6 months on, Iran’s leaders defying US, signalling no tolerance for dissent
After six months of war, Iran’s leadership has coalesced around a hard core of military generals and clerics long entrenched in the ruling theocracy. They are ready for a potentially long confrontation with the US and determined to prevent any unrest at home.
It’s a far cry from US President Donald Trump’s initial hopes of toppling the Islamic Republic and his subsequent claims that “regime change” had brought more compromising officials to the fore. Iran’s new leaders evince little faith in any agreement with Trump — after coming under attack twice while holding talks — and they may be bracing for another assault once the US replenishes its supplies of interceptors. They have also threatened to escalate the war as a continuing American blockade and Trump’s plans for new sanctions threaten to suffocate Iran’s already worsening economy. “If (Trump) wants to do something, we will retaliate in a seismic manner,” the new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, said last weekend. In a post on X, he said that “if the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported” from the Persian Gulf.
Rezaei’s appointment came in a recent set of decrees by the Ayatollah Mojtaba, that formally set Iran’s new senior leadership. Khamenei’s father and much of the highest echelons were killed in the bombing campaign launched by the US and Israel on February 28.
