CNN Analysis: Why is weakened Iran aimed at prolonging war with America?

Iran's regime has suffered devastating losses over the past few weeks, with almost daily US-Israel attacks that have eliminated all levels of leadership and military command structure. The Iranian population, already exhausted from years of economic hardship, sanctions and mismanagement, now faces the additional burden of wartime shortages, infrastructure damage and an increasingly militarised domestic environment.

Amid a real threat to the regime's collapse, however, the surviving leaders of the Islamic Republic have continued to design an escalation rhetoric.

They have repeatedly praised Iran's ability to endure its pain, its indifference to further loss of leadership, and a clear purpose to stall the war while causing chaos in the region and globally.

Despite US President Donald Trump's demands, for “total surrender”, Iran's surviving leadership has presented itself as the winner, setting a maximum price for peace. He has requested a new “staus quazo”, war damages and a change in decades-old alliances between Arab Gulf and US states.

“A ceasefire becomes logical only if it ensures that war will not resume, not if it gives the enemy an opportunity to solve its problems, such as repairing destroyed radars or addressing shortages in intercepting missiles, just to attack us again”, said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibauf, parliament speaker and one of Iran's top surviving officials.

“We will continue to fight until the enemy truly regrets his aggression and until the right political and security conditions in the world are created and in the region”, he told Al Araby Al-Jadeed media on Monday.

Iran has demanded that after the war there be a new <x0...protocol for Hormuz Strait, taking into consideration Iran's “interest “and insisting that the safe passage for ships should be made into specific “”, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arghchi said on Tuesday.

Tehran could go so far as to seek unlocking sanctioned assets abroad or to impose a tax on countries using the narrow maritime corridor that lie near Iran's coast in international waters, analysts say.

The Hormuz Strait situation will not return to its pre-war situation”, Ghalibaf wrote on the X Tuesday.

Postday pressure

After more than two decades of negotiations between the West and the Islamic Republic, the United States and Israel attacked Iran late last month, killing Supreme Leader Ajatollah Ali Khamenei and seriously degrading the country's military and civilian command.

Tehran's revenge was quick and vicious. He repeatedly launched hundreds of rockets and fears against US allies throughout the region by straining relations with his Arab neighbours and undermining global energy markets through repeated attacks on ships in the Hormuz Strait.

The goal is to translate this pressure into a day result after”, said Sina Toossi, a non-resident senior associate at the Centre for International Policy.

<x0Iran is looking for a horizon on which it is no longer isolated or intended for collapse, but rather part of a new regional balance where its stability is seen related to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the global economy”, Toossi told CNN.

Over the past few weeks, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly confirmed that Iran is losing the war. Trump wrote on Social Truth Tuesday that Iran's army is “destroyed” and their leaders at “almost every level” have disappeared.

May we never again be threatened, our Middle Eastern allies or the world”, he wrote.

Hours later, Iran began its 61st wave of attacks in the Middle East, killing a couple in Israel.

“In conventional military terms, (Iran) is not winning, but does not have to win that way”, Iran's <x2-based strategy was based on asymmetrical warfare, which makes the continuation of the” war costly.

The US and the Arab Gulf countries cannot “tolerate for an indefinite time” the interrupted oil trade and rising prices, Bajoghli said. What do you mean? That's what Iran's using. ”

Emergency Plans

Predicting a decades-long attack on Israel and the US, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had drafted emergency plans to activate decentralised units during the time of the conflict, according to senior Iranian officials.

“We prepared for a long war because we knew we would be attacked and, given the experience of the previous war, we knew how they intended to neutralise our operational skills. Therefore, we drafted countermass for all of them”, said Ghalibauf for Al-Arabby Al-Jadeed.

Despite publicly stating that he aimed only at American interests in the region, the IRC carried out unprecedented deadly attacks on civil and economic infrastructure, hitting hotels, international airports, high buildings and energy objects in Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Following Israel's attacks on Iran's South Pars gas field on Wednesday, IRC published a list of targets, publicly threatening energy objects that were once considered forbidden and signaling an escalation that Arab states worked hard to avoid.

This prompted Saudi Arabia to declare it would take military action against Iran if necessary, warning that Tehran's actions would be “converted into counterattack”.

“It is quite clear that Gulf states are blocked between the US, Israel and Iran, none of which has any consideration for their security or for their economic well-being”, CNN's Becky Anderson, senior associate for Middle East politics at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, said. And they have very little control over these escalation dynamics. ”

Iran's strategy now focuses on linking its destiny to the wider region, Toossi said.

If Iran cannot be sustainable and economically sustainable, this is signaling that neither the wider Persian Gulf system will be sustainable. Recent cuts in shipping and energy markets underscore how powerful this lever is. ”

Rainia of the American regional order?

Iranian Army spokesman Amir Akraminia said on Wednesday that five decades of a regional order led by Americans in the Middle East “have broken down today”.

It remains unclear whether Iran's regional strategy will succeed. So far, most of its Arab neighbours have stayed out of war despite having faced a series of attacks by Tehran.

But at least two Gulf officials have said their country will double its relationship with the US, and even with Israel.

I think that in the Gulf Circle, Iran is considered the main threat. And I don't think anything will change that for the next decades”, Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, said Tuesday for the Council for Foreign Relations expert group.

Gargach said the United Arab Emirates are open to join a coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz, adding that Iran's war strategy has <x0wwwwesti meaning” and after the war, Gulf states can draw closer to Israel.

Reem Al-Hashimey, the country's minister for international co-operation, told the Australian ABC network that Iran's attack on her country will not change Abu Dhabi's dynamics with the US and Israel.

Our relation to the US is a long-term strategic partnership. It is a partnership that does not waver in times of crisis, but it has been built over decades of mutual trust and respect”, Al-Hashimi said, adding that “this does not discourage us, because we are also a stable group and do not accept harassment. ”

However, for Iran's current regime, its final goal is not victory, but survival, reinstatement and attempting to regain power to dictate the conditions of what will come after the war.

The ultimate goal is not escalation in itself. It is the use of escalation as a means to force accommodation”, Toossi said. “Iran doesn't need to win this war militarily. He must make sure that its continuation becomes too expensive for everyone else.” /Panorama