The calculus of U.S. strategy toward Iran has always been fraught with ambiguity. Decades of sanctions, targeted strikes, covert operations, and diplomatic pressure have aimed to coerce the Islamic Republic into moderation—or at the very least, restraint. Yet, after years of testing, it remains evident that the most likely “victory” Iran can claim is one of survival. As long as its regime institutions—anchored by the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)—remain intact and loyal, Iran can plausibly declare victory merely by enduring external pressure and internal unrest.
The concept may sound counterintuitive. How can survival be a strategic victory? Yet, in the calculus of authoritarian regimes, endurance often trumps policy concessions. Iran’s leadership has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to absorb immense economic pain, international isolation, and domestic dissent without relinquishing its core priorities: regional influence, military autonomy, and the preservation of theocratic authority. In this sense, survival itself is not a passive condition but an active demonstration of coercive resilience, a test of U.S. hard power’s reach in the Middle East.
U.S. military operations have long assumed that overwhelming force can compel authoritarian states to bend or break. Yet, Iran’s experience presents a cautionary tale. Despite decades of sanctions, cyberattacks, targeted airstrikes, and proxy suppression, Tehran’s central institutions remain functional. Its missile programs continue to develop, its regional proxies maintain operational capacity, and its nuclear ambitions persist under a regime willing to navigate around international scrutiny.
The survival of the Iranian theocracy underscores a stark reality: hard power alone cannot guarantee regime change or strategic compliance. Airstrikes and covert operations may degrade military infrastructure temporarily, but they cannot eliminate the political will or internal cohesion of a determined authoritarian state. The lesson is clear for U.S. planners: endurance—by a coercive state—creates a scenario in which survival itself becomes a form of victory. The implication is sobering: even the most aggressive U.S. campaigns may at best produce attrition, not compliance.
For Washington, this introduces an uncomfortable strategic paradox. Even if the United States invests heavily in precision strikes, missile defenses, and cyber warfare to neutralize Iran’s military capabilities, the regime’s survival could still validate Tehran’s narrative of resistance. In a media-savvy era where perception often matters as much as reality, Iran can portray endurance against a superpower as a moral and political victory, further entrenching its domestic legitimacy.
Some analysts argue that a potential collapse of Iran’s theocracy could provide a pathway to a more cooperative successor government. Yet history warns against such optimism. Iran’s domestic landscape is complex, fragmented, and volatile. Should the Supreme Leader’s authority crumble, the vacuum may not produce a liberal democracy but could instead pave the way for a more hardline, militarized governance structure dominated by the IRGC.
The IRGC, long embedded in Iran’s political, economic, and military systems, has cultivated both the expertise and the networks to seize power in a post-theocracy scenario. Its approach would likely be more aggressive than the current leadership, emphasizing military readiness, regional projection, and ideological rigidity. A hardline IRGC-led state might even perceive a collapsing Iran as an opportunity to assert dominance over neighboring states, challenging both U.S. and allied interests in the region.
This scenario illuminates a broader strategic dilemma: regime change—whether through internal collapse or external intervention—is rarely synonymous with strategic alignment. The United States has repeatedly encountered this pattern, from Afghanistan to Iraq, where the removal of an authoritarian regime produced successors that were equally, if not more, hostile. In Iran, a similar dynamic could emerge, with the IRGC positioning itself as the ultimate defender of national sovereignty, ideology, and regional influence.
Whether Iran survives or collapses, the United States faces a long-term strategic commitment. Military assets, intelligence operations, and regional alliances could remain engaged in a resource-draining contest for years, if not decades. Even with the degradation of Iranian missile forces, nuclear infrastructure, and proxy networks, the exact operational status of these capabilities is uncertain.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence may have successfully neutralized parts of Iran’s arsenal, but the survival of clandestine programs and decentralized proxy networks means the threat cannot be fully eliminated. Each military strike or economic sanction buys temporary reprieve but fails to deliver a definitive resolution. In practical terms, this ensures that the Middle East continues to demand disproportionate U.S. attention, diverting focus and resources from other global theaters.
This concept is sometimes referred to as a “forever war” scenario: an enduring engagement in which military objectives are continuously redefined to meet evolving threats, rather than achieving a conclusive end state. The U.S.-Iran context is particularly susceptible to this dynamic. Even if the theocracy survives intact, Tehran’s willingness to employ lethal force internally—and proxy force externally—ensures that any strategic disengagement risks a resurgence of hostilities.
The enduring U.S. commitment to the Middle East has broader implications for global strategy, particularly in the Indo-Pacific theater where China’s rise represents a long-term strategic challenge. Washington’s defense planners have emphasized the importance of a strategic pivot to the Pacific, leveraging advanced naval, aerial, and missile capabilities to deter Chinese expansionism. However, a prolonged engagement with Iran threatens to immobilize critical resources, forcing the U.S. to allocate assets, intelligence, and munitions to a theater of persistent instability.
Airpower alone, even with advanced stealth aircraft, precision munitions, and real-time surveillance, may not resolve the underlying strategic dilemma. Iran’s regime demonstrates the enduring resilience of a coercive authoritarian state, one that can absorb significant external pressure while retaining political and military cohesion. In other words, even the most sophisticated campaigns may be insufficient to achieve a decisive outcome without significant ground-level intelligence, regional partnerships, and long-term political engagement.
Iran’s influence across the Middle East complicates U.S. strategic calculations further. The regime’s network of proxies—including Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq, and Houthi forces in Yemen—enables Tehran to exert asymmetric pressure without directly engaging U.S. forces. These networks operate with considerable autonomy, creating uncertainty about the timing, scope, and intensity of potential confrontations.
Even if Iran’s central institutions survive, proxy operations could continue to destabilize regional partners, forcing U.S. engagement to remain high. Conversely, if the regime collapses and the IRGC consolidates power, proxy networks could expand and intensify their operations, potentially escalating into a broader regional conflict. Either scenario underscores the difficulty of extricating U.S. forces from a theater where political, ideological, and military objectives are deeply intertwined.
The U.S. approach to Iran is further constrained by domestic political realities. Public support for sustained military campaigns in the Middle East has eroded over the past two decades, creating pressure on policymakers to prioritize cost-effective, low-risk strategies. Yet the reality of Iran’s strategic environment requires high-intensity planning, extensive intelligence operations, and a willingness to accept prolonged engagement.
Sanctions, cyberattacks, and diplomatic isolation remain tools of choice, but they cannot substitute for comprehensive regional strategy. Washington faces the dual challenge of maintaining pressure on Iran while managing domestic expectations about the costs, risks, and duration of U.S. involvement. Failure in either domain risks strategic overextension or policy incoherence.
Historical precedent reinforces the complexity of U.S.-Iranian relations. The 1979 Iranian Revolution demonstrated how rapid regime change can produce an authoritarian successor far removed from U.S. interests. Similarly, U.S. interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya illustrate the hazards of assuming that the collapse of an existing regime will yield a favorable political order. In Iran, these lessons are amplified by the entrenched power of the IRGC and the ideological cohesion of theocratic institutions.
Even the prospect of sanctions-induced internal dissent offers no guarantee of regime moderation. Iran’s leadership has consistently shown a capacity to leverage nationalistic narratives, religious authority, and military coercion to suppress opposition. Survival, in this context, is not passive; it is an active demonstration of political skill, societal control, and strategic patience.
Iran’s nuclear program adds another layer of complexity. While diplomatic negotiations have aimed to constrain uranium enrichment and reactor development, the potential for breakout capability remains. A surviving theocracy with nuclear capacity would not merely survive external pressure; it would acquire additional leverage in regional diplomacy, enhancing deterrence against both the U.S. and Israel.
A collapsed theocracy could also produce unpredictable nuclear outcomes. If the IRGC assumes control, the program might accelerate in a more opaque, militarized fashion, increasing the risk of proliferation and destabilizing the region further. Both scenarios carry implications for global security, underscoring the limitations of conventional military interventions in shaping nuclear trajectories.
Given these dynamics, strategic patience emerges as a plausible U.S. policy. Rather than pursuing the high-risk objective of regime change, the United States may be better served by containing Iran’s influence, degrading specific military capabilities, and managing regional alliances. This approach acknowledges the limits of coercive power while minimizing the risk of provoking catastrophic escalation.
Containment requires careful calibration: sanctions must be targeted to avoid humanitarian crises; strikes must be precise to prevent regional conflagration; and alliances must be reinforced to maintain strategic credibility. It is a complex balancing act that emphasizes long-term resilience over short-term victory.
The fate of Iran presents a sobering lesson in the limits of hard power. Whether the theocracy survives or collapses, the United States faces a strategic environment defined by uncertainty, prolonged engagement, and asymmetric threats. Survival may appear as victory to Tehran, reinforcing the resilience of authoritarian institutions. Collapse may produce a successor state even less amenable to negotiation, dominated by a militarized IRGC.
Either outcome imposes costs: continued resource allocation, military engagement, and strategic attention in the Middle East, diverting focus from other theaters such as the Indo-Pacific. Airpower alone cannot dictate political outcomes; coercive resilience and regional influence remain central to Iran’s strategic calculus.
In the end, U.S. policymakers confront a simple yet profound reality: victory in Iran may not be defined by capitulation, regime change, or compromise, but by the capacity to endure and adapt. Strategic patience, regional partnerships, and calibrated pressure are the tools most likely to manage a persistent challenge that, for decades, has resisted simple solutions.
Iran’s survival, collapse, or transformation will continue to shape U.S. military posture, regional alliances, and global strategy for years to come. In a region where ideology, coercive power, and national pride intersect, the limits of hard power are starkly visible, reminding policymakers that in some conflicts, endurance itself is the ultimate metric of victory.
