Iran adopts 'forever war' strategy, sees prolonged conflict as preferable to diplomacy

Iran has concluded that prolonged conflict with the United States is preferable to diplomacy, viewing the war as a means to increase its international power and force Washington to reconsider its assumption that Tehran is weak, according to a detailed analysis of the Islamic Republic’s strategic calculus.

Tehran and Washington struck a shaky cease-fire agreement at the beginning of April 2026, but fitful peace negotiations over the subsequent two months have failed to produce a lasting settlement. Officials from both countries have traded and then rejected long-term proposals, announced they were nearing a deal, and then hit each other with a volley of drones and missiles. “I don’t care if they’re over, honestly,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday, when asked about reports that Iran was cutting off talks. The discussions, he declared, had “started to get very boring.”

The core disputes remain wide. Washington demands that Iran completely dismantle its nuclear enrichment program, surrender all enriched uranium, end support for regional allies, and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has repeatedly refused to give up enrichment and says it will probably consider Washington’s other demands only after the United States recognizes Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, compensates Iranians for wartime damages, ends Israel’s war in Lebanon, and unfreezes Iranian assets.

Iran’s strategy is not merely to survive and outlast the United States, as is commonly assumed, but to fundamentally alter how Tehran is dealt with by Washington, U.S. allies, and the wider world. By striking Arab states that host American bases, Iran has succeeded in driving a wedge between U.S. officials and their Persian Gulf partners, who desperately want a lasting settlement. By closing the Strait of Hormuz, it has forced countries around the planet to acknowledge its power and negotiate over the fate of their ships.

The internal balance of power in Iran has shifted almost entirely toward hard-liners after the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal and subsequent wars with Washington. The United States began a protracted bombing campaign on February 28, 2026, and earlier, the United States and Israel killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. After those attacks, the regime’s more cautious voices either largely went quiet or joined the ranks of the hard-liners. Tehran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and strikes on regional infrastructure, long threatened but previously held back by pragmatists, were cheered by many Iranian elites and citizens.

European leaders have struck a more accommodating tone. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has distanced Berlin from U.S. operations and stated that Tehran has “humiliated” Washington. French President Emmanuel Macron has ruled out any military deployment to the region. Multiple European officials have opened channels with their Iranian counterparts, and Norway’s deputy foreign minister has even visited Tehran in search of a resolution.

Iranian strikes on U.S. bases were “surprisingly effective and damaging,” disabling expensive missile defense radars, according to U.S. news reports. Iran’s missile arsenals are also more intact than American officials have claimed. The Islamic Republic has concluded that no matter the prowess of its adversaries, neither Israel nor the United States can defeat Iran on the battlefield, and prolonging the war is a way to prove that Washington’s earlier assessment of Iran as militarily hollowed out and on the brink was wrong.

The war has nonetheless devastated Iran’s steel, gas, and petrochemical industries, generating painful domestic shortages. Some Iranian politicians have warned that continued disruption of global energy markets may unite much of the world against Tehran, that the United States retains undeployed tools including cyberattacks that could prove paralyzing, and that resumption of fighting could inflict decades’ worth of damage to Iranian infrastructure.

But Tehran has concluded that compromise will imperil Iran further. Israel’s and Washington’s June 2025 and February 2026 attacks both came in the midst of talks, and many regime officials believe the United States sees Iranian outreach as a sign of weakness. Iran has reoriented its strategy accordingly, using negotiations as a tool for managing warfare. It engages in talks mostly to demonstrate to other states that it is serious about diplomacy, thereby lowering international pressure, and to control the tempo of conflict. It refuses to make offerings that would diminish its leverage or signal vulnerability.

In this sense, Iran has modeled its approach to diplomacy on what it sees as Washington’s own: be unpredictable, negotiate only from a position of strength, and insist on major giveaways while offering very few concessions. The result is a zero-sum dynamic that makes true peace nearly impossible, at least for now. The regime believes confrontation strengthens its hand and is happy to withstand economic pain if it can control the strait. The world might settle into a new normal in which the United States maintains some kind of blockade of Iran, Iran maintains some kind of blockade of the strait, and both sides perpetually engage in skirmishes.