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Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22383/iran-fantasy-of-strength
Iran's Fantasy of Strength
(Gatestone Institute) Pierre Rehov - What is unfolding is a confrontation with a regime that behaves as though it were dictating the outcome of a war it is, in fact, losing. The substance of the American demands reflects a coherent objective: the dismantlement of Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure. This is not containment. It is disarmament. What Iran is putting on the table so far is a daydream built on an apparent misreading of reality. And, in a final act of surreal audacity, it demands financial compensation for damage inflicted by U.S. and Israeli strikes. Iran seems not to perceive itself as being in a position of defeat. The regime in Tehran still stands, Iran's territory is not occupied and its capacity to inflict damage - through missiles and proxies - has not been fully neutralized. The costs Iran has imposed on its neighbors and adversaries are perceived as significant. From this perspective, the war might not appear lost to them. This calculation is reinforced by Iran's belief that it retains leverage. The Strait of Hormuz remains under its influence. From Lebanon, Hizbullah continues to bombard Israel with hundreds of rockets. And in the echo chambers of Western media, where narratives of American overreach and impending quagmire are readily amplified, Tehran finds confirmation of its own illusions. For Iran's regime to accept negotiations under terms that reflect defeat would be to undermine the very narrative that sustains it. For the leadership, acknowledging strategic failure is an existential risk. It signals weakness. It invites internal dissent. It fractures the illusion of invincibility that authoritarian systems require to survive. Therefore, the regime doubles down on rhetoric, inflates its demands, and projects strength even where weakness is evident. For Tehran, in its current degraded state, power is performative. It is asserted, declared, dramatized - rather than grounded in reality. It is not that the regime is unaware of its vulnerabilities. It is that acknowledging them would be even more dangerous, internally, than ignoring them. So it constructs a parallel reality in which it acts as if it is still calling the shots, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. There is, however, a limit to how long such a dissonance can be maintained. The current posture is not sustainable. It is a delaying tactic, a psychological shield, a final attempt to negotiate from a position that no longer exists. In the end, the outcome will be determined by the hard realities of power. The writer is a French reporter, novelist and documentary filmmaker.