"President Trump deserves credit for staying the course on Iran when so many around him are losing their nerve," The Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board said in an opinion piece. "The President hasn’t folded under pressure, but more military strikes may be necessary."
Any settlement of the Iran war that leaves the Revolutionary Guards in control would preserve the Islamic Republic's core of power and risk turning a military advantage for the US and Israel into a strategic defeat.
That is the central challenge now facing Washington and its allies: how to end the conflict without giving the Islamic Republic time to absorb the blow, preserve the Revolutionary Guards’ grip on power and survive through another diplomatic compromise.
The war must conclude in a way that empowers the Iranian people, with support from outside players, namely the United States and Israel, and leaves them fully prepared to overthrow the IRGC-controlled regime. Any settlement or deal that ensures the Islamic Republic's survival would amount to a strategic defeat for the US and Israel.
In reality, the remnants of the regime still possess enough offensive capability to threaten the region and beyond. The US and Israel can use the most powerful and lethal force available against the Islamic Republic— the Iranian people — to eliminate the remaining threats once and for all.
To be sure, the people of Iran now face a fragmented leadership marked by serious rifts among political factions. The country’s economy is in ruins. The theocracy has sustained deep wounds and is effectively bleeding as a result of the elimination of top military commanders and political leaders.
The Islamic Republic is reportedly losing between $450 million and $500 million per day due to the US blockade of Hormuz. However, there is no guarantee that such economic losses will lead to its immediate collapse or overthrow. It may well resort to further violence and terrorist activity abroad.
Overall, the Islamic Republic is down, but it is not out. Sadly, more innocent people have been executed since an uneasy ceasefire took hold in mid-April.
This is simply because the core nucleus of power — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — remains functional. It has effectively engineered a silent coup under the cover of war, sidelining other contenders such as Ghalibaf, with whom Trump is reportedly seeking a possible framework to end the conflict.
The Trump administration and European powers should be mindful that no so-called reformist figure like Mikhail Gorbachev will emerge from within the Islamic Republic. From this regime, only terrorists emerge, wearing a mask of diplomatic civility.
Israel, whether one agrees with it or not, has a strong understanding of Tehran's modus operandi, largely because it has developed extensive expertise in countering terrorist networks, many of which are supported or enabled by the radicals in Tehran.
In this view, the world should recognize that the disintegration of the IRGC cannot be achieved through negotiation or a maritime blockade alone. Such an outcome requires a hybrid strategy centered on maximum economic pressure, sustained military pressure and the empowerment of the Iranian people to topple the clerical rule.
If decision-makers in Tehran conclude that the United States ultimately wants to avoid continued conflict, they may be incentivized to prolong the confrontation in a more attritional form, using stalling tactics and deception to buy time. In parallel, they could gradually escalate tensions below the threshold of an all-out war in an effort to extract concessions, particularly if they believe the US is seeking to end the conflict without committing to regime change.
The key, therefore, is to deprive the Islamic Republic of the notion that Trump seeks an off-ramp in this war and instead shift toward sustained pressure so that the IRGC faces only two options: total surrender or regime change.
I argue that the IRGC will not fully acquiesce to US conditions. Instead, it may accept certain demands while rejecting others in order to prolong the conflict and extend the diplomatic process.
The best way to neutralize the threats posed by the IRGC regime in Tehran is to take the following considerations into account:
In sum, the conflict involving the US and the IRGC should be resolved in a way that fundamentally weakens the current regime and increases the agency of the Iranian population.
Any negotiated settlement that allows the Islamic Republic to remain intact would be a strategic setback for the United States and Israel. The US and Israel have the people of Iran as the most powerful force against the regime in Tehran.
The Iran war shows how smaller powers can still disrupt much stronger militaries and economies through cheap drones, cyber tools and chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argued in an opinion piece.
Friedman wrote that President Donald Trump is betting the US blockade of Iranian oil exports will force Tehran to negotiate on Washington’s terms, while Iran is betting that pressure on the Strait of Hormuz and higher energy prices will eventually force Trump to retreat.
The columnist argued that the larger lesson is not only about Iran, but about the changing nature of power. He said the war has shown how asymmetric warfare has evolved, allowing states and armed groups to use relatively cheap tools to create major disruption.
Friedman cited Iran’s use of low-cost drones to strike Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, saying the attacks caused far larger economic and service disruption than the price of the weapons would suggest. He also compared Iran’s tactics to Ukraine’s drone attacks inside Russia and Hamas’s use of improvised rockets against Israel.
He said the next stage could be even more dangerous as artificial intelligence gives smaller states, militant groups and hackers access to far more powerful tools. Friedman warned that AI agents could make cyberattacks cheaper, faster and more autonomous, giving actors that once had few options new ways to threaten advanced societies.
The argument, he wrote, is that Trump may be misreading the conflict if he assumes Iran has “no cards.” In Friedman’s view, the war is a preview of a world where even weakened states can use drones, cyber capabilities, infrastructure attacks and AI to create what one expert called “mass disruption.”
The fragile truce between Tehran and Washington expires on April 22. With it ends restraint. Conflict will return, though its scale remains uncertain.
For two decades, the United States sought a durable nuclear settlement with Iran. Each failure strengthened the Islamic Republic. It deepened ties with Russia and China, expanded proxies from Iraq to the Red Sea, and built a missile and drone arsenal while burying key infrastructure underground—beyond inspection and reach.
The revelation of the Pickaxe Mountain facility in June 2025 ended ambiguity. In Washington and Jerusalem, red lines hardened into a single demand: effective surrender of Iran’s military-nuclear-industrial complex.
For all intents and purposes, the Khamenei–IRGC refusal of American–Israeli demands precipitated the February 28–April 8, 2026 conflict—the 40-day war. To outsiders, Tehran’s refusal appeared reckless. The regime, however, believed too much had been invested—in blood and treasure—to retreat without resistance.
With President Trump’s April 8 ceasefire declaration, a new round of diplomacy began in Islamabad (April 11–12, 2026). It lasted twenty-one hours and yielded nothing. Vice President Vance stated plainly that Iran had rejected American terms.
Reports indicated that senior IRGC figures, including Vahidi and Zolghadr, vetoed any concession. Authority was fractured; Ghalibaf’s delegation could not bind the state. The collapse exposed internal divisions and set the pattern ahead.
Tehran signalled its readiness to escalate—threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, recover concealed arsenals, with strikes on Gulf monarchies’ energy infrastructure.
Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iranian ports. As both sides manoeuvred behind the scenes, Tehran’s April 17 declaration that the strait remained open was swiftly overtaken, as Washington seized upon it as evidence of capitulation while maintaining the blockade. Trump nevertheless indicated that talks would continue.
Yet Vice President Vance’s planned return to Islamabad has now been placed on hold after Tehran failed to respond to American negotiating positions. The diplomatic track is no longer merely fragile—it is suspended.
Even if revived at short notice, the underlying reality remains unchanged: any Iranian delegation would face the same internal veto, and any concession would deepen recent humiliations—the decapitation of senior leadership and the degradation of strategic infrastructure.
It is at sea that the confrontation sharpens.
Washington maintains that its blockade is a lawful belligerent measure under the law of armed conflict at sea, subject to effectiveness, proportionality, and notification as reflected in customary law and articulated in the San Remo Manual (1994).
Tehran, by contrast, operates under narrower constraints. Though not party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), it remains bound by customary international law.
Transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz—Articles 37–44 of UNCLOS—cannot be suspended, even in armed conflict, as affirmed in the Corfu Channel case (1949) and reflected in the 1958 Territorial Sea Convention. Any attempt to mine or disrupt the strait would violate both the law of the sea and the law of armed conflict at sea and fail the tests of necessity and proportionality under Article 51.
What once served Tehran as deterrence now operates as constraint. Geography, turned against it, has become Washington’s leverage.
That leverage is already being applied through calibrated force. The recent strike on the Toska vessel, confined to the engine room, demonstrated how force may be applied with precision and restraint at once. Restraint, therefore, has been calculation, not limitation. This is not indiscriminate destruction but controlled degradation.
During the 40-day war, US–Israeli strikes targeted steel, gas, and petrochemical hubs with precision. They may resort to that practice again.
There is precedent. During Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999, NATO struck power plants, depriving Serbia of over seventy per cent of its electricity. The logic was calibrated escalation in the service of coercion.
Should negotiations fail, the next rungs are visible: precision strikes on power grids, bridges, and transport arteries. The Kosovo template may yet be reprised in the Persian Gulf.
Over the past year—across Ukraine, Gaza, and in dealings with China—President Trump has demonstrated a consistent posture: he neither retreats nor entertains settlements that suggest humiliation.
Lest we forget the chorus that once insisted President Trump would refrain from a prolonged conflict—that oil shocks would stay his hand, that he would restrain Israel, or that he would contrive accommodation with Tehran.
Events have ruthlessly overtaken these assumptions, leaving in their place a single, unambiguous note: the President now declares that the blockade “is absolutely destroying Iran” and will not be lifted until there is a “deal”—one he insists will be “far better” than the JCPOA.
Across the divide, Ghalibaf answers in a discordant key, rejecting negotiations “under the shadow of threats” while signalling preparation for escalation.
Trump is dividing and conquering on two fronts. He drives a lethal wedge between Ghalibaf’s faction—seeking a face-saving accommodation—and hardliners such as Vahidi and Zolghadr who command the instruments of force.
If Ghalibaf prevails, Trump imposes his terms and claims victory. If the hardliners purge him, they will be branded irredeemable extremists, and what remains of the regime will be subjected to decisive force. In either outcome, the structure of pressure favours Washington.
This is coercive diplomacy in its classical form. It draws from Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict and Arms and Influence, fused with what Jeffrey Sonnenfeld describes as Trump’s “divide and conquer” doctrine—his so-called Ten Commandments.
A public commitment device raises audience costs and forces a stark binary: agreement or refusal. The “threat that leaves something to chance”—brinkmanship—is fully engaged. Each rung narrows retreat and magnifies miscalculation.
Contrary to prevailing punditry, the 40-day war has turned Tehran and Washington into adversaries locked in a contest of endurance. Attacks on regional energy infrastructure have eroded tolerance, while American resilience has diminished Iran’s deterrent card. What once compelled caution now invites pressure.
Vice President Vance’s journey to Islamabad has now been halted. If no credible Iranian response emerges, detonation will follow—not in metaphor, but in action. The United States and Israel may then treat the remaining IRGC leadership as beyond restraint—men whose decisions invite elimination rather than negotiation.
The outcome now narrows to a single choice: acceptance—or detonation.
For decades the IRGC relied on its ability to threaten closure of the Strait of Hormuz as its premier economic shield and golden get out of jail card.
Roughly 21 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum products normally transit the strait. That volume accounts for one fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption and one quarter of all seaborne traded oil.
Yet the destinations of those flows expose the asymmetry that ultimately doomed the strategy.
In the first half of 2025 ~89% percent of crude oil and condensate flowed eastward to Asian markets.
China absorbed 37.7 percent of the total followed by India at 14.7 percent South Korea at 12 percent Japan at 10.9 percent and other Asian buyers at 13.9 percent.
Europe received just 3.8 percent and the United States only 2.5 percent. The IRGC was never holding the West hostage. It holds the East.
By throttling traffic during the conflict the regime exercised its only economic "card". Ship transits collapsed to under ten percent of normal levels even after the ceasefire. Insurance rates soared and oil prices spiked.
The move they thought would delivered short term tactical breathing room and helped force negotiations. Yet the decision transformed a potent deterrent into a wasting asset.
The primary victims were Asian importers especially China and India. Those nations faced immediate cost spikes and supply uncertainty.
Beijing responded by drawing down its strategic petroleum reserve which covers more than four months of imports while accelerating purchases of Russian African and Latin American crude.
India pursued parallel diversification.
More critically Persian Gulf producers gained the political urgency and capital they needed to lock in permanent bypass infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia ramped its East West Petroline to near its seven million barrels per day capacity routing crude to Red Sea terminals at Yanbu.
The United Arab Emirates expanded the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman. Additional overland proposals and expanded export terminals emerged almost immediately.
Once those routes reach commercial scale the strait loses its status as a global chokepoint. It becomes a regional inconvenience whose disruption matters far less to the broader market.
Simultaneously United States crude exports have surged to a record 4.9 million barrels per day in April 2026 with forecasts pointing toward five million or higher in coming months. That volume covers roughly 23 percent of normal full Hormuz traffic and about one third of the crude and condensate segment.
Asian refiners have redirected demand toward US Gulf Coast barrels to fill the shortfall from Middle East shut ins estimated at 7.5 to 9.1 million barrels per day. The surge not only caps price spikes but also cements American producers as the flexible swing supplier to Asia.
This development accelerates the very diversification that erodes Iranian leverage.
The one year five year and ten year horizons reveal starkly divergent outcomes.
For IRGC the picture darkens at every stage. In the first year oil revenues collapse despite temporary price spikes because export volumes remain minimal. The economy already contracting from war damage and sanctions faces hyperinflation in food prices and widespread shortages.
Over five years bypass pipelines and alternative supply chains become permanent fixtures. Petrodollar inflows never recover and sanctions compound the isolation.
By year ten Iran confronts structural marginalization as a secondary supplier at best. Internal pressures from economic rot and factional rivalry mount inexorably.
The regime is forced to move first. It cannot sustain years of revenue denial while rivals reroute around it. Diplomatic capitulation or escalated domestic repression becomes inevitable well before the five year mark.
China absorbs the heaviest short term pain yet emerges stronger. Higher import costs slow some refinery runs in the first year but strategic reserves Russian pipelines and surging United States imports prevent outright shortages.
Over five years Beijing locks in new sourcing habits and accelerates renewables and domestic production. By year ten China enjoys markedly improved energy security with far less exposure to any single chokepoint. The crisis ultimately serves as an expensive but effective catalyst for diversification but shines a light on Chinese dependency on US rendering any multipolar aspirations null, China isn't a pole probably never was if it can't survive without IRGC cheap oil paid with the blood of Iranians.
The United States stands as the unambiguous winner across all horizons. Export revenues boom in the first year as shale producers respond to sustained high prices.
Over five and ten years America solidifies its role as the reliable Atlantic basin supplier to Asian demand. Strategic leverage deepens without proportional domestic pain.
Arab states astride the Persian Gulf also gain by converting crisis into durable infrastructure and expanded market access.
In strategic terms the IRGC executed a classic use it or lose it blunder. By weaponizing the eastern hostage it compelled the very adaptations that render the hostage irrelevant. Global energy flows have begun a permanent eastward rerouting that favors flexible producers over vulnerable chokepoint holders.
The 2026 crisis therefore accelerates the long term isolation of Iran. It diminishes the regime's economic shield permanently and hastens the internal collapse dynamics already evident before the conflict.
What began as a tactical gambit to survive immediate pressure has instead locked in decades of strategic decline. The geography of oil trade the scale of United States export capacity and the self interest of Asian importers have combined to ensure that the IRGC traded its last "card" for time it didn't get and burned what it could not afford to waste relevance and economic potential to climb out of the grave it dug itself.
The Hormuz closure wasn't a surprise to any serious person, one might argue Trump turned what the enemy believed to be a leverage to a ticking time bomb trap the IRGC just walked into.
IRGC was never the end goal, China is.
Much of the global conversation about Iran revolves around security, conflict, and nuclear risk. What is less discussed is an environmental collapse already unfolding, with consequences that extend well beyond its borders.
In recent weeks, as US and Israeli strikes have targeted the Islamic regime’s military infrastructure, public attention has also turned to vast underground tunnel networks used to house missile systems, some carved deep into mountains over decades.
As Iran’s environmental crisis deepens, these networks reveal the scale at which the regime has mobilized land, resources, and engineering capacity for its military agenda rather than for environmental protection or public infrastructure.
This points to a broader reality: Iran’s environmental strain is not only the result of neglect or mismanagement, but also of deliberate policies that have redirected natural and economic resources toward militarization at the expense of long-term sustainability.
These policies have pushed the country’s water resources, ecosystems, and air quality to the edge of collapse. In recent years, millions of Iranians have lived without reliable access to clean water or breathable air. Aquifers have been depleted, rivers have dried, and major cities face hazardous levels of air pollution.
The recent military action by the United States and Israel comes against a regime that has systematically exploited Iran’s resources in pursuit of military and ideological goals, with lasting consequences both inside and beyond its borders. These developments have already weakened a regime that has long been a major source of global instability, but what comes next will shape not only Iran’s political trajectory but also the future of its landscape, and with it, regional stability.
If the Islamic Republic remains in place, regardless of how it is presented, the outcome is not difficult to predict; the current trajectory points toward environmental collapse.
Over more than four decades, the regime has demonstrated neither the capacity nor the willingness to preserve the country’s resources or to ground its governance in science. Under political and economic pressure, such systems tend to reinforce existing patterns rather than pursue meaningful reform.
The result is an environmentally exhausted state facing water scarcity, uninhabitable regions, toxic air, and accelerating ecological decline.
Environmental crises do not respect borders. Dust storms originating in Iran already affect neighboring countries. Water mismanagement in shared basins contributes to regional tensions. As ecosystems fail, livelihoods disappear, driving migration and placing additional strain on neighboring countries.
A collapsing environment in Iran is not only a national tragedy; it is a driver of economic, environmental, and social instability at both the regional and global levels.
The regime, or any remnants of it, is unlikely to attempt meaningful reforms. Even if it did, it would face a fundamental constraint: the absence of public trust.
Environmental recovery is not only a technical challenge; it depends on public confidence, without which meaningful change is nearly impossible.
Water conservation, resource management, and ecological restoration all depend on societal cooperation. This requires legitimacy, credibility, and a shared national vision.
The current regime does not have this trust and cannot rebuild it. Decades of unfulfilled promises and disregard for public demands, reflected in nationwide protests that were repeatedly suppressed, have made meaningful confidence unattainable. Recent public reactions to reports of underground missile tunnel construction and its environmental impact offer a clear example of this continuing breakdown.
If the current regime remains, Iran will continue on a path toward environmental collapse, driving mass migration, destabilizing neighboring countries, and undermining regional investment in sustainability and cooperation.
The path forward
Any viable path forward must be grounded in public trust. In today’s Iran, that trust is not broadly distributed but is increasingly concentrated around Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi as a unifying national figure. Across different regions and segments of society, his name has been repeatedly voiced in protests, often at significant personal risk.
In response to his calls, millions of Iranians have taken to the streets, both inside Iran and abroad, expressing support for him as a leader of a transition toward a democratic and secular Iran. This reflects a level of recognition and legitimacy that distinguishes him from any other figure in the current landscape.
Environmental recovery requires exactly this kind of trust. Without it, even the most well-designed plans cannot be implemented.
This credibility has not emerged suddenly; it has been built over the years through the Crown Prince’s continued engagement. His sustained focus on environmental concerns, which have remained part of his public positions over time, has also resonated with many Iranians. He is widely seen as a national figure capable of bringing people together around a shared goal of rebuilding and preserving the country.
This alignment between leadership and public confidence allows policies to move beyond rhetoric and into execution, something that has been absent in Iran for over four decades.
Restoration efforts could attract international investment, enable regional cooperation, and position Iran as a contributor to environmental stability rather than a source of disruption. In this context, initiatives such as the Cyrus Accords, proposed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, point to new opportunities for environmental collaboration between Iran, Israel, and neighboring countries.
A recovering Iran could participate in regional water initiatives, climate adaptation efforts, and sustainability-driven economic development. It could evolve into a hub for environmental innovation and sustainable tourism, leveraging its geography, history, and human capital.