x01b Radar Archives

The Tehran that the world knew is gone. It died in the fires with former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war in February. His son and new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei — wherever he is and in whatever physical condition — witnessed his father, wife, and other close family members die in the same airstrike that wounded him. The White House believed that the conflict would last only a few weeks, but the Islamic Republic has proven less fragile than anticipated by the United States and Israel, who now must deal with surviving Iranian leaders who experienced similar trauma and loss in early strikes. Washington has struggled to appreciate how its devastating attacks altered Tehran’s mindset: The White House instead still expresses confusion at “crazy” Iranian behavior that won’t return to prewar expectations.

I argue here that the “crazy” Iranian behavior confounding Washington in part reflects a subtle but important shift in Iran’s mindset. The U.S.-led attack was end-of-days fodder for true believers inside the upper echelons of the Islamic Republic, who listened to years of paranoid predictions about just such an apocalyptic attack at weekly Friday prayers. The surviving members of Iran’s inner circle — the New Tehran — are now acting based on an altered set of strategic principles. Despite the tactical brilliance of the U.S. military, the White House cannot find an endgame and risks turning a crisis into a catastrophe if it cannot adjust to Tehran’s new reality.

As a former CIA analyst, my job for many years was to set aside my personal views and instead see the world as Iranian leaders do. My goal was to get inside the heads of Tehran’s hardliners, who have very different perspectives than Western analysts. Such an exercise can be uncomfortable to do with violent authoritarians hostile to the United States — especially when the exercise challenges one’s core assumptions and values — but it provides helpful clarity when an adversary’s behavior defies expectations. Of course, Iranian leaders do not regularly broadcast their private deliberations — and their public statements can be misleading bravado and propaganda. So divining Iran’s true leadership decision-making is often more art than science. Yet, it is still possible to deduce much of their unspoken internal logic by analyzing regime actions and viewing the world through Tehran’s ideological lens.