In recent weeks, the Iranian regime has escalated its rhetoric in ways that appear almost suicidal. Iran’s spokesmen and diplomats have been talking tough, seemingly taunting the Americans.
For example, at a public event marking the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, they displayed coffins draped in American flags, bearing the names of senior US military commanders. Meanwhile, just as negotiations with the Americans were about to begin, Iran’s regime mouthpiece, Kayhan, published a front-page editorial titled “The Response to a Threat Is Another Threat – Not Negotiations,” rejecting negotiations with Washington and openly threatening regional war.
If Iran’s behavior looks reckless right now, that’s because we are misreading its goal. The Islamic Republic is not trying to win a war with the United States: It is trying to survive President Donald Trump.
Why Iran's strategy is just to survive Donald Trump
The Kayhan article, translated and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), offers a rare, unfiltered look at the mullahs’ game plan.
One passage is especially revealing. It claims that Trump “tasted bitter defeat in the 12-day war,” portraying the devastating US Operation Midnight Hammer as a failure. The president’s objective was not damage to nuclear facilities, but the collapse of the regime. Therefore, the thinking goes, Trump failed.
This mindset explains everything we are currently seeing from the Islamic Republic. Survival is victory – period. According to this formula, the only strategic question that matters regarding any particular decision is whether or not it will lead to the fall of the regime. Military losses and economic devastation are tolerable: Regime collapse is not.
WHICH BRINGS us to the logic behind the seemingly foolish hardline stance Iran is taking. Tehran’s leaders believe that accepting Washington’s demands would be more dangerous than enduring American strikes. If the regime dismantles its missile program, abandons its regional proxies, halts its nuclear ambitions, and loosens repression at home, it will look weak in the eyes of its own people. In the regime’s calculus, such visible weakness is more likely to trigger internal collapse than would foreign military action.
Another passage from the Kayhan editorial boasts that Tehran has already delivered what it calls a “clever explanation of regional war,” warning that any escalation will spread beyond Iran’s borders. The message, according to the article, was meant for “the Pentagon’s think tanks” – a signal that military action will necessarily lead to a widened conflict.
The logic of this threat, while cold, is sound. Trump has shown he is willing to use force quickly and decisively. The strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and the campaign against the Houthis demonstrated that clearly. But he has also shown that he has no appetite for prolonged war – and certainly not for American casualties. And that is why Tehran is threatening exactly those outcomes.
Iran’s calculation is brutally simple. If it can prolong a conflict even briefly, widen it regionally, and cause even a small number of American casualties, political pressure inside the United States will spike. The regime is betting that voices within Trump’s own America First camp will demand disengagement the moment US soldiers start coming home in coffins.
This logic also explains Tehran’s threats toward American allies. When Iran warns neighboring countries hosting American forces that they will be targets for retaliation, it is raising the perceived cost of American action, spreading fear of escalation across the region. Exactly what Trump is trying to avoid, and exactly what his base will not tolerate.
If the Islamic Republic can weather the blows of the US military and merely remain standing at the end of a Trump presidency, it believes time will be on its side. Nuclear work can resume. Missiles can be rebuilt. Proxies rearmed. The regime can continue as if nothing fundamental has changed.
In one sentence, Iran is betting that the chances of regime collapse are lower from US military strikes than from capitulation to American demands. It is also confident that American casualties will break Washington’s resolve, and that Trump will be forced to stop short.
That is the regime’s strategy, in its own words.
The only question now is whether the United States recognizes that Iran is not daring Washington to strike – but daring it to finish the job.
The writer is the executive director of Israel365 Action and co-host of the Shoulder to Shoulder podcast.