On Aug. 28, France, Germany, and the UK triggered the U.N. snapback mechanism, resulting in the reinstatement of pre-2015 sanctions in opposition to Iran final month. Regardless of Russian and Chinese language efforts to stall the method, their draft proposal was rejected by a majority within the U.N. Safety Council. With snapback restored, Iran as soon as once more faces a lot harsher restrictions on arms gross sales, bans on ballistic missile exercise, asset freezes, and journey bans. For policymakers in Washington, Brussels, and Jerusalem, one query shortly arose: How will Tehran reply?
The primary solutions might already be seen inside Iran. Days after the snapback took impact, the Guardian Council accredited new legal guidelines stiffening punishments for espionage and collaboration with Israel or “hostile states” and limiting civilian drone use. Across the identical time, the Fatehin particular unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) carried out high-profile drills in Tehran, showcasing new uniforms and gear. In a shocking transfer, the Expediency Council additionally conditionally accredited Iran’s accession to the Conference for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, after years of resistance. Formally, some council members argued that compliance would disrupt funding for regional allies corresponding to Hezbollah, a part of a broader try to counter Western narratives of the nation as supporting terrorism.
On Aug. 28, France, Germany, and the UK triggered the U.N. snapback mechanism, resulting in the reinstatement of pre-2015 sanctions in opposition to Iran final month. Regardless of Russian and Chinese language efforts to stall the method, their draft proposal was rejected by a majority within the U.N. Safety Council. With snapback restored, Iran as soon as once more faces a lot harsher restrictions on arms gross sales, bans on ballistic missile exercise, asset freezes, and journey bans. For policymakers in Washington, Brussels, and Jerusalem, one query shortly arose: How will Tehran reply?
The primary solutions might already be seen inside Iran. Days after the snapback took impact, the Guardian Council accredited new legal guidelines stiffening punishments for espionage and collaboration with Israel or “hostile states” and limiting civilian drone use. Across the identical time, the Fatehin particular unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) carried out high-profile drills in Tehran, showcasing new uniforms and gear. In a shocking transfer, the Expediency Council additionally conditionally accredited Iran’s accession to the Conference for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, after years of resistance. Formally, some council members argued that compliance would disrupt funding for regional allies corresponding to Hezbollah, a part of a broader try to counter Western narratives of the nation as supporting terrorism.
These measures should not routine; they sign how the Islamic Republic intends to face up to renewed isolation by tightening inner safety, projecting resilience overseas, lowering international strain, and demonstrating to adversaries that sanctions won’t break the regime. On this means, Iran will select persistence over provocation.
Though Tehran tried to delay the snapback, many Iranian officers had lengthy anticipated it. Domestically, they downplay its impression, insisting that Iran’s financial system can endure. IRGC-linked media body the sanctions not as an existential risk however as a Western psychological operation designed to weaken public confidence and gas political polarization. It is a acquainted narrative, portraying sanctions as a part of a broader regime-change technique.
But following the choice, Tehran has taken solely restricted steps: recalling ambassadors from a number of European capitals, denouncing the transfer as “illegitimate,” and issuing obscure warnings about lowering cooperation with the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company (IAEA). Concrete escalation has not adopted.
Some voices in Tehran have urged extra drastic measures, together with withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Leaving the NPT would free Iran from inspections and, in idea, permit the open pursuit of nuclear weapons. But the supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and senior elites have constantly resisted this selection, emphasizing that Iran will stay within the treaty, even when it brings little profit. Withdrawal, they acknowledge, would nearly actually provoke Israeli strikes, invite U.S. intervention, and push Saudi Arabia and Turkey to develop their very own nuclear applications. In Tehran’s calculus, such dangers would escalate tensions, legitimize international navy intervention, and in the end jeopardize the regime’s survival.
Tehran can also be aware of its restricted capabilities and lack of viable choices for escalation. Most of Iran’s proxy teams have been severely weakened since Oct. 7, 2023, and by the collapse of the Assad regime. Solely the Houthis in Yemen and a handful of Shiite militias in Iraq retain the flexibility to harass U.S. and Israeli pursuits, and even their attain is restricted. On paper, Tehran may nonetheless resort to cyberattacks, disruptions to delivery within the Persian Gulf, or restricted drone and missile strikes in opposition to Israel and U.S. bases. But all these carry severe dangers. Israel has demonstrated its willingness to strike inside Iran, whereas Washington has vowed to retaliate forcefully in opposition to any assaults on U.S. personnel.
The price of escalation weighs closely on Iranian decision-makers. They nonetheless recall the teachings of warfare with Israel, which inflicted devastating injury on Iran’s nuclear and missile applications and eradicated a lot of its senior navy management. For that reason, Tehran is extra prone to downplay the snapback sanctions whereas resorting to incremental, acquainted ways that enhance leverage with out crossing the nuclear threshold, corresponding to advancing enrichment, deploying sooner centrifuges, and limiting IAEA entry. These steps bolster bargaining energy whereas avoiding a direct confrontation that might legitimize navy intervention.
Sanctions, whereas painful, should not new. The Islamic Republic has developed methods to reside with them. Oil gross sales to China, in depth smuggling networks, and a tightly managed home financial system present sufficient oxygen for survival. For a regime that has endured financial warfare for many of its 45-year existence, sanctions stay a grim fixed.
On the political stage, Iran is split. Onerous-liners name for daring defiance, however pragmatists urge warning. In moments of existential strain, Khamenei has constantly sided with restraint. In the course of the Trump administration’s “most strain” marketing campaign, Tehran endured sanctions with out quitting the NPT or launching a full-scale warfare. The identical logic is prone to prevail now.
Precedent reinforces this path. Repeatedly, Tehran has chosen to endure strain slightly than danger escalation that might endanger the regime’s survival. In different phrases, Iran’s leaders are unlikely to hunt a dramatic escalation and can as an alternative go for restraint, which they discuss with as “strategic persistence.” Timing additionally favors this strategy. With Israeli parliamentary elections a 12 months away, Tehran calculates that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may lose energy. And past Israel, Tehran hopes {that a} Democrat may win the 2028 U.S. presidential election, probably altering Washington’s stance towards Iran.
On this state of affairs, Iran’s leaders want solely endure for a most of three years, counting on what they name “divine miraculous and unseen help.” For Khamenei, nevertheless, the snapback isn’t merely a foreign-policy disaster but in addition a home one. Regardless of his rhetoric, he acknowledges that the gravest threats originate from inside, slightly than from overseas. These embrace elite fragmentation and widespread unrest, each of which intensify when the regime is below strain. His technique, subsequently, is twofold: protect unity among the many ruling elite on the prime whereas managing social pressures by way of a mixture of managed concessions and intensified repression in opposition to opposition under.
Elite cohesion has at all times been the regime’s key survival mechanism. Divisions amongst Revolutionary Guard commanders, clerics, or political elites would embolden adversaries and destabilize the system. Because of this Khamenei avoids dangerous strikes, corresponding to withdrawing from the NPT, that might fracture the elite. As an alternative, he stresses unity, framing resistance as each a revolutionary responsibility and a matter of nationwide honor. His technique combines rewards for loyal elites with calibrated violence to discourage defection. On this means, Khamenei seeks to bind his personal destiny to that of the regime’s elites, making certain that their survival is inseparable from his personal.
On the identical time, Khamenei will try to keep up Iran’s silence. Sanctions have already pushed up meals costs and devalued the forex in opposition to the greenback, heightening public discontent. To alleviate social strain, the regime has adjusted its strategy to morality policing, which was as soon as a central ideological pillar. In response to interviews with police personnel and energetic Basij members, they’ve been instructed to not intrude in imposing the Islamic costume code. The goal is to keep away from upsetting public anger and forestall a repeat of incidents just like the arrest and demise of Mahsa Amini, which sparked nationwide protests. Something that dangers triggering mass unrest is to be fastidiously prevented.
The regime is concurrently intensifying repression in opposition to components of society, despite the fact that such measures danger sparking protests or destabilizing the system. Leaders perceive that renewed sanctions will worsen financial hardship, driving inflation and unemployment increased. The reminiscence of the 2019 gas protests, when safety forces killed some 1,500 folks in lower than per week, nonetheless haunts the state. To preempt a repeat, the federal government has begun flexing its muscle mass: staging road patrols by Basij and IRGC items, increasing surveillance, criminalizing dissent as “espionage,” and invoking new safety legal guidelines, not too long ago accredited by the Guardian Council, to legitimize harsher crackdowns. The IRGC’s Fatehin drills weren’t merely a tactical train; they have been additionally a warning to Iranians that the state is watching and ready to make use of pressure. Moreover, in response to a report by an opposition group, Iran’s Supreme Nationwide Safety Council has issued a safety directive outlining the federal government’s plan for responding to potential unrest within the occasion of elevated worldwide sanctions. The directive encompasses each safety measures, corresponding to deployment, surveillance, and suppression, and propaganda and social resilience methods, together with media efforts and financial messaging.
This twin technique, characterised by unity on the prime and repression under, is designed to purchase time. Khamenei expects three troublesome years forward, however his wager is easy. If the regime can keep inner stability and suppress dissent, it may endure exterior strain till the geopolitical context modifications.
The snapback mechanism delivers a significant diplomatic defeat and deepens Iran’s financial woes. But Tehran is unlikely to reply with a dramatic escalation, within the hope of surviving the subsequent three years of the Trump administration. As an alternative, it’s extra prone to fall again on its oldest survival technique: persistence.
The Islamic Republic will securitize its home sphere, showcase navy defiance, and watch for the U.S. election, hoping for a brand new and extra compromising president within the White Home.
For Khamenei, now frail however nonetheless in command, restraint isn’t weak point however necessity. He prefers to exit historical past because the image of steadfast defiance and an anti-American hero slightly than a defeated and humiliated chief who accepts “unconditional give up.”
For the surface world, the paradox is obvious. Whereas sanctions make Iran seem cornered, in Tehran’s view, unity, repression, and persistence are sufficient to maintain the Islamic Republic afloat through the storm. From this attitude, endurance itself is a type of victory.
