Seoul – Western analysis of Iranian politics has repeatedly made the same mistake. It has tried to understand a revolutionary, military-religious system through the logic of American politics. The result is a durable and costly misreading of how power actually works inside the Islamic Republic.

The standard Western assumption is straightforward. Remove hardliners and relative moderates will gain ground. Those moderates, seeking to preserve their own position, will then have incentives to negotiate, deliver stability, and compromise. Selective pressure plus leadership targeting should therefore produce a more flexible partner. This model feels natural because it roughly describes how competitive political systems often behave. It does not describe Iran.

Iran’s power structure is organized around ideological legitimacy, coercive capacity, and security institutions—above all the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its associated networks. Real authority is concentrated in the security-revolutionary core, not in the formal civilian or “moderate” political class. Loyalty and ideological purity function as primary currencies of survival. Accusations of softness or betrayal toward the United States can be existential. In this environment, the incentives that Western observers expect are reversed.

Figures commonly labeled moderates or pragmatists usually lack independent military power and deep institutional bases inside the IRGC. Their relative openness to negotiation makes them vulnerable to internal charges of weakness or treason. Because they cannot reliably control the security apparatus, they struggle to enforce any agreement even if they reach one. Over time, especially under prolonged high-pressure conditions, these figures lose political ground. The system treats them less as assets and more as liabilities.

Hardliner succession works in the opposite direction. When senior hardliners are removed—by strikes, assassination, or attrition—the system does not automatically moderate. Successors must prove loyalty, toughness, and revolutionary credentials to the remaining network and to the Supreme Leader. Going softer is dangerous. Going harder demonstrates commitment, consolidates support, and signals strength. The result is a ratchet effect: pressure and leadership losses often produce a more rigid leadership core rather than a more flexible one.

Hardliners are also easier for the system to control at scale. The regime’s coercive machinery, ideological networks, and wartime command structures are built around them. Mass mobilization, internal security, and prolonged resistance run more smoothly through these networks than through figures who introduce uncertainty about the revolutionary core. The system can discipline hardliners through shared ideology, institutional loyalty, and the constant possibility of replacement by even harder figures. Relative pragmatists create friction in the control mechanisms the regime depends on.

Time and duration matter decisively. A short, intense campaign creates acute shock. Leadership decapitation and immediate disruption can force rapid, high-stakes calculations. A prolonged campaign—months of intermittent strikes, naval blockade, and sustained cost imposition—gives the system room to adapt. Command structures can be reconstituted. New hardliners can be elevated and legitimized. Costs can be absorbed, redistributed, and narrated as endurance. The regime digs into a long-war posture rather than collapsing or moderating.

This is the pattern visible in the current conflict. Early strikes removed many senior commanders and the previous Supreme Leader. The system did not produce a more flexible negotiating partner. Instead, a wartime command structure coalesced around IRGC-linked figures. Recent formal appointments under Mojtaba Khamenei have further consolidated hardline control over key military and security posts. So-called moderate or pragmatic voices have not gained decisive ground; the opposite has occurred.

Iran is under severe economic and military strain. That fact is real and consequential. But the prolonged nature of the pressure has allowed the system to reorganize around its hardline core rather than fracture in the direction Western models predicted. The people most inclined to talk remain among the least able to deliver or survive a genuine settlement. The actors most capable of enforcing decisions are the least inclined to accept deep concessions.

The practical implication is clear. Betting on internal moderation through selective targeting is a high-risk, low-probability strategy in this system. Temporary pauses and performative diplomacy can occur without producing a durable shift in the power balance. Any potential deal faces severe enforcement problems. The realistic baseline remains prolonged contestation and mutual cost imposition—not a clean, transformative settlement.

The basic analytical error was understanding Iranian politics on American terms. In this system, time and pressure do not reliably empower moderates. They erode the political ground of relative pragmatists while allowing harder hardliners to consolidate more power. That is the pattern the conflict has followed. It is the pattern any serious strategy must now take as its starting point.