Iran’s leadership increasingly mistakes ideological absolutism for strategic strength, sacrificing national welfare to a theology of defiance.

There are moments when regimes stop behaving like states and begin acting like apocalyptic movements. The conduct of the Iranian regime increasingly belongs to that darker category.

Confronted by overwhelming military asymmetry, Israel’s extraordinary defensive architecture, its long-assumed ultimate deterrent, and the unmistakable shadow of American power, Tehran continues to behave as though ideological obstinacy can substitute for responsible statecraft. It cannot.

The most troubling feature of its present course is not hostility toward Israel alone. Even hostility can still remain within a rational calculus of costs and benefits. What is increasingly visible instead is a strategic stubbornness that borders on civilizational irresponsibility: a willingness to absorb devastating damage, intensify the suffering of ordinary Iranians, and risk national ruin rather than acknowledge error or retreat from maximalist positions.

The........

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