Iran’s Hard-Liners Have Trump’s Number

If you were, for some reason, to only get your news about the war in Iran from the president’s Truth Social feed, you might be under the impression that the United States was on the brink of a historic military victory, perhaps its most significant since World War II. “Iran is collapsing financially!” Donald Trump posted shortly before midnight on Tuesday. “They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately—Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!”

Iran is undoubtedly in rough shape after weeks of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, which have killed its longtime supreme leader, destroyed much of its military infrastructure, and turned much of Tehran, its capital, to rubble. But pain is a relative concept in war, and Iran’s leaders have inflicted plenty of it on Trump. Since they effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to maritime trade, prices have soared worldwide, including a 30 percent jump at gas pumps in the United States; in turn, Trump’s already low approval rating has cratered to historic lows. Iran’s leaders think they can withstand more pain than Trump can, and they have good reason to: His decision Tuesday to extend a ceasefire indefinitely, after the Iranians had just balked at returning to the negotiating table, is proof that “Trump blinked first,” as The New York Times put the Iranian reaction. Trump is obviously more desperate to find a way out of a disastrous war that he started.

But the president’s flailing also further confirms the fundamental incoherence of his plan from the beginning. Trump never had a clear private—let alone public—rationale for assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and eliminating much of Iran’s leadership, beyond a vague desire for “regime change.” Whether such change has actually occurred is in the eye of the beholder, but this much is certain: The war has eliminated the conditions for a real democratic popular movement to emerge. By killing much of Iran’s leadership and attempting to bomb the country into submission—months after a popular uprising posed a legitimate challenge to the regime—the U.S. and Israel have neutered whatever moderate elements existed in the country, while strengthening a hard-line military establishment. Trump, in other words, has managed to make Iran worse for its own people and more dangerous to the world.

The ceasefire that begin on April 8 has brought little clarity about where this conflict is headed; if anything, the war has gotten more confusing since then. The Strait of Hormuz has been opened and closed several times. The U.S. has instituted a “blockade” whose real purpose seems to be narrative manipulation: It allows Trump to claim, fantastically, the he is the reason why the crucial shipping channel remains shut. At the same time, Iranian gunboats—part of a navy that Trump and Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth have boasted to have destroyed several times—continue to harry vessels and even seize cargo ships. The consequences of the strait’s closure are immense and could, given how much of the world’s fertilizer supply travels through it, lead to a “global agrifoods catastrophe,” warned an economist with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

It seems increasingly likely that whenever the strait does truly reopen, ships will be required to pay Iran a massive toll—perhaps as high as $2 million—to pass through, a cost that did not exist before the war. Even if that figure ends up being much lower, it would represent a remarkable financial coup for Iran. It would also signify a U.S. defeat, perhaps its greatest of the postwar era. American economic power is premised in no small part on its naval prowess: Its ships keep waterways free and global commerce ticking with minimal fuss. A failure to control the Strait of Hormuz—which, remember, was toll-free to global trade before this war—could have devastating ripple effects. If American power can be challenged there, by a weakened nation with a depleted navy, why couldn’t it be challenged elsewhere? China has taken notice.

How are the Iranian leaders challenging U.S. supremacy? It’s not an easy question to answer. The first few weeks of the war wiped out much of Iran’s political leadership, including not only Khamenei but reportedly members of a moderate faction some American foreign-policy brokers had hoped to replace him with. Khamenei has been replaced by his son, Mojtaba, who is more hard-line but also has not been seen or heard from. American leaders, including Hegseth, have suggested he was significantly injured in the airstrike that killed his father, but their statements are not to be trusted.

Ali Khamenei, the face of the Islamic Republic since he ascended to power in 1989, had recently acted as a moderating force, according to more reliable reports. He advised caution and strategic responses in the face of U.S. and Israeli aggression. In the wake of the assassination of IRGC leader Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and the airstrikes on the alleged nuclear facilities last summer, Khamenei responded with military strikes that were clearly designed not to risk a full-scale war. In the wake of his death, Iran is being run by a younger faction of hard-liners who clearly have a greater appetite for risk—just look at the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

What do they want? A Wednesday statement from Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, provides a clue. “A complete ceasefire only makes sense if it is not violated by the maritime blockade and the hostage-taking of the world’s economy, and if the Zionist warmongering across all fronts is halted; reopening the Strait of Hormuz is impossible with such a flagrant breach of the ceasefire,” he wrote on X. “They did not achieve their goals through military aggression, nor will they through bullying. The only way forward is to recognize the rights of the Iranian nation.” Iran will continue to keep the strait closed, in other words, until it gets what it wants—not just the end of the U.S. blockade but the recognition of “the rights of the Iranian nation.”

That certainly doesn’t sound like an “SOS.” Instead, Trump is the one sending out emergency signals with his indefinite ceasefire. Even he, despite his crippling social media addiction, must be aware that the U.S. is facing a steep price for his harebrained war, however uncertain its end may be. Iran, of course, has its troubles too; it’s navigating a political transition while facing a yearslong rebuilding effort. But its leaders know what they want—and it’s a lot more than what they had before the war began. What does Trump want? Well, he probably wishes he could close his eyes, tap his heels, and make all his troubles go away. But realistically, he’ll probably have to settle for a rather artless deal.