Donald Trump’s confrontation with Iran appears to have been built on a fundamental misreading of the country he chose to confront. The assumption in Washington seemed to be that a sudden decapitation strike against Iran’s leadership could trigger a rapid political collapse. In that scenario, eliminating senior figures would produce confusion inside the system, spark internal competition for power and potentially encourage political actors inside the country to align themselves with the United States. Variations of this strategy have appeared before in American foreign policy thinking, particularly in states whose institutions are weak or heavily dependent on a single leader. Yet the reaction that followed the opening phase of the war demonstrated that Iran operates under a very different political logic.

Rather than disintegrating, Iran’s political and military structures reorganised with surprising speed. Even after the initial shock of coordinated strikes against senior leadership figures, the state apparatus continued to function. The expectation that leadership removal would automatically translate into regime collapse overlooked a key characteristic of the Iranian system: its institutional depth. Unlike highly personalised regimes where authority is concentrated in a narrow circle, Iran’s political system functions through overlapping layers of institutions that extend from national decision-making bodies to provincial and local governance structures. This networked structure makes sudden collapse far less likely than many outside observers assume.

Equally important was the misunderstanding of Iran’s security institutions. Outside analysis often describes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij primarily as military organisations. Yet within Iran they represent something broader than a conventional armed force. They function not only as security institutions but also as carriers of an ideological framework that connects the state with segments of........

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