Trump's war is a gift to Iran’s hardliners

When the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28 — an escalation that has already brought new suffering and uncertainty to millions of ordinary Iranians — the central debate quickly turned to whether the Islamic Republic might collapse. Some analysts argued that decapitating Iran’s leadership could produce rapid regime change, perhaps resembling the leadership removal in Venezuela earlier this year. Others warned that Iran’s political system was far more resilient.

Yet the more important point may lie elsewhere. Given the Islamic Republic’s internal dynamics, war could produce the opposite of what many expect. Rather than weakening the regime, the war may strengthen its most committed supporters — the ideological networks often labeled “hardliners” in Western media — while marginalizing the broader political middle, inside and outside the system, that favors non-violent and gradual change.

The Islamic Republic has long relied on a relatively small but highly committed constituency that sees the survival of the system as a political and even moral duty. Although this camp is often portrayed in Western discussions as marginal, its size and intensity should not be underestimated. In the 2024 presidential election, for example, the most hardline candidate, Saeed Jalili, received more than 13 million votes in the runoff, according to official results. Even if the precise figures are debated, the election demonstrated that a large and disciplined base continues to support the system’s most confrontational political current.

This constituency is not simply electoral. It is reinforced by networks linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), religious institutions, and ideological organizations that have developed over decades within the Islamic Republic. While they do not represent the majority of Iranian society, their cohesion and organizational depth give them outsized political weight.

At the same time, the Islamic Republic faces serious domestic pressures. Years of economic hardship — driven in large part by international sanctions — along with deep political and social grievances, repeated waves of protest, and increasingly harsh repression have strained the relationship between the state and large segments of society. The protests in early 2026, which erupted after many Iranians felt pushed to the limits of economic and political frustration, resulted in the deaths of thousands of demonstrators. Although these crises have not produced visible defections from the regime’s core security institutions, they may nonetheless have deepened tensions within parts of its support base.

Yet war can also reshape how these emerging tensions play out. External conflict tends to elevate the political importance of those most willing to defend the state, particularly actors embedded in security institutions and ideological networks. In such moments, loyalty and commitment often outweigh broader but less intense forms of political support.

Political leaders facing wartime pressure therefore have strong incentives to reassure these constituencies, adopting rhetoric, appointments, or policies that signal loyalty to those most willing to defend the system. For a regime facing internal strain, war can therefore serve as a powerful mobilizing force, reinforcing solidarity among its most dedicated supporters and strengthening the resolve of those who see the conflict as a struggle for national survival. External threat can also recast domestic grievances in a different light, encouraging supporters who may have grown disillusioned with economic or political conditions to rally again when they perceive the state itself to be under attack.

The killing of Iran’s supreme leader could further reinforce this dynamic. Within the Islamic Republic’s ideological narrative, martyrdom holds powerful symbolic meaning rooted in Shiite political culture. The historical memory of figures such as Imam Hussein — the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad who was killed in the seventh century — occupies a central place in Shiite political imagination. Iranian leaders have long invoked this history to frame political struggles as moral confrontations between resistance and oppression. Portraying the slain leader as a martyr — particularly if he is seen as killed by an external enemy — may therefore deepen the sense of sacrifice and duty among the regime’s most committed supporters.

At the same time, war tends to narrow the political space for a broader middle that has periodically sought to moderate Iran’s political trajectory. This middle is not a single organized movement but a loose constellation of reformist politicians, civil society actors, technocrats, and segments of the urban middle class. Many differ on important questions about the future of the Islamic Republic, yet they share certain instincts: a preference for pluralism, non-violent political change, and coexistence rather than permanent confrontation.

In the past, this loose coalition has struggled to translate social support into lasting political influence, in part because institutional constraints and repression have repeatedly closed the space for reform. Yet moments of internal strain can sometimes create openings for broader alliances, even drawing support from conservative figures who recognize the need for change. War, however, tends to shut such openings. As politics becomes framed increasingly in terms of loyalty and resistance, the voices most inclined toward compromise and bridge-building are pushed to the margins.

These dynamics suggest that expectations of rapid political unraveling in Tehran rest on a misunderstanding of how the Islamic Republic functions under external pressure. Systems built around tightly organized ideological networks often prove more resilient than they appear from the outside, particularly when external threats allow leaders to frame internal dissent as part of a broader confrontation with foreign adversaries. Rather than accelerating political change, war can consolidate the actors most committed to resisting it.

None of this means that the Islamic Republic is immune to internal pressure or incapable of political change. Iran’s society remains deeply dynamic, and the tensions visible in recent protests show that the system faces real challenges. Yet war rarely creates the conditions under which broad-based political change becomes possible. More often, it empowers the actors most prepared for confrontation while sidelining those seeking gradual change.

In the end, it is ordinary people — families already struggling with economic hardship, young Iranians hoping for a different future, and citizens caught between state repression and external conflict — who bear the heaviest burden.