Tehran and Washington are trapped in parallel deadlocks, each trying to turn survival, pressure, and escalation into leverage before another possible war.
Officials of the Islamic Republic say they are ready for a “Fourth War.” “Fourth” because they count the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, the recent 12-day war, and the recent 38-day war as three wars that the United States launched, directly or indirectly, to overthrow the Islamic Republic. And because Washington has still not abandoned its desire for this overthrow, a fourth war, they argue, is inevitably on the way.
A clear example of this perception and analysis among officials of the Islamic Republic can be seen in the tweet thread posted on Monday, April 27, 2026, by Mehdi Mohammadi, political adviser to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Parliament. Mohammadi wrote that if war begins again, it will be the “Fourth War,” not “the second phase of the Third War.” According to him, the United States’ objective at this stage is to “exit a state of humiliation and defeat,” while Israel’s objective is “opportunism aimed at inflicting lasting wounds.”
In this narrative, the current deadlock of war is portrayed not as the result of a balance of forces, but as the outcome of irrational factors prevailing in U.S. decision-making. Mohammadi says Trump knows many people see him as the loser of the war and wants to change judgments about himself; this, he says, is where “psychology takes precedence over strategy.”
The more important part of this analysis, however, is the way in which Islamic Republic envisions the next phase of war. From Tehran’s point of view, Mohammadi stresses, “this time victory must be complete,” by which he means “the restoration of deterrence and the creation of a new security order.” In such conditions, he writes, “there will effectively be no red line,” and Iran must expand the war, temporally and spatially, beyond the enemy’s estimates.
He also argues that Trump’s strategy lacks an “ending”; because even if the leaders of the Islamic Republic are assassinated again, others will replace them, and if Iran’s infrastructure is targeted, it will be rebuilt. Referring to the beginning of reconstruction work on petrochemical infrastructure, Mohammadi claimed that this process is already underway “at astonishing speed.”
In his view, assassinating leaders or attacking infrastructure, even if that represents the maximum extent of U.S. power, will not make Trump the victor of the war; rather, it will place him in the position of “blind revenge.” Mohammadi believes the war could have stopped at a balanced point if the United States had understood that it should not “follow Israel’s lead”.
This tweet thread also shows that some circles within the Islamic Republic’s leadership view the next phase of war through readiness for high-risk decisions. Mohammadi writes that the current situation will make Iran “more risk-tolerant,” and that the fate of the war will be determined not by the blow delivered in the first days, but by the medium-term process and the capacity to sustain risk until the end of the battle.
He ends by referring to the “prisoner’s dilemma” in game theory, describing Iran’s regionalization of the war as an example of decisions that may at first appear irrational, but later prove more rational than the alternatives.
His final question is what apparently irrational and high-risk decisions should be made on the eve of the “Fourth War” that will later prove correct in the course of battle. His implicit answer is clear: “The Fourth War must not end in deadlock.”
The Message from Tehran’s Inner Circle
This may be the most important recent position taken by someone close to the Islamic Republic’s inner circle of leadership. This tweet thread carries two messages: first, the United States should know that killing the current layer of the Islamic Republic’s leadership and destroying infrastructure will not cause us to surrender; second, in the next war, Iran will take actions far more asymmetric than regionalizing the war and closing the Strait of Hormuz, which it carried out during the 38-day war.
This is an effort by officials of the Islamic Republic to communicate the “position of the regime” to the other side. It can serve both to gain the upper hand in negotiations and to make the decision to start a new round of war more difficult for the United States.
In sum, the current situation can be explained as follows: the 38-day war created a deadlock that led to a ceasefire and the beginning of negotiations; now, the negotiations themselves have become trapped in the same deadlock.
Why War’s Deadlock Became Negotiation’s Deadlock
But why did the deadlock of war lead to a deadlock in negotiations? The straightforward answer is this: the United States considers changing the nature and behavior of the Islamic Republic its minimum objective in the current predicament, and if that is not achieved, it will be the loser. Washington’s flexibility in reaching this objective goes only so far as to detach it from a change in the ruling elite: the Islamic Republic may remain in power, provided that it is no longer “the former Islamic Republic.”
In Tehran, too, the “minimum objective” is to secure the benefits of sanctions relief, lasting peace, and recognition of the “Islamic Republic’s” right to exist and exercise regional influence. To achieve this objective, Tehran is prepared to accept a step-by-step and, of course, reversible process of “normalizing asymmetric tools,” such as proxies and the “nuclear threshold.”
In this deadlock of “mutually exclusive absolutes,” Tehran and Washington are showing each other their swords. Iran points to the Strait of Hormuz; the United States points to a naval blockade, and perhaps later an air blockade. Time is moving against both sides.
How is Iran acting in the current negotiations? The 38-day war that the United States and Israel imposed on Iran, while inflicting heavy damage on the country’s economic, military, and infrastructural body, has for now also brought Tehran an important tactical gain: a strengthened bargaining position around the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage through which the pulse of global energy flows.
Iran has now turned this card into its main bargaining lever in negotiations related to ending the war in Islamabad, Pakistan, and in indirect talks with regional and international mediators. Under heavy military blows, and despite the killing of a number of its commanders and political and military figures, the Islamic Republic has managed to achieve its initial objective to some extent: survival. But survival alone does not mean victory.
The central question is whether Tehran can turn this tactical gain, before it is exhausted, into a stable postwar order.
The Iranian Nightmare, the American Nightmare
A ceasefire without a postwar order is the worst possible outcome for Iran. If the ceasefire does not lead to the lifting or reduction of sanctions, the end of the naval blockade, the reopening of financial channels, and the creation of a minimum level of economic stability, it will be merely another form of attrition. In that case, Iran will have emerged from war, but will remain in a suspended condition: neither engaged in full-scale war, nor benefiting from real peace; neither able to rebuild quickly, nor granted normal access to global markets.
What is the worst outcome for the United States?
The worst outcome for the United States is something similar to the same state of suspension: neither clear victory, nor a defeat that can be hidden.
If Washington cannot force the current leaders of the Islamic Republic into the “substantive dissolution of the Islamic Republic,” but at the same time enters a longer, costlier, and more regionalized war, it will effectively fall into the very quagmire Tehran has promised. In such a situation, the United States would pay the costs of war, energy crisis, pressure on its allies in the Persian Gulf, domestic discontent, and the erosion of its military credibility, without being able to present Trump’s desired “golden political ending.”
For Trump, the worst-case scenario is a war that leads neither to “Iran’s surrender” nor to an agreement that can be called victory. If the Islamic Republic remains under military strikes but does not collapse; if its leaders are killed but an alternative decision-making structure is immediately put in place; if its infrastructure is damaged but it simultaneously turns the Strait of Hormuz and regional fronts into pressure levers, then the United States will face a war that was easier to start than to end.
The worst outcome for Washington would also be for its regional allies, especially the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, to conclude that the United States can drag them into a major crisis but cannot guarantee the security of their energy, ports, infrastructure, and trade. In such a situation, even if the United States has the military upper hand, it will face political and economic doubts among its allies—doubts that could push them toward more independent security mechanisms, compromise with Tehran, or diversification of relations with China and Russia.
In other words, just as a cessation of fire without a postwar order means attrition for Iran, continued pressure without a political ending means the United States becoming trapped in a futile war. If Washington cannot establish a clear relationship between military pressure, economic blockade, and its final political objective, it may find itself in a position where every new action only raises costs without bringing it closer to its desired outcome.
From this perspective, the current deadlock is not only Tehran’s deadlock; it is Washington’s, too. Iran is trying to use the Hormuz card, the regionalization of war, and the threat of asymmetric decisions to turn survival into political leverage. The United States, meanwhile, is trying to make survival unlikely for the Islamic Republic through blockade, economic pressure, and the threat of renewed attack. But if neither side can turn these pressures into a postwar framework, both will become trapped in an attritional situation—a situation in which the war does not end, but returns at every moment in another form.
