Iran’s Khameini will try to run down the nuclear clock

However, the growing economic pressures and Trump’s firm stance leave little room for Khamenei and the IRGC to ignore the potential for serious consequences, even as they noisily insist on their resolve not to negotiate or bow to US pressure.

But look more closely and read between the lines and you’ll see that Iran’s regime appears shaken. It is already implementing minor changes – at least optically – to keep Trump at bay. There are increasing signs that the regime has taken a tactical decision to distinguish between its US and Israel strategies – albeit temporarily.

For context, anti-Americanism and antisemitism are foundational pillars of the Islamic Republic. In 1979, the Islamist regime was quite literally founded on the official slogan of “Death to America” and the goal of eradicating Israel driven by its deeply embedded antisemitic DNA.

From the US hostage crisis to supporting the October 7 attack and even attempting to assassinate Trump on American soil, the past four decades have demonstrated that the Islamic Republic’s anti-Americanism and antisemitism is far from mere rhetoric.

In recent weeks, however, it is clear that Khamenei and the IRGC are focused on keeping Trump at bay to buy themselves some much-needed time.

First, the regime has not only acknowledged Trump’s letter, but it responded in less than two weeks. This marks a striking contrast to 2019, when Trump’s letter was ignored and rejected by the Ayatollah on the basis that the President of the United States was not “worthy” of a response.

This shift in communication has been coupled with some cosmetic alterations in the Islamic Republic’s appearance. It has long been the IRGC’s convention to trample on both the US and Israeli flags in its ceremonies. But, last week, the Stars and Stripes was notably absent during the unveiling of the IRGC’s underground missile location, with senior commanders being filmed trampling over only Israel’s flag instead. In the same week, the IRGC, for the first time, removed the image of Qassem Soleimani, the late IRGC commander who was assassinated on Trump’s orders in 2020, from a banner eulogising its “martyrs” during a major speech delivered by Esmail Qaani, Soleimani’s successor.

But these superficial acts amount to anything but an abandonment of the regime’s anti-American DNA. Instead, in accordance with Khamenei’s overarching strategy, these cosmetic alterations are geared towards keeping the US at bay in order to run down the clock until October, when the UN “snapback mechanism” will expire.

The expiry of “snapback”, which was part of the 2015 nuclear deal, would remove the West’s ability to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran’s regime, making it easier for Tehran to acquire a nuclear bomb in the future.

In order to achieve this, in the next seven months, Khamenei’s main task is to simultaneously prevent the UK, France and Germany – who are still party to the 2015 nuclear deal – from activating the “snapback mechanism” and halt a military attack from Trump.

Ironically, this calculus is being driven by the belief that the 85-year-old Ayatollah has time on his hands, unlike Trump whose presidency will end in four years. Khamenei has calculated that once “snapback” expires for good, even if the regime signs a temporary agreement with Trump, they can pick-up where they left after he leaves office – and do so, without any looming UN sanctions.

Khamenei’s strategy, therefore, is to gamble on a state of international paralysis until at least October. If they can hold off the Europeans and Trump until “snapback” expires, they will have secured a longer-term victory, and we may see a short-term tactical concession in the form of a “gentleman’s understanding” with Trump that lacks substance and can be easily broken once he’s out of office. But if President Trump and his European allies don’t wait until October – the most likely scenario – then conflict is in many ways inevitable.

However, the predicament for Khamenei is that he is not just facing external pressure from Trump. In the past year, the Islamic Republic’s final and core constituency – the so-called “hard base” (hasteyeh sakht) of the regime – has, for the first time, begun to turn against the supreme leader and senior IRGC oligarchy over what they see as a series of ideological “betrayals”. This social base, a major recruitment pool for the IRGC and its domestic militia, the Basij, supports the Islamic Republic purely for hardline Islamist ideological reasons. Among other things, this includes “morality policing”, the quest to eradicate Israel, support for the “Axis of Resistance”, the pursuit for nuclear weapons and vehement anti-Americanism.

The embarrassing setbacks the regime has suffered over the past year in relation to its core ideological principles – not least Israel’s decapitation of the Axis of Resistance (like Hezbollah and Hamas) and the fall of Assad in Syria – has resulted in the hard base questioning the ideological commitment of the Islamic Republic’s leadership.

They have even accused the IRGC’s senior oligarchy of colluding with Israel for financial profit. After these successive setbacks, the hard base is now enraged that the regime would even consider shaking hands with Trump, who they view as the murderer of their messianic figure, Soleimani.

Against the rising prospect of domestic unrest – not least due to the dire economic situation – the difficulty for Khamenei is that he cannot simply ignore the fury of the hard base as it is precisely members from this social constituency that make up the regime’s foot soldiers. After all, it was the disillusionment within Assad’s military that ultimately led to his regime’s sudden collapse.

To placate the hard base and keep them in line, the Ayatollah and senior IRGC leadership will have no choice but to carefully incorporate escalatory rhetoric against the US despite its attempts to keep Trump at bay through superficial cosmetic changes. And this is where the space for misinterpretations, miscalculations and strategic errors exponentially increases.

The IRGC zealots may believe that the ageing Ayatollah can outwit Trump, but in reality Khamenei is gambling with a very weak hand. The next seven months will see the Ayatollah walk a tightrope in an attempt to run down the clock, prevent the erosion of the hard base and, most importantly, avert a military attack from Trump. The stakes could not be higher and the margin for error, which could ultimately lead to the unravelling of his entire regime, is narrowing every day.