War, political psychology and the future of US-Iran relations

By Hamidreza Azizi and Erwin van Veen 

Editor’s introduction

In September 2022, the death of Mahsa Jina Amini marked a major turning point for Iran. The event sparked lengthy nationwide protests across socio-economic classes and population groups whose demands rapidly evolved from discarding controversial hijab regulations to calls for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian government responded with repression, killing over 400 protesters in late 2022 and early 2023, according to human rights groups. The protests of January 2026 reflected  the same public discontent and reinforced the negative spiral of government underperformance and popular legitimacy. They also increased the external and internal pressures on Iran’s government compared with the protests of 2022/2023.

The Clingendael blog series ‘Iran in transition‘ explores power dynamics in four critical dimensions that have shaped the country’s transformation since 2022: state-society relations, intra-elite dynamics, the economy, and foreign relations. This blog examines the prospects of a more lasting deal between Iran and the United States including the feasibility of alternative strategies and insights recently gained by war.

Political learning and psychology

Over the past years, Iran’s political elites have learned at least four things about the US administration, and particularly President Donald Trump. First, a stated US intent to negotiate can mean that Washington also prepares for war and might even initiate it during negotiations. This happened twice: in June 2025 when Israel and the US launched what became the Twelve-Day War against Iran, particularly targeting its key nuclear facilities; and second, in February 2026 in the form of a massive campaign of bombardment of Iranian military and civilian infrastructure, along with the assassination of senior political figures, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Second, Israel and the US operate with similar strategic intents, irrespective of any publicly aired grievances or growing dissatisfaction among Trump supporters. As Israel is an implacable foe based on its intent to maintain nuclear hegemony in the region, the implications of this partnership are relatively predictable. Without verifiable evidence of a fundamental rupture between Israel and the US regarding Iran, Tehran assumes it is only a matter of time before Israeli leaders once more convince a US administration to resume covert operations, economic warfare or even renew its military assault. 

Third, in an aerial and naval war Iran can at best hope to be an irritant to US military might (e.g., by striking radar arrays, refuelling aircraft and similar enablers). Its medium-range deterrence by delegation (i.e., the ‘axis of resistance’) turned out to be a poor substitute for cutting-edge conventional warfighting capabilities during open war. Nevertheless, given sufficient time, Iran can impose substantial costs on U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf as well as on the global economy. Closing the Strait of Hormuz and possibly the Bab al-Mandab, however, requires the kind of justification that comes with being on the receiving side of large-scale and unprovoked US and Israeli aggression. It is not an offensive weapon. Moreover, Tehran has limited direct leverage against Israel.

Fourth, President Trump’s mercurial and narcissistic behaviour means that high-level U.S. statements, whether from him or from his inner circle, including Rubio, Hegseth, Witkoff, Kushner, and Vance, mean little. It is U.S. actions that count and provide proof of intent. In fact, US high-level statements have become so erratic since the start of the war on 28 February 2026 that it is hard even to assume they intend to thicken the fog of war to American benefit.

From an Iranian perspective, these insights graft themselves on decades of mistrust deriving from US support for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war (despite the Iran-Contra affair), the US invasion of Afghanistan, the US invasion of Iraq, over two decades of economic warfare against Tehran and being bombarded twice while negotiating in good faith, all of it on spurious grounds. It was not Iran that invaded Iraq in 1980; it was not Iran or the Taliban that committed the horrors of 9/11; Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction; Iran abandoned efforts to militarize its nuclear program in the period 2003-2009, and it concluded as well as implemented the nuclear deal of 2015. 

This is not to say the Iranian government does not intimidate its neighbours with missiles or armed groups linked to it when it feels a need to do so, severely represses its own population and manages Iran’s economy poorly. It does all these things. Before 28 February 2026, Iran’s political elites were in fact shaken. Massive protests had just rocked the country, tougher US sanction enforcement – along with the reimposition of the UN sanctions under the ‘snapback’ mechanism – was hurting, the economy was doing badly, and Iran’s regional influence was fast diminishing.

American political ‘learning’ has been more straightforward and basically amounts to the twin insight that the Iranian revolutionary Islamic project, its political elites and constituencies are resilient and hard to break while they are also capable of imposing substantial cost on the US by closing the Strait of Hormuz. We put ‘learning’ in brackets because the US intelligence community was aware of these facts and yet its professional opinion was ignored by President Trump. 

Tehran needs a new grand strategy 

It is in this context that Iran views the Memorandum of Understanding that was concluded on 18 June 2026. The bottom line of this reading is that whatever else it is or promises, Tehran considers the memorandum primarily as another stage in its decades-old confrontation with Israel and especially the US unless hard and irreversible evidence proves otherwise. 

This begs the question of how the Iranian government might prepare for a potentially prolonged period of ambiguity. There are indications suggesting that Tehran accepted the arrangement due to the nature of its content (it is non-committal beyond things Tehran already promised in the past; it sort of sequences verifiable steps by the US with verifiable steps by Iran; and it does not close any doors but rather creates opportunities regarding frozen assets, the Strait of Hormuz and the mooted recovery fund). Economic calculations also played a role. War damage in Iran is estimated around $270 billion, real GDP is projected to decrease by over 6% in 2026 and the naval blockade compounded an already steep inflation rate that now exceeds 80%. 

A grand strategy is a theory of security. In practical terms, this means that Tehran will need to reconsider at this moment how to make itself as safe as possible from future US or Israeli pressure and attacks. Despite having remained unbowed under fire by both the US and Israel, Iran does not have many good options. 

• Go nuclear. Tehran could develop nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent. Yet, this is a high-risk strategy as various parts of the Iranian government are believed to be infiltrated by Israel, which makes early detection quite likely. Iran also risks further global censure if it follows this path. Maintaining threshold nuclear status as deterrence is also a risky strategy as this triggered US and Israeli attacks in 2025 and 2026 in the first place while developing a functional nuclear weapon would still take half a year to several years.

• Expand missile/drone deterrence. This deterrence strategy is feasible – and proved to be effective in the 2025-26 wars – but has diminishing returns given that the Gulf states and US are rapidly strengthening their defences with Ukrainian and Israeli help (in the case of the UAE). Another downside is that it is largely ineffective against US military forces except for fixed assets like bases. The U.S. is already reportedly considering relocating its bases farther from Iran's borders as a protective measure. 

• Strengthen control over Hormuz. Alternatively, Iran can develop modalities to exercise different levels of control over the Strait of Hormuz, including a service fee, mandatory approval of passage, excluding navy vessels and ensuring a ready supply of mines, drones, speedboats and missiles to selectively or comprehensively prohibit transit. This deterrence strategy can work when Iran is aggressed as it requires justification, but it diminishes in effectiveness with time (e.g., once alternative transport routes become more available, or the US midterms are over). Washington is already coordinating with Oman to establish a southern route through the strait independent of Iran. Most importantly, Iran’s control over the strait has little to no direct deterrent impact vis-à-vis Israel.

Maintaining the axis of resistance is a given in any Iranian grand strategy for ideological as well as practical reasons, but its limitations have been exposed (see above). Also, most of its members have interests of their own and older members like the Badr Corps and Asaib ahl al-Haq in Iraq have become more focused on domestic politics than on the idea of transnational ‘resistance against imperialism and Zionism.’ Even a restored Hezbollah will have to content with a less permissive domestic environment.

In brief, Iran is weaker than it may look like and will probably have to settle for a grand strategy that combines enhanced passive resilience with increasing ‘nuisance capabilities’ (drones/missiles) that is backed up by the nuclear option or closing key waterways. 

Washington ‘just’ needs a new strategy

Tehran is fortunate that the US does not have a straightforward strategy for defeating it available, i.e. a theory of victory. Washington tried leveraged negotiations that resulted in deal-making (the JCPOA, preceded by sanctions), intensified economic warfare and military action (twice). Yet, the Islamic Republic of Iran is still standing. 

The US cannot follow the Israeli strategy that amounts to a military campaign of indeterminate duration aiming at the complete destruction of Iran’s industrial base, including its defence, energy, nuclear and productive sectors because this puts the global economy at risk by means of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and potentially Bab al-Mandab, alongside Iran’s retaliatory strikes on comparable civilian targets across the region. Iran has demonstrated that it is resilient enough to use time to impose mounting economic costs on the adversaries. The energy-import dependent and low-income countries in Asia and Africa that suffered most from the recent closure of the strait did and do not have the global clout to mobilize against its effects while the rest of the world simply tried to get by or paid the bill. It would be a long game with massive damage and unpredictable risks to America’s global reputation, strengthening Russian and Chinese in the process. 

Neither can the US return to the status quo ante 28 February 2026 by trying to slowly strangle the Iranian economy via sanctions. Tighter sanction enforcement – or a return to the naval blockade of Iran – will meet with the same Iranian response of closing Hormuz. Identical problems of economic cost that mount with time and are globally distributed are likely to arise when this strategy is pursued. 

Given these limitations, the US under President Trump is essentially coming back full circle to the nuclear deal of 2015 that it may once more secure but on less favourable terms due to its inability to bend Iran to its will by coercive means. Less favourable terms may mean, for example, the need to lift all sanctions and not just those strictly related to Iran’s nuclear program and expediting the unfreezing of Iranian assets. This is at least what the current MOU promises as steps to be taken by Washington once a final deal has been reached. 

Yet, after the midterm elections, the US is likely to have time on its side in the sense that Iran might need revenues resulting from unfrozen assets and lifted sanctions more than that the US needs a hard and verifiable Iranian commitment to forego nuclear activity for a specified period. This is because wartime damage has worsened Iran’s socio-economic situation considerably, which the government ignores it at its own peril. At the same time, the experience with Russia shows that economic pain does not necessarily translate quickly into social instability or reduced political legitimacy if the cause is viewed as just or repression high enough. 

With this in mind, the US might decide to tie part of the carrot of unfreezing tranches of Iranian assets abroad and staged sanction relief to verifiable Iranian commitments, complemented by a longer-term investment and engagement strategy that seeks to revive Iran’s entrepreneurial middle class and reduce the economic dominance of the Guards (IRGC). This is a long-term play with uncertain results, but it might be the best the US has available today. 

However, today’s Iranian leadership is more audacious and assertive than when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was in charge. In a sense, it gained confidence by not having lost (akin to Hezbollah facing Israel’s military might in 2006) and having developed Hormuz as a trump card. Given such renewed confidence, Tehran is not necessarily inclined to bow in the face of any renewed economic pressure or make concessions on nuclear issues that it considers violating its rights. In addition, the large-scale lethal repression of January 2026 put a dampener on protests in the near to medium-term, together with the horrors of war. No authoritarian regime survives by repression alone, but repression combined with elite unity, a sizeable social constituency – which went to protest every night during the war and now feels empowered – and loyal security forces will probably suffice. A major risk of this situation to regional stability is that the Iranian leadership will overplay its hand in its dealings with the US – generally or just regarding the Strait of Hormuz.

Is there a middle ground between Iranian grand strategy and US strategy?

The preceding analysis suggests that the enabling environment for a deal is relatively positive. Iran does not have a good grand strategy available that guarantees its security going forward. It has options, but all of them have drawbacks. For its part, the US does not have an easy path to victory available and finds itself essentially back in 2015 but under less favourable conditions, at least in the short-term. 

However, trust is at an all-time low, particularly in Iran, which some commentators consider as an existential problem. Yet, this problem can be surmounted by applying Axelrod’s tit-for-tat cooperative strategy to a new ‘final’ arrangement between the US and Iran. In effect, both countries are in a sort of prisoner’s dilemma. They can both defect from their current Memorandum of Understanding to reap what they might perceive as greater rewards: a chance of Iranian capitulation via even greater (military) coercion for the US; an immediate and full lifting of sanctions in exchange for a permanent re-opening of Hormuz for Iran. Yet, it is highly likely that either stance will quickly degenerate into a lose-lose situation that includes substantial economic damage to Iran as well as to the global economy, and US global standing. 

The alternative is to use a tit-for-tat cooperative strategy to manage both content and process. Axelrod characterizes this rational approach as ‘nice’ (cooperation triggers cooperation on each move, once, and defection triggers defection on each move, also once), ‘provocable’ (it allows for trial and error), ‘forgiving’ (defection is surmountable and does not have to lead to collapse) and ‘clear’ (responses by the other party are predictable). The strategy neither requires trust nor a central authority to manage the process which, as it happens, are both not available. 

Its successful use does, however, demand that the future has a sufficiently long shadow, i.e., that the parties care enough about meeting again and keeping talking in the expectations of greater future benefits. This shadow might just have lengthened due to the recent war as both the US and Iran have now gone through various episodes of coercion, negotiation and warfare to discover that none produced the desired result. This is a significant difference compared with the 2015-2025 period when President Trump and others still thought that enhanced economic coercion and/or warfare could produce a better deal and hence discounted the future.

Practically, tit-for-tat means that any deal should be structured in a series of sequential and verifiable steps of increasing significance that tie the main areas of negotiation together: the nuclear file, frozen assets, primary and secondary sanctions, management of Hormuz, permanent withdrawals of forces and any compensation of damages. Moreover, in addition to each step, once achieved, triggering the next, the arrangement should also spell out as much as possible what the response to defection will look like, i.e., when a particular step is not achieved. This clarifies fallback positions, creates flexibility and allows for process re-starts if the parties want it. 

Such an approach even offers a way to deal with the Israeli government should it seek to sabotage a future US-Iran arrangement in the sense that Israeli military action can be viewed as a simple defection upon which Iran also defects, once, as outlined in the process part of such an arrangement. This would leave the US to restore cooperation by correcting Israeli action, which kind of happened when President Trump’s publicly rebuked Prime Minister Netanyahu after the Israeli attack on Beirut of 14 June 2026.

Naturally, there are countless problems that can arise with this approach, but it is useful to note that the strategic environment for a deal is relatively positive from an analytical perspective, paradoxically in part because of the war, and that the use of a tit-for-tat approach to make good use of it has a sound scientific/empirical basis. 

All blogs in this series