distrust inside the ruling camp.

Then comes a catalytic shock: a massacre, a fraudulent election, military defeat, a failed coup, or the death of the ruler around whom the system had been built.

Then comes the most important stage and the hardest to measure: the failed restoration of authority.

The regime still projects continuity, but no longer convincingly. It can still threaten, still punish, still broadcast. But it no longer reassures. Its command no longer feels unquestioned.

Only after that comes the formal end.

Iran’s compressed crisis

Iran’s recent trajectory fits that sequence with unusual force, appearing to compress into weeks the kinds of shocks that in other systems were spread over months or even years.

The country entered 2026 already weakened by deep economic distress and nationwide protest. Then came the January 8-9 crackdown.

More than 36,500 were killed, according to classified material Iran International reviewed. Other reporting and rights group assessments also describe the episode as mass killings on an extraordinary scale.

Mass killing can restore fear for a time. It can also destroy legitimacy more deeply and more permanently.

The next shock was even more consequential.

On 28 February, joint US-Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, abruptly removing the central figure around whom the Islamic Republic had organized authority for decades.

That alone did not prove regime collapse. Systems can survive the loss of a leader if they can replace him quickly and credibly. But that is precisely where the next problem began.

The succession that followed looked less like a confident transfer of power than an emergency move under pressure.

Iran International reported that the IRGC pushed to install a successor outside normal legal procedures amid disarray in the chain of command and fears that people could return to the streets.

Mojtaba Khamenei’s elevation preserved the office, but did not clearly restore authority. A succession in such a system is meant to reassure the Islamic Republic’s core that command still exists and that the center is still holding.

Yet Mojtaba has remained unseen in any ordinary sense. His messages were still being issued only in writing or read by state television anchors over still images, with no direct public appearance or recorded voice.

In a system built around the symbolism and physical presence of supreme authority, that matters. A ruler who does not appear can hold a title, but cannot easily project command.

That, in turn, changes how the growing centrality of the Revolutionary Guards should be read. If the IRGC now appears to dominate more of the state, that does not necessarily mean the system is stronger. It may mean the opposite: that the wider governing structure has hollowed out and power has narrowed to its coercive core.

Even that core shows signs of strain.

Reports of disrupted chains of command, internal criticism of senior commanders, personnel failing to report to bases, and diplomats seeking asylum do not yet prove a terminal fracture. But they are the kinds of signals that often appear before loyalty begins to shift more openly.

What can appear as consolidation may, in fact, be contraction.

The moment before the streets

This is also why the absence of a full-scale uprising does not necessarily mean the Islamic Republic has restored confidence.

In collapsing systems, people do not always move at the first sign of weakness. They wait until repression looks less certain, until command appears thinner, until they believe the next confrontation may end differently from the last.

The decisive moment often comes not when society becomes angriest, but when the security forces are no longer sure they can, should, or will do what they did before.

That memory matters in Iran. January showed what happens when the state still has a functioning command structure and is prepared to kill on a massive scale. But the present moment is not January.

The command structure has been hit. The top leadership has been decapitated. The succession has not visibly restored confidence. The war has intensified military, political, and fiscal strain.

Quiet streets, in such a moment, do not necessarily mean submission. They may mean waiting for the right threshold.

What history suggests

None of this means the Islamic Republic’s end is settled. Regimes can survive extraordinary shocks, especially when coercion remains lethal and opposition forces lack a unified organizational center inside the country.

But history suggests a useful distinction. A system is often most vulnerable when it has been reduced to force alone.

That is often the stage at which the outer signs of continuity become misleading. The offices still function. Orders are still issued. Missiles may still fly. But the wider architecture that gave those acts political meaning has begun to fail.

The question is no longer simply whether the Islamic Republic still exists on paper. It does.

The more important question is whether it still functions as a regime in the full sense: with authority that travels clearly, loyalty that holds under pressure, and institutions that do more than keep violence in motion.

History suggests that when those things begin to fail together, the tipping point is no longer far behind.

Exchanging threats—sometimes several times a day—has become the dominant mode of communication between Tehran and Washington.

The IRGC-linked Fars News Agency denied that any contact had taken place between the two sides, while a senior commander escalated the rhetoric live on Iran’s state broadcaster.

“We will hit you so hard that your dentures will be knocked out of your mouth.”

Major General Abdollahi of the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbia Headquarters also vowed to deploy “a new secret weapon that will bring an end to the enemy’s operations.”

Over the past two days, following Trump’s threat to strike Iran’s power-generation infrastructure unless Tehran unconditionally opens the Strait of Hormuz, several Iranian commanders and officials have issued counter-threats.

The core message was captured in an IRGC statement quoted by Entekhab on March 23: “We will respond to any attack immediately and at the same level.”

Entekhab also cited an IRGC spokesperson elaborating on Tehran’s position: “They hit schools and hospitals, but we did not reciprocate. If they attack power plants, we will strike power plants in countries that host US bases.” That would include much of the Middle East.

In a March 22 post on X, Esmail Saghab Esfahani, Iran’s vice president for energy optimization and strategic management, responded to Trump’s ultimatum.

“The Strait of Hormuz game has put so much pressure on Trump that he has issued a 48-hour ultimatum—unaware that the next move, which is the destruction of the most important electricity and water infrastructure of the Zionist regime and the United States in the region, will put even more pressure on him,” he wrote.

Saghab Esfahani also suggested that residents of Israel and people in countries hosting Iran’s adversaries would be wise to store water and charge their phones during those 48 hours.

Nour News, an outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, responded with a mix of defiance and warning.

“Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s electrical infrastructure is an explicit admission of a war crime and a sign of desperation,” it said.

In the hours before Trump’s deadline, a different narrative was circulating among many Iranian social-media users—particularly within opposition circles.

Rather than targeting infrastructure that ultimately serves the Iranian public, they urged the United States and Israel to focus on dismantling the security apparatus that underpins the state’s repressive machinery.

The tension was heightened further by an IRGC statement announcing what it described as a shift in Iran’s military doctrine—from a defensive posture to an offensive one.

As for ordinary Iranians, many appear increasingly anxious about how attacks on infrastructure might affect their already strained daily lives.

In Tehran—unlike in US markets—there has been no calm after Trump’s announcements. The drums of war are growing louder.