Iran’s hardliners accept a precarious truce, for now

Mr Trump is no longer talking about regime change, as he was just days ago, but there has already been a crucial change at the top of the regime

FOR HOURS after Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, Iran and Israel continued to attack each other. Israel struck Iran’s remaining missile-launchers and assassinated another nuclear scientist. An Iranian missile penetrated Israel’s air defences and hit a housing estate, killing at least four people. The regime denied it had made a deal with America but said it would wind down fighting if Israel did.

People attend a gathering to support Iran's Armed Forces, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, in Tehran, Iran(via REUTERS)

Any truce in the Middle East is precarious but this one is made especially complicated by a shift in power inside Iran triggered by the war. A new generation of generals have assumed command and gained ascendance over the clerics for the first time since Iran’s revolution in 1979. They are rational and have an interest in reviving Iran’s decrepit economy. But they are not cautious and their belligerence will shape Iran’s strategic ambitions long after the fighting stops.

Mr Trump is no longer talking about regime change, as he was just days ago, but there has already been a crucial change at the top of the regime. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 86, and for years there has been speculation about succession. Now the war has sped a power shift to the regime’s military arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In the first days of the fighting Mr Khamenei, isolated for his own safety, disappeared from the scene like the Shias’ hidden imam. He delegated decision-making to a new council, or shura, dominated by the IRGC, according to insiders and opponents. “The country is in effect under martial law,” says an observer. Even if Mr Khamenei returns from his bunker he may struggle to reassert his authority.

As the IRGC gains more control its elite has been transformed by Israel’s assassinations. Gone are the veteran commanders who for years pursued “strategic patience”, limiting their fire when their totemic leader, Qassem Soleimani, was assassinated in 2020 (a strike authorised by Mr Trump), and holding it when Israel battered their proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah, in 2024. Their demise has paved the way for a new generation that is more gung-ho and is, in the long run, bent on redeeming national pride. “The maximalist position has been strengthened,” says an academic close to Iran’s reformists. He claims the decision-makers in place before the war were debating whether to ditch their anti-Israel stance. But “everyone is now a hardliner”.

Compounding the generational shift is a newfound cohesion inside a military-industrial complex renowned for paranoia and scheming. A year ago the regime was rocked by infighting. Businessmen, military professionals and ideologues battled for supremacy over the IRGC. Hardliners chased pragmatists from state institutions. Rival factions blamed each other for the death of the country’s president in a mysterious helicopter crash in 2024. But over the 12 days of war this month they coalesced against a common foreign enemy.

The emerging power configuration has garnered renewed public support. Israeli bombardments were designed to tap into a seam of dissent and destabilise the country. Yet in parallel the war has triggered a nationalist surge and narrowed the gap between ruler and ruled. No one responded to calls from Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, or Reza Pahlavi, the royalist pretender, for a popular uprising. Early admiration for Israel’s military prowess turned to outrage as its targets widened and the death toll mounted. Scorn for the IRGC’s haplessness turned to pride at the speed with which it reconstituted. Iranians who fled the capital returned even as the strikes continued. Female political prisoners, the mothers of executed protesters and exiled pop stars have all issued calls to rally to Iran’s defence. “It’s backfired on Bibi,” says a former official turned dissident, using Mr Netanyahu’s nickname.

Whether the new-found unity survives a ceasefire is unclear. Many Iranians would rejoice in a new social contract that reduces the regime’s religiosity. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the original leader of Iran’s revolution, warned against allowing the IRGC into politics, fearful they might dispense with his theocracy. With the clerics confined to their seminaries, there might be an easing of the regime’s strictures. In recent days state television has shown women with hair poking out from headscarves. Iranians will also welcome the hardliners’ experiment with de-escalation. The IRGC controls vast economic interests in Iran, creating an incentive for economic stability and better access to world markets.

Yet when the dust settles on this war many Iranians will rue the billions of dollars their leaders have squandered on two decades of pointless proxy conflicts and nuclear adventures. And the military men may not be willing, or capable, of pursuing a deeper deal with America and an end to the isolation that Iranians crave. Hardliners have always been suspicious of talks. They remember Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, who surrendered weapons of mass destruction in exchange for a lifting of sanctions, and Saddam Hussein, who granted UN monitors unfettered access to Iraq. Once stripped of their non-conventional arsenals, both were toppled by Western interventions. Now even moderates feel burned: the last round of talks with America, set for June 15th, fooled them into lowering their guard. The narrative of betrayal, a key element of Iranian politics and diplomacy, is strong.

The war may have left the new generals feeling bolder. They could intensify repression at home. They insist their confrontation and missile salvoes forced Israel into a ceasefire. They will seek to rearm and rebuild their deterrence. So far there is little sign of the regime eschewing its nuclear ambitions. Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, has already said nuclear production will continue. Some leaders have downplayed the efficacy of America’s attacks, pointing to the absence of radiation. Iran’s parliament has been considering a bill requiring Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and end co-operation with the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. A caucus advocates dashing for a bomb. Some stores of enriched uranium may have been moved to secret locations. “Sure as anything they will be going for a nuke. It’s absolutely disastrous,” laments a Gulf mediator.

Iran’s ongoing desire for a nuclear programme creates a latent threat of further American and Israeli attacks, in turn leading the regime to place weight on the ultimate insurance policy of being able to race for a bomb. The outside world has often assumed that Iran’s regime is belligerent and repressive because it has been run by religious men. The new military men want a national revival. But it remains to be seen if they are able to break the cycle of paranoia and insecurity that has left Iran and its people in a ruinous state. That new era of peace and prosperity Mr Trump often champions may prove elusive yet.

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