The Islamic Republic’s War Strategy: Survival at Any Cost as Victory

Disclaimer: These opinion pieces represent the authors’ personal views and do not necessarily reflect the official policies or positions of Norwich University or PAWC.

On the fifteenth day of the U.S.-Israeli conflict against Iran, which started on February 28, 2026, missiles and bombs are hitting critical infrastructure, senior commanders have been killed, and the country has entered one of the most dangerous moments in its recent history. Yet the Islamic Republic still stands, not because it has achieved a conventional military victory or gained superiority on the battlefield, but because it follows a much simpler, more ideological principle: survival at any cost is victory.

This is the core political logic of the Islamic Republic in the current war, which cannot win in the traditional sense. Instead, it is trying to stay alive, preserve the regime’s coercive power, control the streets, and keep its flag flying. From the regime’s perspective, if it survives, it can claim victory, no matter how much destruction the country suffers.

This is not a new logic. Tehran has learned it from the wider axis of resistance, especially from Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Over the past two and a half years, Gaza has suffered devastating destruction. Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed. Hospitals, schools, roads, and public services have been reduced to rubble, and thousands of civilians have lost their lives. Yet Hamas survived as an organization, its armed members are still visible in the streets, and in the end, it presented survival itself as victory. As soon as the ceasefire was announced, Hamas members poured into the streets, beating Palestinians and executing “traitors,” those who dared to object to Hamas rule. For the Islamic Republic, Hamas’s main patron, that was the most important lesson: in an ideological war, military asymmetry does not automatically mean defeat. Like Hamas, if the ayatollah-led dictatorship remains in power and its security institutions, especially the IRGC, remain intact, it can frame the outcome as a success.

That is why the destruction of the country is neither decisive nor important to the regime. The loss of infrastructure, economic collapse, civilian suffering, and even the deaths of its own supporters do not outweigh the central priority of preserving the regime. In this worldview, the nation can be damaged, but the regime must endure. The regime does not exist to protect society. It expects society to absorb pain to protect the regime.

This approach also shapes the Islamic Republic’s military strategy. Having already lost much of its air force and seen its navy largely destroyed, Iran has turned to asymmetric attrition tactics. It uses the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic pressure point, deploys naval mines, targets commercial shipping, and attacks oil infrastructure in Arab countries to raise the global economic cost of the conflict. The regime’s main goal is to prolong the war, widen its economic consequences, and create pressure on global markets and Western public opinion.

This is a war strategy built not on battlefield superiority, but on endurance and escalation. The Islamic Republic wants to raise oil prices and spread international anxiety. Its hope is

that political fatigue will eventually push Washington and Jerusalem to stop the war without pursuing regime change.

At home, the regime is applying the same principle with even greater urgency. Internal control is central to its war effort. It understands that if it loses control of the streets, it could lose everything. The regime could collapse very quickly if people pour into the streets, especially after the last wave of protests was brutally suppressed and 32,000 Iranians were massacred two months ago.

The regime is making this very clear. Protest in wartime is not treated as dissent, but as treason. From the Iranian police chief to IRGC commanders and state TV anchors, officials are threatening Iranians that if they come into the streets, there will be no mercy. State television consistently frames any anti-government mobilization as collaboration with the enemy.

That is why most Iranians have been forced to stay at home. On one side, they have been told by the United States, Israel, and even parts of the Iranian opposition to stay home because of restrictions and dangerous conditions. On the other side, they are afraid to go out because of the IRGC and Basij civil militia’s intimidation. Security forces drive through the streets with guns, patrol on motorcycles, and set up checkpoints across cities. Iranians are stopped, their cars are searched, and their phones are checked for anti-regime messages.

The regime is not only pushing Iranians out of public spaces in the streets. It is also marginalizing them online. Since the war started, the regime has imposed internet blackouts, cutting people off from the outside world. Phone service has been disrupted, and many people cannot contact family and friends inside Iran. We do not hear their voices.

At the same time, the regime provides its supporters with free, unlimited internet access to defend it online. Thousands of security forces have been mobilized to operate on social media, especially on X, criticizing the war’s opponents, defending the regime, and praising the newly appointed supreme leader.

Just as it dominates cyberspace, the regime also mobilizes its supporters in the streets. Every day, they move through neighborhoods with microphones, chanting in favor of the regime and intimidating ordinary Iranians. It uses every tool and every event to project an image of popularity. Funeral processions for killed commanders are turned into mass political theater, where pro-regime participants are presented as if they represent most Iranians mourning the martyrs. State television broadcasts images of crowds, flags, and chants to convey one message: Iranians stand with the regime, the nation is united, and resistance continues. This message is also directed at Western audiences, often helped by naïve journalists who have been allowed access to Iran.

Whether that image reflects social reality matters less than the regime’s ability to impose it. An authoritarian regime survives not only by force but also by controlling the media and shaping the narrative. The Islamic Republic needs to show that it still controls public space and, in one word, is still in charge. Even if military bases and missile sites are destroyed, and even if Iranian cities suffer blackouts and shortages, the regime’s claim to victory depends on proving that it has not lost control of either the streets or cyberspace.

For the Islamic Republic, then, the real battlefield is not only in the sky or at sea. It is also in the streets, in the media, and in the minds of both supporters and opponents. This is why survival has both military and political meanings. That is also why the regime is more focused on preserving the perception that it remains sovereign, feared, and unavoidable than on any other single objective.

This is especially important under the leadership of Mojtaba Khamenei. If he remains in power and the regime survives, it will present itself as having passed the test. The destruction of factories, ports, refineries, and civilian life will be treated as an acceptable price for the preservation of velayat-e faqih, the guardianship of the jurist. In the ideological logic of the Islamic Republic, the country may bleed, but the regime must live.

This is the essence of asymmetric war as Ayatollahs and their IRGC bodyguards understand it. Keep the coercive core intact, terrorize your people, and declare victory simply because you are still there. That is the model Hamas used in Gaza, and the Islamic Republic is now trying to apply it on a larger scale, with greater state capacity and broader regional tools.

History will eventually judge whether this idea of survival at any cost is truly a form of victory, or only the postponement of a larger defeat. But that is not how the Islamic Republic sees the matter.

Dr. Saeid Golkar is the UC Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He specializes in the politics of authoritarian regimes, with a particular focus on Iran and the broader Middle East. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Tehran and previously held research and teaching positions at Stanford University and Northwestern University. Golkar is the author of Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Columbia University Press, 2015), which received the Washington Institute’s Silver Medal Prize. His forthcoming book, Dictators and the Higher Education Dilemma, will be published by Rutgers University Press in spring 2026.