The first to feel the impact of Iran’s military failure in Lebanon and Syria were the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the most ideologically radical factions which dominate the country’s political, economic, social and cultural life. There are some who already envisage an “overthrow of the regime”, others who fear the advent of an even more radical military power. As for the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, he is striving to arrange compromises that may save an Islamic regime which is sinking fast under the weight of US economic sanctions, international opposition to its nuclear programme and above all Iranian society itself.
No sooner had they come to power in 2021 with the election to the presidency of Ebrahim Raissi, than the conservatives grasped the urgency of the situation. They had carried out a change in their regional strategy to facilitate negotiations with the United States and obtain the lifting of its economic sanctions. Though not blocking it altogether, the divisions in the conservative camp undermined this strategy, aimed at improving relations with Iran’s immediate neighbours, starting with Saudi Arabia, and distancing itself from the network of “proxies” created at the time of the war with Iraq (1980-1988). This policy was confirmed in June 2024 by the election of a reformist president, Massoud Pezeshkian, with the approval of the Leader, Ali Khamenei, for lack of any alternative.
But within a few months these plans for an orderly retreat into national territory and a concentration on domestic issues were upset by Israel. The overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria – Iran’s only solid Arab ally since 1979 – and Hezbollah’s military defeat have obliged the Islamic Republic to define new domestic and foreign policies which go beyond mere pragmatism.
Military victories, political defeats
In the past the Revolutionary Guards (Sepah Pasdaran, the IRGC) have known many military successes. The war with Iraq (1980-1988) made it possible for that political militia, originally formed to combat the Islamic Republic’s adversaries, to become an elite troop within the overall armed forces.
While the conventional army (Artesh) confined itself to the defence of the national territory, the Pasdaran put into practice the strategy of “forward defence” beyond the national borders, with Hezbollah and Syria as its cornerstones. The range of the Revolutionary Guards rapidly expanded beyond the Iraqi front to become ideological and globalised against the “Great Satan”, the USA, and its European and Israeli allies. After supporting Palestinian movements, they played a prominent role in the creation of Hezbollah after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Following the end of the war with Iraq, its veterans were quickly given decision-making positions in politics, government and of course economic enterprises. The IRGC took on the role of political control, intelligence and social repression within the country while special forces – the IRGC-Quds Force – were being set up to specialise in operations abroad.
Iranian military action in Syria took on a different dimension when Iran actively supported Bashar Al-Assad’s regime against the uprisings of the Arab Spring in 2011 and the Islamic State Organisation (ISIS) in Iraq and then in Syria. That army of Sunni jihadis, fiercely anti-Shiite, was perceived in Tehran as a weapon of the USA and its Saudi and Israeli allies, aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic. The Quds Force, commanded by General Qasem Soleimani, played a prominent role with the help of Shi’ite mercenaries from Afghanistan, Shiite militias from Iraq and above all, Hezbollah from Lebanon. The IRGC remained on Syrian territory as did the US Special Forces and above all the Russians. For twenty years there were many Pasdaran in Lebanon and in Syria, where some of them founded a small Iranian-Shiite colony, officially meant to pro-tect the tomb of Zeinab, the Prophet’s granddaughter.
This demographic, economic and religious penetration, linked to Hezbollah’s political plans in Lebanon, caused ideas of conquest to emerge. Access to the Mediterranean gave some the idea of exacting revenge for the battle of Marathon1 and of constructing an imperialist Mediterranean strategy for Iran. The creation of this “Shiite arc” was denounced by the Sunni Arab countries and considered by many analysts to be a key element in Iranian foreign policy. At that time, the notion of an “Iranian threat”, shared by most Western analysts, defined Iran as an Islamist and imperialist state whose overriding goal was to destabilise the Middle East and then Europe via the Mediterranean.
A direct attack on Israel
In December 2024 the Pasdaran fell into the trap. They had underestimated the degree to which Mossad, Israel’s external Intelligence service, which was well implanted in Syria, had infiltrated Hezbollah and the Quds Force; and also the consequences of the Assad regime’s inability to extricate itself from the Syrian war. Their dreams of access to the Mediterranean had made them forget that the modern Iranian state, built by the Safavids in the 16th century, was not imperialist but primarily nationalist, prioritizing the protection of its borders against the hostile forces of the great empires of the day, Ottoman, Russian and British. The struggle against a globalised empire like the United States could justify the strategy of “forward defence”, but the Quds Force had transformed the distant strongholds into strategic challenges.
This change became spectacular on the night of 13-14 April 2024 when over 350 drones and missiles were launched against Israel from Iranian territory without involving Hezbollah’s arsenal2. Tehran was thus affirming its decision to defend its territory, its political regime and its nuclear program by itself, without resort to its network of “proxies”.
After the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Iran did all it could to avoid getting involved in a hopeless war and undertook an orderly withdrawal of most of its militias from Lebanon and Syria. Moreover, the systematic destruction of the stocks of weapons stored in Syria and meant for Hezbollah prompted Bashar Al-Assad to ask the Iranians to adopt a low profile. So instead of doing battle, the Revolutionary Guards simply fled when the rebels from Idlib took Aleppo and then Damascus in December 2024. Which made their defeat even more shameful. General Hossein Salami, the IRGC Commander in Chief, proudly declared that the last Iranian to leave Syria was a Pasdaran. A pathetic admission of defeat.
The end of the “axis of resistance”?
On 11 December, as if to persuade himself that none of this was real, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared that “the more the Axis of Resistance comes under pressure, the stronger it becomes”, and that “what happened in Syria is the result of a US-Zionist plan,” before claiming on 22 December that Iran “had no need for proxies in the region” (IRNA Agency). However the absence of any in-depth analyses of events in Lebanon and Syria shows that a page has been turned and that the best interests of the Islamic Republic no longer lie in resistance or direct intervention. Everyone has understood that the “Axis of Resistance” is broken. The most radical Iranians deplore the fact and declare they want to revive revolutionary Islam. They vehemently criticize reformist President Pezeshkian, who, while affirming the rightness of the struggle against Israel, puts off any action until “the time is ripe” and makes overtures to the Arab countries.
As for the majority of Iranians, they are relieved by the end of these costly foreign military operations. And they regret that the $30-$50 billion spent on loans to Syria over the last fifteen years will probably never be repaid. Iranian leaders’ restrained speeches and the anxious silence of the media and the population at large seem to reflect the depth of the shock. This admission of the IRGC’s collapse without a fight marks a decisive stage in the weakening of the Islamic Republic. A bolt has been drawn and the gate thrown open to all possibilities, for better or for worse.
The current electricity shortage which has caused havoc across the county adds an additional crisis. The need for profound change seems obvious, yet Iranians are also attached to the security and stability of the state; they know what a revolution can cost and are aware that no alternative is in sight, with opposition political forces outside the country too detached from reality. People have seen how internal conflicts combined with actions from outside have devastated countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon or Palestine, and are worried about Israel’s military successes and territorial conquests which could generate endless regional conflicts.
Maintaining a delicate balance
Where could change come from, without plunging Iran into chaos? Does the Supreme Leader, with his long experience in managing conflicts between radicals, conservatives and reformists, still have the means and the moral authority to impose his choices and come up with eventual compromises? What will be the reaction of the millions of members, present and past, of the Revolutionary Guards and all those who are dependent on them politically and financially.? Qasem Soleimani’s assassination in January 2020 stirred huge nationwide grief, but he was a victorious general. Today: vae victus (woe to vanquished) ?
It is somewhat premature to predict the impending fall of the Islamic Republic. The defeat of the conservative factions embodied in the Pasdaran can mask neither the vitality of Iranian nationalism nor the consensus that prevails in Iran in favour of the stability of a state that has endured for millennia. To save the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was obliged to accept a ceasefire with Iraq in 1988. In 2015, Ali Khamenei approved an agreement on nuclear power (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA). The decision taken on 15 December 2024 to suspend the oppressive new law on the “hijab and chastity” is important. The fact that it was taken by the highest authority in charge of national and international security, the National Security Council, with the approval of the Leader, speaks volumes about the regime’s fragility and its determination not to provoke a population which could rise up again massively as it did in 2022.
This opening could well be accompanied, with the backing of the Leader, by a negotiation on the nuclear issue, conducted by Masoud Pezeshkian’s reformist government - relying on Javad Zarif, who was instrumental in producing the 2015 nuclear agreement. Could such an accord settle the now-secondary nuclear issue, and bring about the lifting of the economic sanctions ? For Donald Trump and American business, oil-rich Iran, with its highly educated population of 90 million, could present an interesting economic opportunity and a way to push back against Chinese ambitions. Such an economic renaissance is indispensable if Iran is to become a regional power capable of contributing, along with Saudi Arabia, to regional security and perhaps a settlement of the Palestinian question – and Trump has declared he does not want regime change nor an armed conflict.
Despite the reservations of the conservative factions in Iran and the hostility of many of the US President’s advisers, who support Israel’s ambitions unconditionally, the Islamic Republic, free of its commitments to its “proxies” and falling back on its own national boundaries, can hope to overcome the present crisis. For the moment, everything seems on hold in Tehran. The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei maintains a delicate institutional balance between a radical opposition exacerbated by its failures, opportunistic conservatives, pragmatic reformists and 90 million Iranians hoping for profound changes. And waiting for Donald Trump.
Translated from French by Noël Burch.
1A battle which took place in 490 BC pitting Athens and its allies against the Persian empire and which ended in the defeat of the latter.
2NDLR.Tehran’s action was provoked by a direct Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on 1 April, in which a senior IRGC commander and six other Pasdaran officers were killed.