The message from Tehran is clear: the regime is not wobbling. After a weekend of precision strikes on Israeli military assets, the Iranian leadership is projecting an air of unshakeable confidence. This is not the expected script. Analysts had predicted internal fractures, public anger, or at least a hint of panic. None of that has materialised.
Instead, what we are seeing is a regime that has weathered the storm. The strikes, which the IRGC described as “surgical and devastating,” have actually bolstered the hardliners. The Supreme Leader’s office has been unusually quiet, but that silence is deafening. It speaks of a leadership that feels no need to justify itself.
Let’s look at the polling. Iranian state media, usually a bellwether of official thinking, is running triumphalist graphics. But more telling are the whispers from inside the Green Zone. A contact in the foreign ministry tells me the mood is “chilled but determined.” The economic bite of sanctions remains, but there is a sense that the regime has found a new equilibrium.
Why? Because the strikes were not just a military operation. They were a political statement. By targeting Israel directly, Iran has shattered the taboo of being a proxy power. It has now placed itself on the same stage as its sworn enemy. That is a dangerous upgrade. It plays directly into the “resistance economy” narrative that the regime has been cultivating for years. Self-sufficiency is no longer a slogan; it is a necessity.
The real fear in Whitehall is that this stability is not temporary. The old model was a regime just about hanging on, held together by repression and oil money. The new model is a regime that has successfully militarised its economy and society. The IRGC now controls a huge portion of the economy, and the strikes have given them a blank cheque to expand.
Backbench MPs are already asking questions. Some on the left are worried about the humanitarian cost. But the right is focused on the geopolitical fallout. The assumption that Iran was weeks away from collapse has been blown out of the water. As one former defence secretary told me over a heavily watered-down gin and tonic, “We have been reading the runs wrong. This is 2019 Iran, not 2023.”
The intelligence community is scrambling. Their models were built on a brittle regime. What they are seeing now is something more resilient. The question is whether this new stability can be sustained. The cost of these strikes has been immense. But the regime is betting that the pay-off — a new status as a regional power capable of going toe-to-toe with Israel — will buy it more legitimacy at home.
The danger for the West is that we now face a paradox. A stable Iran is actually more unpredictable. The old crisis management tools — sanctions, diplomatic isolation — no longer have the same bite. As one diplomat put it, “We were dealing with a cornered animal. Now we have a confident one. That is not an improvement.”
The backbenches are restless. The pressure is on the Foreign Office to produce a new Iran strategy. But the cupboard is bare. The old playbook is irrelevant. The new one has yet to be written. And in the dark corners of Whitehall, the whispers are that no one really knows what comes next.
