Iran’s threat perceptions, which centre the regime’s own survival, have been sharply triggered by Israel’s war in Gaza and the subsequent attacks on its soil. This has rendered its traditional forward defense strategy increasingly less viable amid the degradation of its long-time posture of regional deterrence. To safeguard its interests, Tehran is re-calibrating along two axes that can understood according to their internal versus their external focus. Internally, it is enhancing its missile, drone, and nuclear programs; and externally, it is seeking to preserve its strategic depth through its allies, even as these actors adopt increasingly inward-looking postures to protect their own political and military survival amid regional efforts to curtail Iranian influence over groups such as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Hezbollah. This inward-looking posture reflects Iran’s strategic decision to limit escalation and avert direct US intervention in the conflict. The evolving principal-agent relationship between Iran and its regional allies reflects the growing autonomy of these allies, resulting in a more horizontal and decentralized form of agency. Still, these relationships remain a key conduit through which Iran sustains its strategic depth, ideologically, culturally, and politically.
From the onset of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian leadership has placed the utmost importance on the survival, security, and stability of the regime, as well as the safeguarding of the nation from both internal and external threats. The dynamics of the country’s threat perceptions are central to understanding how Iran pursues its interests, establishes its goals, and, importantly, sets forth its grand strategy.
Bahgat and Ehteshami identify six clusters of threats that shape the Iranian regime’s perceptions. First, the greatest cause for concern for the regime is how it perceives the United States, which it views as a direct challenge to its political embodiment of Shia Islam, its clerical regime, and its overarching power structures. This perceived threat stems from US’ attempts to alter Iran’s religious character and ultimately instigate regime change. The enduring US military presence in Iran’s immediate neighbourhood, as well as the Gulf and wider Middle East, has reinforced this view, prompting Tehran to adopt a forward deterrence strategy. Iranian leaders also regard US cultural influence as a legitimate threat to regime survival; a concern amplified after the recent Israel–Iran conflict.
Beyond the US, Iran also faces sustained economic and regional pressures. While relations with southern neighbours, particularly Saudi Arabia, have improved from earlier hostility, they remain marked by mistrust. Moreover, Tehran sees US military deployment as obstructing any regional security framework and is wary of the Gulf states’ dependence on American arms and security guarantees. It also fears external actors fomenting internal instability by exploiting ethnic minorities (including the Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, and Balochis).
Equally important, the US-Saudi military partnership is perceived as a hostile alliance aimed at isolating the regime, with growing concern that Israeli inroads into the Gulf through normalisation with Arab states will undermine Iran’s vision for regional collective security. Compounding these pressures, Iran’s rivalry with Israel is rooted in structural hostility, with recent confrontations unfolding across Tehran’s strategic depth. Indirect and direct confrontations in key nodes in Iran’s regional networks, including in Syria, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territories, Iraq, and Yemen, serve as both arenas of deterrence and instruments of power projection.
Lastly, the presence of militant groups in Iran and near its borders poses a significant threat, especially in terms of the foreign support they may receive to launch attacks against the regime.
The regime’s current heightened threat perceptions have directly shaped its positioning vis-à-vis Israel. It is notable that since its formation, Iran has never directly attacked Israel from its territory until April 2024. Thereafter, the unprecedented scale and rapid escalation of attacks have called for a reassessment of its deterrence strategy to restore credible deterrence. This imperative has been further magnified with the fall of the Assad regime, which disrupted the land corridor stretching from Tehran to Beirut via Iraq and Syria.
For the regime to regain deterrence, the Islamic Republic Guard Corps would need to recover from the intelligence breach within the Iranian organisations and reinforce its defensive posture, shifting toward a model of deterrence by punishment that relies less on proxies and increasingly on its own capabilities.
Setting aside speculation, it is anticipated that the regime will intensify its ballistic missile development and potentially transition from a nuclear hedging strategy to one of nuclear ambiguity or nuclear deterrence. The likelihood of a nuclear-armed Iran is increasing, given that its existing deterrence capabilities are insufficient to counter external threats effectively.
While its forward defense strategy has maintained effectiveness for over a decade, its potency has diminished in response to Israel’s offensives to reduce the deterrent capacity of Hezbollah (which is the regime’s principal ally and acts as the principal to other proxies within the Axis of Resistance). Iran’s military strategic depth and extended deterrence through allies have become increasingly constrained as US pressure in Iraq and Lebanon pushes to centralise the use of force within state control.
This includes demands for dissolving armed factions and reforming the PMF by placing it under a military commander loyal to the Commander-in-Chief, rather than political groups. With the PMF draft law withdrawn from the agenda following US pressure, Iran’s allies are increasingly focused on preserving their own political and military existence, calibrating their needs with those of Tehran but placing local priorities first. Hezbollah’s resistance to disarmament is symbolic, as the reconstruction of predominantly Shia-dominated cities remains tied to its continued armed status. This dynamic is further compounded by the scheduled expiration of the UNIFIL mandate in 2026, which assumes that by then the Lebanese Armed Forces will take full control of the borders, a development that would directly undermine Hezbollah’s rationale for retaining its arsenal. Nonetheless, Iran’s strategic depth is reinforced through Hezbollah, which sustains the narrative of resistance and the right to resist occupation.
While the inevitability of Iran’s nuclear program remains in question, it is unlikely that the regime will give up on its Axis of Resistance as a culturally and ideologically based agent-principal relationship is difficult to break, especially at the hands of common threats and enemies. Despite significant setbacks, a revolutionary and revisionist power like Iran cannot confine itself within its borders. Moreover, a nuclear deterrent alone is insufficient for the regime to reshape the regional order.
Increased American military engagement in the Middle East, an unfavorable new regional security architecture, the threat of snapback sanctions, ethnic tensions and internal instability threats, as well as the continuing rivalry with Israel, are harbingers of an uneasy era of Iranian foreign policy and national security.
The views expressed in the Near East Policy Forum are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Near East Policy Forum or any of its partner organisations.
