The Iran Times Sep 11, 2025 Khamenei Thinks He Can Ride This Out Russia and China can buy Tehran time but not a deal. By Alex Vatanka For years, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and ultimate powerbroker, has been insisting to his people that there would be no war with the United States or Israel. That claim was shattered when more than 1,000 Iranians were killed in June’s 12-day war. Now he warns against the country sliding into a “state of ‘no war, no peace.’” The diagnosis isn’t wrong—but refusing to confront hard choices is vintage Khamenei. Rather than signal a strategic rethink, his latest reshuffles merely paper over factional rivalries. And instead of pushing harder for a diplomatic breakthrough while talks still sputter along, many officials in Tehran are clinging to the illusion that China and Russia will rescue Iran from Western pressure. That is hope, not strategy. And it leaves Iran’s fate in the hands of powers that have repeatedly shown they will never risk much on Tehran’s behalf. The 12-day war with Israel and the United States should have been a wake-up call. Israeli—and later U.S.—strikes exposed glaring weaknesses in Iran’s air defenses and damaged parts of its nuclear infrastructure. The regime has not looked so fragile since 1979. Yet Tehran still insists on its sovereign right to enrich uranium; rejects limits on its missile program; and shows no intent to roll back proxy interventions in Lebanon, Yemen, or elsewhere that the United States, Israel, and Arab countries deem destabilizing. Amid crisis at home, President Masoud Pezeshkian is preparing to address the United Nations General Assembly this month. Supporters insist his visit cannot be another symbolic performance. What will it take for Tehran to embrace a much-needed strategic pivot? Already judged by many as the weakest president in the Islamic Republic’s history, Pezeshkian is denounced by hard-liners as naive for calling for accommodation with Iran’s enemies. Although there is widespread appetite for change both in society at large and in the political elite around Pezeshkian, Khamenei keeps him on a short leash, and his calls for reform keep hitting walls. Yet Pezeshkian is not alone; figures such as former President Hassan Rouhani and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are also pressing for a reset and new paradigms. For now, though, the faction-ridden system cannot unify around de-escalation. Tehran remains nominally open to diplomacy, and some progress with the International Atomic Energy Agency is underway, most recently seen in the Cairo meeting between the agency’s chief and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Such incremental steps keep diplomacy alive but fall far short of the decisive turn the crisis demands. Instead of bold moves to break the stalemate with Washington, the regime is signaling that it is prepared to absorb limited clashes with Israel and the United States—or even a snapback of U.N. sanctions, code for refusing deep concessions. Several factors drive this hesitation, above all Khamenei himself. His revolutionary identity is built on never yielding to the United States, and he will not abandon that legacy unless the payoff is unmistakably greater. So far, U.S. President Donald Trump has offered no such incentive. Washington, in fact, shows little sign of having a coherent strategy for compromise with Iran beyond pressing for capitulation on three issues: enrichment, missiles, and its network of militant allies. In the absence of clarity, Tehran assumes the Iran file has been subcontracted to Israel—making a negotiated deal even more perilous from Khamenei’s perspective. Meanwhile, Khamenei’s ability to prepare the country for greater turmoil is constrained, leaving him to shuffle the national security team around without authorizing a fundamental change of course. And he still clings to the hope that U.S. rivalry with China and Russia will create exit ramps from Western pressure—even as many in Tehran warn against mistaking Beijing’s pageantry for protection. The Revolutionary Guard generals, too, remain convinced that they can ride out pressure. Three observations feed that confidence. First, the regime did not buckle during the 12-day war, and the public did not rise against it at its most vulnerable moment; the lesson drawn, or perhaps the gamble, is that society is angry but not yet revolutionary. Second, the United States and Israel show no coherent plan for regime change; at most, Iran should expect intermittent, limited strikes that the leadership believes it can survive, as it did in June. Third, hard-liners read the escalating U.S.-China fight as political cover if U.N. sanctions snap back. This hope dates back to the early 2000s but gained momentum with Pezeshkian’s debut in China. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summitry and military parade optics were seen as a signal that China (with Russia) will not let the Islamist regime fall. That is a perilous bet. As Shargh, one of Iran’s leading newspapers, warned, this approach risks turning Iran into a proving ground for great-power competition, a Middle Eastern echo of Ukraine. Just as Kyiv has become the arena where Moscow and Washington are testing each other’s resolve, Tehran could find itself reduced to a pawn in a contest between the “club of the powerful”—the United States and Europe on one side, Russia and China on the other.

The Iran Times 

Sep 11, 2025

Khamenei Thinks He Can Ride This Out

Russia and China can buy Tehran time but not a deal.

By Alex Vatanka

For years, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and ultimate powerbroker, has been insisting to his people that there would be no war with the United States or Israel. 

That claim was shattered when more than 1,000 Iranians were killed in June’s 12-day war. Now he warns against the country sliding into a “state of ‘no war, no peace.’” The diagnosis isn’t wrong—but refusing to confront hard choices is vintage Khamenei.

Rather than signal a strategic rethink, his latest reshuffles merely paper over factional rivalries. And instead of pushing harder for a diplomatic breakthrough while talks still sputter along, many officials in Tehran are clinging to the illusion that China and Russia will rescue Iran from Western pressure. 

That is hope, not strategy. And it leaves Iran’s fate in the hands of powers that have repeatedly shown they will never risk much on Tehran’s behalf.

The 12-day war with Israel and the United States should have been a wake-up call. Israeli—and later U.S.—strikes exposed glaring weaknesses in Iran’s air defenses and damaged parts of its nuclear infrastructure. 

The regime has not looked so fragile since 1979. Yet Tehran still insists on its sovereign right to enrich uranium; rejects limits on its missile program; and shows no intent to roll back proxy interventions in Lebanon, Yemen, or elsewhere that the United States, Israel, and Arab countries deem destabilizing. 

Amid crisis at home, President Masoud Pezeshkian is preparing to address the United Nations General Assembly this month. Supporters insist his visit cannot be another symbolic performance. What will it take for Tehran to embrace a much-needed strategic pivot?

Already judged by many as the weakest president in the Islamic Republic’s history, Pezeshkian is denounced by hard-liners as naive for calling for accommodation with Iran’s enemies. 

Although there is widespread appetite for change both in society at large and in the political elite around Pezeshkian, Khamenei keeps him on a short leash, and his calls for reform keep hitting walls. Yet Pezeshkian is not alone; figures such as former President Hassan Rouhani and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are also pressing for a reset and new paradigms.

For now, though, the faction-ridden system cannot unify around de-escalation. Tehran remains nominally open to diplomacy, and some progress with the International Atomic Energy Agency is underway, most recently seen in the Cairo meeting between the agency’s chief and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. 

Such incremental steps keep diplomacy alive but fall far short of the decisive turn the crisis demands. Instead of bold moves to break the stalemate with Washington, the regime is signaling that it is prepared to absorb limited clashes with Israel and the United States—or even a snapback of U.N. sanctions, code for refusing deep concessions.

Several factors drive this hesitation, above all Khamenei himself. His revolutionary identity is built on never yielding to the United States, and he will not abandon that legacy unless the payoff is unmistakably greater. So far, U.S. President Donald Trump has offered no such incentive. 

Washington, in fact, shows little sign of having a coherent strategy for compromise with Iran beyond pressing for capitulation on three issues: enrichment, missiles, and its network of militant allies. In the absence of clarity, Tehran assumes the Iran file has been subcontracted to Israel—making a negotiated deal even more perilous from Khamenei’s perspective.

Meanwhile, Khamenei’s ability to prepare the country for greater turmoil is constrained, leaving him to shuffle the national security team around without authorizing a fundamental change of course. And he still clings to the hope that U.S. rivalry with China and Russia will create exit ramps from Western pressure—even as many in Tehran warn against mistaking Beijing’s pageantry for protection.

The Revolutionary Guard generals, too, remain convinced that they can ride out pressure. Three observations feed that confidence. First, the regime did not buckle during the 12-day war, and the public did not rise against it at its most vulnerable moment; the lesson drawn, or perhaps the gamble, is that society is angry but not yet revolutionary.

Second, the United States and Israel show no coherent plan for regime change; at most, Iran should expect intermittent, limited strikes that the leadership believes it can survive, as it did in June.

Third, hard-liners read the escalating U.S.-China fight as political cover if U.N. sanctions snap back. This hope dates back to the early 2000s but gained momentum with Pezeshkian’s debut in China. 

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summitry and military parade optics were seen as a signal that China (with Russia) will not let the Islamist regime fall.

That is a perilous bet. As Shargh, one of Iran’s leading newspapers, warned, this approach risks turning Iran into a proving ground for great-power competition, a Middle Eastern echo of Ukraine. 

Just as Kyiv has become the arena where Moscow and Washington are testing each other’s resolve, Tehran could find itself reduced to a pawn in a contest between the “club of the powerful”—the United States and Europe on one side, Russia and China on the other.