The Iran war has entered a more ambiguous phase, with the regime battered but not broken, the US struggling to define victory, and the Strait of Hormuz emerging as Iran’s most potent bargaining tool, two Middle East experts said at an Iran International townhall in Washington DC.
The panel, moderated by Iran International’s Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, brought together Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute and Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies to discuss what comes after a ceasefire that has not ended the wider confrontation.
The debate, held on May 14, came a month after the US naval blockade of Iranian ports began on April 13, intensifying pressure on Tehran’s economy and maritime trade. But the blockade has also pushed shipping, insurance risk and control of Hormuz to the center of the conflict.
A regime under pressure, but not necessarily near collapse
Alterman said the Iranian regime has changed since the war began, but “not in a positive way.” He warned that the war may not have pushed the Islamic Republic toward compromise, but further into the hands of its security establishment.
With Mojtaba Khamenei less visible and Revolutionary Guard hardliners appearing more influential, he said Tehran’s instinct seems to be to “hunker down and wait out” President Donald Trump.
“It feels like the default is toward confrontation rather than compromise,” Alterman said.
For Alterman, that does not necessarily mean the regime is closer to falling. It may instead mean Tehran is more likely to absorb pressure and wait for Trump’s political calendar to become more difficult.
Pletka also warned against assuming that a weakened regime automatically produces a better outcome. She said Washington often frames Iran’s power struggle as one between hardliners and moderates, but the reality is more complicated.
“These are all people who support the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” she said. “Some of them want to kill fewer people. Some of them want to kill more people.”
The danger, she suggested, is that US and Israeli strikes weaken Iran militarily while empowering the most repressive factions at home. Alterman put the question more starkly: does the pressure lead to regime collapse, or “just lead to more Iranians suffering for a longer period of time”?
Hormuz changes the balance
The clearest divide between the two experts came over the Strait of Hormuz.
Alterman argued that the war has revealed an uncomfortable truth for Washington: even a damaged Iran can still disrupt one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints.
“Even a weak Iran, a battered Iran, can control the strait,” he said.
It only needs to create enough fear to alter the behavior of shipping companies, insurers, and neighbouring Arab states and energy markets. In that sense, the threshold for disruption is lower than many had assumed.
Pletka sharply disagreed with the idea that Iran truly controls the strait.
“The reason the Iranians control the Strait of Hormuz right now is because we’re letting them,” she said. “We can take control of it. We can do what we want. We can move traffic through.”
She said the issue is no longer only military. It is also about risk, insurance and the willingness of shipowners to send vessels into waters where even a single strike, mine or ambiguous threat can have major consequences.
The result is a paradox: Iran may be weaker than before the war, but it may have discovered a tool it can use more confidently than before.
No clear road to victory or a deal
Both experts were skeptical that the current diplomatic track can quickly produce a comprehensive settlement.
Alterman said the two sides have persuaded themselves that they are excellent negotiators, which makes compromise harder. The best Washington may get, he argued, is not a grand bargain but a framework for drawn-out talks.
“The best-case scenario from a US perspective is locking yourself into negotiations with the Iranians through the end of the Trump administration,” he said.
Such a process could include talks over the nuclear file, missiles and freedom of navigation, but it would likely remain incremental and fragile, with both sides preserving the option to resume escalation.
Pletka said Trump appears most focused on removing Iran’s fissile material and its ability to produce more. But she warned that narrowing the issue to the nuclear file would repeat a familiar mistake.
“Everybody focuses on the nuclear when they need to focus on all of it at once,” she said, pointing to missiles, proxies and Iran’s regional conduct as inseparable parts of the challenge.
That leaves the conflict suspended between competing assumptions. Trump appears to believe economic pressure will force Iran to blink. Alterman suggested Tehran may believe it can outlast him by enduring pain, repressing dissent and waiting for US domestic politics to intervene.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.