For decades, American policymakers have approached the Islamic Republic primarily through the prism of its nuclear ambitions. Diplomatic initiatives have revolved around centrifuges, uranium enrichment, sanctions and negotiations, as though the principal challenge posed by Tehran could be measured in percentages of enriched uranium or the number of operating centrifuges.
The latest declaration issued by 66 members of Iran’s Assembly of Experts should finally bury that illusion.
While the regime continued its carefully choreographed negotiations with Washington, its senior clerical establishment publicly declared U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mahdur al-dam—individuals whose blood, according to their interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, may legitimately be shed. They further proclaimed that killing either leader had become a religious obligation for anyone able to reach them.
In the same statement, they demanded that the nuclear issue be removed from negotiations while simultaneously calling for continued confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz.
No serious observer can reconcile such declarations with the language of diplomacy. They reveal the true ideological DNA of the Islamic Republic far more honestly than any diplomatic communiqué ever could.
This is the political and moral universe created by the ruling clerical establishment in Tehran. It is a system in which assassination masquerades as jurisprudence, terrorism is elevated into an instrument of statecraft, and medieval barbarism is dressed in the robes of religious law. Within this ideological framework, once an individual is declared mahdur al-dam, the sanctity of human life simply disappears. Bloodshed ceases to be murder and is instead celebrated as an act of religious virtue.
Such rhetoric should not be dismissed as symbolic excess intended merely for domestic consumption.
Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to translate ideological decrees into operational policy. From Buenos Aires to Beirut, from Europe to the Middle East, its network of proxies, intelligence operatives and terrorist organizations has consistently shown that violence remains one of the regime’s preferred instruments of foreign policy. The latest assassination decree, therefore, deserves to be understood not as theatrical propaganda, but as another expression of a governing philosophy that has fused revolutionary ideology with transnational terrorism for nearly half a century.
Against this backdrop, U.S. actions during the closing days of June deserve to be viewed through a broader strategic lens. Washington’s campaign was never simply a series of isolated military strikes. It represented a coordinated effort integrating military pressure, intelligence operations, political signaling and psychological warfare. The decision to target radar installations, surveillance systems, air-defense networks and command-and-control infrastructure associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was neither random nor purely tactical. Modern military doctrine has long recognized that effective campaigns begin by blinding an adversary before destroying its capacity to coordinate military operations.
Similar principles guided NATO operations in Serbia, coalition campaigns against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and later, interventions against Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. By degrading the regime’s ability to observe, communicate and coordinate, Washington was signaling that the confrontation had already moved beyond the narrow confines of the nuclear file.
This evolution reflects a deeper strategic realization that has gradually emerged within parts of the American national-security establishment. The Islamic Republic is no longer merely a nuclear problem. It has become a multidimensional security challenge encompassing terrorism, intelligence operations, cyber warfare, maritime coercion, proxy militias, ballistic missiles, organized disinformation and regional destabilization.
For years, Western diplomacy treated these threats as secondary issues orbiting around the nuclear negotiations. Reality has steadily reversed that hierarchy. Today, freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, the protection of international commerce, the security of America’s regional allies and the containment of IRGC’s expanding operational reach increasingly occupy the center of strategic planning. From this perspective, safeguarding global trade routes has become every bit as important as preventing nuclear proliferation because both are manifestations of the same revolutionary project emanating from Tehran.
Trump’s public remarks during the crisis reflected this broader strategic transformation. Their significance extended far beyond the immediate military exchanges taking place between Washington and Tehran. They conveyed a message not only to the Islamic Republic, but equally to Moscow, Beijing and the IRGC leadership. The implication was unmistakable: Should the conflict expand, the United States would not hesitate to respond with progressively greater force.
Equally important was Trump’s explicit distinction between the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation itself. For decades, successive American administrations frequently blurred the line separating Iran’s ancient civilization from the revolutionary regime that seized power in 1979. Trump publicly rejected that confusion by making clear that America’s dispute is with the rulers in Tehran rather than the people they govern. That distinction carries profound strategic consequences because it acknowledges a political reality long understood by millions of Iranians themselves—that the Islamic Republic and Iran are no longer synonymous. One represents a nation with thousands of years of history; the other represents a revolutionary system whose legitimacy has steadily eroded through repression, corruption, economic collapse and ideological extremism.
U.S. actions during the closing days of June deserve to be viewed through a broader strategic lens.
Inside Iran, the regime faces perhaps the most severe intelligence crisis in its history. Distrust has become institutionalized at every level of government. Senior commanders increasingly suspect infiltration by American and Israeli intelligence services. Political factions accuse one another of disloyalty. Security institutions monitor not only society but increasingly each other.
Fear has become the regime’s principal method of internal administration. Such conditions are rarely found within confident governments. They are instead characteristic of political systems entering the final stages of institutional decay, where paranoia gradually replaces strategic judgment, and survival becomes more important than governance. The Islamic Republic continues to project confidence abroad while displaying unmistakable symptoms of insecurity at home. A government that no longer trusts its own officials eventually loses the capacity to make coherent strategic decisions.
None of this necessarily means that diplomatic contacts will disappear overnight. Washington still contains lobbying networks, consultants, advocacy organizations, academics and former officials who continue to argue that engagement with Iran remains necessary and productive. Some continue to portray the Islamic Republic as a rational negotiating partner whose behavior can ultimately be moderated through incentives and diplomatic compromise.
Yet nearly five decades of experience suggest otherwise. Every major diplomatic opening has been accompanied by continued support for proxy militias, regional terrorism, hostage-taking, assassination plots, ballistic-missile expansion and ideological warfare. Negotiations have repeatedly slowed crises without fundamentally changing the revolutionary character of the regime itself. Increasingly, policymakers across Washington are confronting an uncomfortable conclusion: Negotiating with the Islamic Republic resembles teaching chess to a gorilla or putting lipstick on a pig.
The exercise may create the appearance of progress, but it cannot transform the essential nature of the system. Revolutionary regimes built upon ideological absolutism rarely negotiate themselves into moderation because their legitimacy depends upon permanent confrontation rather than lasting reconciliation.
This distinction matters because many observers continue to assume that military pressure alone will resolve the crisis. History suggests otherwise. Air campaigns can degrade military capabilities, destroy infrastructure and weaken command structures, but they cannot by themselves produce political transformation unless they alter the balance of power within the state itself. As long as the IRGC retains its monopoly over coercion and the regime’s inner security establishment remains intact, the clerical system will continue searching for opportunities to regenerate itself politically.
Any long-term strategy requires recognizing that the nuclear program is only one component of a much larger structure built upon revolutionary violence, ideological absolutism and institutionalized terror. Without addressing that broader political reality, tactical military victories risk becoming temporary interruptions, rather than lasting strategic achievements.
