"Forty-seven years on from the Iranian revolution, Iran is confronting a strategic reality it has never faced before a simultaneous crisis of domestic legitimacy and a credible threat of external attack so severe that regime survival can no longer be taken for granted. Until now, Tehran has survived wars, sanctions, assassinations, mass protests and international isolation through a strategy of projecting strength abroad, repressing dissent at home and generating a permanent crisis to justify poor leadership and political failure."
"Today, Donald Trump has mobilised an armada to the Middle East that includes the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, guided-missile destroyers, an expanded air presence and missile defence systems. This force projection suggests the US is no longer focused on containing Iran but rather compelling a final resolution of a long-running conflict. The choice at hand is either the acceptance of a US-imposed settlement or the destruction of the Islamic republic as it exists today."
Iran faces an unprecedented convergence of internal and external threats that endanger regime survival. A sustained strategy of projecting strength abroad and repressing dissent domestically has previously preserved the state despite wars, sanctions and protests. The United States has escalated pressure by deploying a major naval and air force presence, signaling an aim to compel Iran to accept settlement terms or face destruction of the Islamic Republic. Trump's prior actions — withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, reimposition of sanctions and assassination of Qassem Suleimani — foreshadow an aggressive approach now being resumed. Economic decline, corruption and emigration have eroded the social contract. Repeated mass protests show a society increasingly unwilling to fear the state.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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