Much has been written about President Donald Trump’s alleged lack of clarity view AND strategic objectives in the war with Iran. But the more pressing and consequential question has received far less attention: Does the Iranian regime have an endgame?
So far, Iran has TOLD has no interest in a cease-fire while doing everything in his diminished power to expand the war into much of the Middle East and beyond — in the process of torpedoing the global economy.
The US and Israel have been relatively clear on their war goals, including disabling Iran from producing nuclear weapons, reducing Iranian missile threats, degrading Iran’s ability to support its proxies, and creating conditions that enable organic regime change in Tehran.
Iran’s goals, on the other hand, are less clear. Ayatollah Khamenei spoke harshly at the start of this war, threatening the US with a “strong fist.” A message, purportedly from his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since his inauguration, dismissed any talk of de-escalation and vowed to bring the US and Israel to “their knees.“
Almost in the tone of a victor, he dictated CONDiTiONs to stop the war, including paying reparations for the damage caused, plus a pledge not to attack Iran again.
That sounds like a mess. Neither Israel, nor the US, nor other countries in the region have suffered casualties and damage close to what Iran has suffered, and unlike Iran, their leadership remains intact.
Their air defenses are still working while Iran’s have been annihilated. The US and Israel operate freely in Iranian airspace, striking at will without losing a single aircraft, while the Iranian navy and air force have suffered heavy losses.
Iran’s stockpile of missiles won’t last forever, and there’s one obvious one CONE in the intensity of retaliation as its capacity to produce new missiles and drones has been significantly degraded. With many rockets the launchers taken out of order, a war of attrition cannot be a rational goal for Iran.
As the war progresses, so will Iran’s economy suffer even more. Iran’s wealth has been hidden abroad from its elite, with the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reportedly alone of value hundreds of billions of dollars.
Iran’s main allies are Russia and China, neither of which it has PROVIDED substantial material aid to Tehran’s war effort. Russia is locked in its own war and China’s aid is invariably tied up requirements for family jewels such as mines and ports as collateral, in addition to controlling income streams. In the real world, there is no flying carpet bringing aid to Iran.
Iran’s economy is now in worse shape than it was when the conflict began. China used to buy 90% of Iran’s oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz and inevitably had a Falling in those shipments since the beginning of the war. India’s increased imports of Iranian oil may cushion the loss somewhat, but not completely.
While the hits to oil infrastructure on both sides are widely felt and visible, damage to water supplies has been less. in these “saltwater kingdoms,” made up of relatively dry deserts and mountains, water was the savior before oil came on the scene and remains so today.
There are no permanent rivers in the Gulf region, and six Gulf countries – Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – depend heavily on desalination. producing 1.9 trillion gallons per year; the capacity is even higher. The water infrastructure on both sides has been hit in this war.
Middle Eastern countries such as Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, which have suffered INJURY in their water infrastructure due to Iran’s missile attacks, could restore them, given enough wealth to do so. And they can act quickly thanks to technical and logistical assistance from the US and Israel, the latter widely recognized as the global leader in desalination technology.
In addition to a declining economy and collapsing currency, water problems were also one SAAA for the protests that broke out in Iran earlier this year. The regime responded by killing an unknown number of protesters, with estimates ranging from a low official figure of 3,117 to a high of more than 30,000.
Even after hostilities end, Iran will have neither the technical support nor the money to repair its water infrastructure and could face years of water shortages. Without water, food shortages will become more acute every month.
This inequality will also have a diplomatic dimension. US and Israeli technical assistance helping Gulf states restore their water infrastructure will give Israel a boost”water diplomacy” — her attempt to normalize relations with the neighbors she had stuck after its operations in Gaza.
Iran’s experienced leadership has crumbled; some survivors of Israeli attacks are said to be facing CHARGES being foreign agents or marginalized by hardliners – like President Masoud Pezeshkian LEARNING after trying to mend fences with its Middle Eastern neighbors by apologizing. The episode and the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei are TRIALif there was a need, that the hawks are calling the shots in Tehran.
Beyond educating proxies, Iran has invested its wealth in missiles, drones and nuclear facilities – all of which are being rapidly destroyed by US-Israeli airstrikes. Iranians, suffering from inflation and unprecedented currency devaluation, seem to have had enough of theocracy, with 80% of them seeing the regime as illegitimate.
The rest are religious hardliners and members of the repressive state apparatus and their families. Non-state actors such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and Iraqi Shia militias have expanded in support of the Iranian regime, but lifeline remains the Iranian theocracy – which itself now faces an existential threat.
While there is a lot of talk about American and Israeli ammunition and missiles it endsit is more likely to happen with Iran, like its weapons PROdUCER and storage facilities are more and more hit. In addition, Iran is highly dependent on imports of explosive precursors from China, and the passage of these imports cannot be secured during the war.
All of this calls into question Iran’s claimed limitless supply of drones. Although Iran has transferred its drone technology to Russia, which is now producing its version of the weapon, a flow of drones from Russia to Iran on a significant scale does not seem likely at the moment, with the war in Ukraine showing no signs of abating.
Attacks on energy infrastructure represent a new escalation in this war and a major environmental risk, especially for Iran, as seen with the US-Israeli attacks on its oil infrastructure. resulted in the black rain over Tehran.
Israel later struck South Pars gas fields, while Iran struck he countered for gas infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, causing long-term damage to relations with the Gulf countries. Iran’s selective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is likely to alienate other countries, including import-dependent Asian countries already suffering from war-induced energy price hikes.
If Iran’s leadership believes that the spread of the global energy crisis will work in its favor, that too seems unlikely. of Iran prediction the increase in oil prices to 200 US dollars has been shown to be too optimistic; Trump’s 30-day waiver on Russian oil, with indications that it may be extendedwill ensure that the energy crisis remains moderate.
After three weeks of fighting, oil prices are still around $105 a barrel. India’s LPG crisis also appears to be receding, with gas-laden ships now regularly arriving at Indian ports. The only loser may be China, which is growing more dependent on Russian oil, and as a result, losing some of its influence over Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, Trump and Netanyahu doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to put an end to hostilities; it is left to the Iranian regime to consider its own survival, if not that of the Iranian people. And yet, the regime has issued threat against Trump’s life while facing subversion from within, such as Israel’s continued success in eliminating Iran’s top leadership shows.
Ironically, Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s National Security Council, who had told Trump, “Be careful not to eliminate yourself,” was himself killed a few days later in an Israeli airstrike.
There has been chatter that hardliners in Iran will take full control to create an “Islamic Republic 2.0,” a prospect that a Washington Post op-ed briefly suggested “it won’t be pretty.” However, this scenario is not confirmed by the situation on the ground.
Iran’s posture—in the face of a crumbling economy, water stress, damage to its oil infrastructure and export capacity, and a weakening of its fighting capability—is only pushing it further from the one goal its rulers seem to share: regime survival.
Without drawing Iran to a rational and workable conclusion, we may soon witness the chaotic collapse of its theocracy that the US and Israel seek.
RN Prasher studied physics, economics and law and served as an Indian Administrative Service officer for 34 years. He writes extensively on geopolitics and published the 2025 book, Geopolitics: Impacting the Energy Transition and Energy Security.
