(Bloomberg) — As US President Donald Trump’s latest ultimatum to Iran to agree to a ceasefire deal approaches, hardliners now in charge in Tehran are relishing the idea of escalation and a region-wide conflict.
The US and Israel have taken out layers of senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps over the course of the nearly six-week war, but those who remain are girding for a protracted battle, with little fear of Trump’s threats to destroy civilian infrastructure. This could spark an upsurge in fighting that would further engulf Middle Eastern countries and exacerbate what has become a global energy crisis.
An Iraqi militia tied to the IRGC warned on its Telegram channel Tuesday that if Trump acts on his threat to broadly obliterate Iran, then it would target the Red Sea port of Yanbu to “plunge the world into an energy war.” Saudi Arabia has been using the Yanbu terminal to export almost 5 million barrels of oil a day to get around Iran’s blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
“The group of people who are institutionally and personally invested in the resilience and survivability of the regime are now in command and control,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at London-based Chatham House. “They are going to be hard to convince that the time to deal is now and that’s why the terms and conditions that Iran keeps putting on the table are so maximalist.”
Iran’s demands include guarantees it won’t be attacked again by the US and Israel, the right to control Hormuz and the lifting of longstanding economic sanctions. Trump wants Tehran to reopen the strait, give up its nuclear program, end its support for proxy militant groups and accept restrictions on its missile program. On Tuesday, he said Iran’s “whole civilization will die” if a deal isn’t reached.
Vakil said the dominant hardline faction in Iran doesn’t want to concede too early, while the weaker reformist group is “looking to find an off ramp” because it believes Tehran has significant leverage now with its control of Hormuz.
It’s increasingly clear that Iranian leaders like President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who might be more open to a deal with Trump, don’t have a full grasp of what’s going on militarily, said a European official whose government remains in contact with them, and requested anonymity in order to speak freely.
Trump’s threats to destroy civilian infrastructure including water and power facilities — potential war crimes under international law — aren’t likely to sway the regime, Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said in a series of posts on X on Monday.
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“His threats to decimate Iran have not moved a regime which, since its inception, has shown itself willing to destroy the country and its people rather than compromise its power or ideology,” he wrote.
The idea that Iran is ready for a long war no matter the cost has dominated the messaging in recent days from both inside Iran and its proxies in Iraq and Lebanon.
“Hormuz won’t be accessible to the enemies and let them know that if they want to do it by force then there won’t be oil and gas terminals left,” Abu Hussein Al-Hamidawi, commander of the IRGC-backed Ktaib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, said in a statement on Monday. Naim Qasem, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, told the Lebanese people to prepare for a protracted battle and more sacrifices.
A social media message circulated by Iranian state media last week and attributed to Esmail Qaani, who commands the IRGC unit known as the Quds Force, said “get used to the new regional order.” He spoke of a “unified command center” with the proxies including Yemen’s Houthis.
“For Iran’s hardliners, the longer they draw out the war, the worse the Americans will look,” said Matthew Levitt, an expert on Iran and its proxies and director of the counter-terrorism program at the Washington Institute think tank.
Iran is also increasingly telling Gulf states that their US security alliances and hosting of American bases are liabilities.
“The bases that the enemy has set up in your countries are not only being used to attack us, but they are also hotbeds for sowing discord and division among Muslim nations,” Mohammad Reza Mavalizadeh, governor of Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province, said on Iranian state TV on Sunday, addressing Gulf Arab leaders.
But that strategy shows signs of backfiring already. In wealthy Gulf states, despite their frustrations with the war, Iran’s aggression is drawing them closer to the US, and even Israel in the case of the United Arab Emirates.
“Our main security partner is the United States — we will double down on our relationship,” Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, told reporters on Saturday.
–With assistance from Samy Adghirni.
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