Even before the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in early December 2024, the pillars of Iran’s decades-long national security strategy, and the underpinnings of its ideological-driven policy to reorder the Middle East, had begun to crumble. By the time the Syrian rebel offensive began, the leaderships of Hamas and Hezbollah – cornerstones of Iran’s efforts to ignite a “ring of fire” around Israel – had already been eliminated by Israeli airstrikes and covert operations, and their militia arsenals and forces decimated by Israeli air and ground assaults. Iran’s ability to deter Israel, or defend itself from Israeli air attacks, was dismantled by the failure of its two missile barrages in 2024 to significantly damage Israel and by Israeli retaliatory airstrikes. The fall of the Assad regime at the hands of Sunni Islamists backed by NATO member Turkey completed the essential collapse of Iran’s “axis of resistance.”
Yet, despite admitting that threats from Israel precluded Iran from sending additional Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force or allied militia forces to halt the rebel advance on Damascus, Iranian officials have displayed no sign of panic. Nor have they hinted at any forthcoming compromise of their stated foreign policy objectives, including rendering Israel nonviable as a Jewish state. The stolid public presentation of Iranian officials is belied, however, by reports, expert analysis, and Iranian commentary that Iranian leaders are reevaluating the key tenets of their foreign and national security policies.
Its problems compounded by the imminent inauguration of a second administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump, which is certain to increase economic and possibly other forms of pressure on Tehran, Iran’s options for alternative policies have narrowed significantly. Some analysts might take Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at his word when he insists that the axis of resistance can be rebuilt to its former levels of potency. A variety of reports indicate the Quds Force and Iranian diplomats are trying to find work-arounds and alternative pathways to supply the axis partners, for example by flying weaponry bound for Hezbollah directly into Beirut’s international airport. Iranian leaders who advocate for staying the policy course note that Yemen’s Houthis continue to attack Israel, the United States, and Red Sea commercial shipping despite Israeli and U.S.-led retaliation.
However, Iran’s “stay the course” option will encounter significant difficulties that Iranian leaders might not have considered. Israel has established a proof of concept that intense and intelligence-driven air operations, in particular, can inflict grave damage on Iran’s regional partners and its resupply lines. Israel is insisting on, and apparently can enforce, a new normal in which Israel will not permit Iran to resupply, rearm, and advise its regional allies, particularly those directly on Israel’s borders. Israel appears to have the full backing of U.S. leaders of both parties to undertake action to cripple the Houthis in Yemen, who pose a threat not only to Israel but to global commerce. Tehran is likely to find that a strategy based on rebuilding its decimated regional allies, or by relying more heavily on the still unbowed Houthis, is not viable.
The “Nuclear Option” is a Risky Alternative
Some Iranian leaders have advocated for the pursuit of an alternative national security strategy based on establishing a nuclear deterrent. These officials argue that the supreme leader’s religious pronouncement forbidding acquisition of a nuclear weapon no longer serves Iran’s ideological and national interests and should be rescinded. Yet, advocates of weaponization face counterarguments by figures such as former two-term President Hassan Rouhani, who insists efforts to develop a nuclear weapon would embolden Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump to undertake military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Rouhani’s objections accurately reflect the acute challenges a decision to weaponize Iran’s nuclear program would face – challenges that likely render an alternative national security strategy based on possessing a nuclear arsenal nonviable. Israel has been considering preventive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities for decades, standing down from such action in part because of objections from successive U.S. administrations. To date, U.S. leaders have preferred to address the Iranian nuclear threat through diplomacy. Beyond differences with U.S. officials, some Israeli strategists also have questioned whether an Israeli strike, if conducted alone, would cripple Iran’s nuclear program to the extent required to end the potential for a nuclear-armed Iran.
However, more than one year after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, some of the U.S. and Israeli reservations about using force to address Iran’s nuclear program have dissipated. During his first term and in comments before and since the November 2024 election, Trump has given his full public support to Netanyahu’s use of military action to address the broad range of threats posed by Iran and its allies, including the nuclear program. Reports in The Wall Street Journal and other media have indicated that some of Trump’s national security nominees and appointees, and possibly even Trump himself, are as inclined as Netanyahu to argue for military action against Iran’s nuclear program – should Iran try to develop a working weapon. It appears likely that, at the very least, the Trump administration would not assertively dissuade Israel from striking Iranian facilities, even if the United States might decline to join the assault.
Some experts have begun to speculate that Trump and Netanyahu, in the course of several phone conversations they have held during the transition period, might be colluding to lay the groundwork for a potential joint attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities after Trump takes office again. U.S. participation in the military action would increase its chances for longer-lasting destruction of Iran’s nuclear capacity. By deploying a wide range of aircraft within easy reach of all parts of Iran, the United States has the capability to strike hardened targets – such as the Fordow uranium enrichment facility – not only with the heaviest U.S.-made munitions, such as a 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb, but also to strike Iran’s facilities repeatedly and thereby ensure their destruction. Israel’s air force would begin its mission from much further away – 1,100 miles – putting a strain on Israel’s limited aerial refueling capacity and its ability to deliver the heaviest possible ordnance. Even if Trump and Netanyahu are not, at this stage, actively considering a joint attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, the likelihood is high that they would undertake joint action if they detected a clear “breakout” attempt by Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
Can Iran Make a Deal With Trump?
Recognizing Iran’s difficult predicament, several Iranian leaders, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, Vice President for Strategic Affairs and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and current Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, appear to be contemplating outreach to the Trump administration to ease tensions and drive a wedge between Trump and Netanyahu. As president and president-elect, Trump has advocated for a revised multilateral nuclear agreement that would go beyond the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to address all areas of U.S. concern – not only Iran’s nuclear program. Taking Trump’s stated preference for an agreement at face value, moderate Iranian officials and strategists appear to see diplomacy as the only viable successor to the supreme leader’s more assertive approach.
Even though the Iranian officials proposing negotiations with the Trump administration see their strategy as Iran’s only realistic option, their recommended approach is also unlikely to succeed. A wide variety of reporting suggests that, in any negotiation, Trump and his uniformly hard-line advisors are likely to insist, among other requirements, that Iran thoroughly dismantle its uranium enrichment infrastructure in favor of verifiable “zero enrichment.” Beyond that, the new administration will also insist on an end to support for Tehran’s axis of resistance partners and a halt to its production of sophisticated ballistic and cruise missiles and armed drones. These are demands that Tehran has consistently rejected for more than two decades, and it is unclear whether Iranian leaders would be able to achieve a consensus to meet Trump’s bottom-line requirements in the interests of de-escalation.
With nearly all its obvious national security pathways closed, Iran might be left with no option other than to turn inward toward addressing its domestic strains while seeking de-escalation with remaining adversaries and downplaying its drive for regional influence. In pursuing a more cooperative regional pathway, Tehran might argue to the Gulf Arab states, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq that Turkey, which now has preponderant influence in post-Assad Syria, poses a significant threat to the region that requires joint containment efforts. This argument will find a receptive audience from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt – as well as Iraq’s Shia leaders – who have sought to contain Sunni Islamist movements linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and echo Iran’s sharp attacks on Israel’s tactics in Gaza, south Lebanon, and elsewhere. Whether Iranian hard-liners, including the supreme leader, are willing to forgo their more ambitious regional goals, and their nuclear program, in favor of regional comity is an open question whose answer might depend on outcomes and decisions beyond Tehran’s immediate control.
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