Iran insists it has upper hand despite bombings and existential threat to regime

Iranian leaders want the world to believe they are willing and capable of unleashing historic levels of violence in response to ongoing Israeli airstrikes, but their actions are not living up to their rhetoric.

Perhaps the most obvious lack of follow-through occurred Tuesday, when Iranian state media warned that, overnight, “a great surprise will occur, one that the world will remember for centuries.”

Hours ticked by as the world contemplated the ominous forecast. As the night passed in Iran, questions arose about what time zone the Iranian government might have been referencing in its threat. The only action taken by Iran was a two-round barrage of missiles, most of which were intercepted. No casualties were reported.

By the time Wednesday morning arrived in the United States, it became clear that the “great surprise” was a great disappointment.

Hyper-fearsome propaganda dominates Iranian messaging amid Israel’s attacks, yet its military has been unable to muster a retaliation that meets the expectations it sets.

The Islamic Republic News Agency posted a video to social media on Tuesday showing an Iranian soldier suggestively stroking a fake nuclear warhead with the caption “maybe.”

Another video posted by the agency, which is accredited and controlled by the regime, shows a missile being fired into an anime caricature of President Donald Trump’s open mouth.

Other state-affiliated accounts and various commentators have shared past gems from the Iranian propaganda archives, such as a 2022 animation depicting an Iranian drone assassinating Trump on his Mar-a-Lago golf course.

As it stands, Israel’s strikes on Iranian targets since Friday have killed approximately 10 times the number of people as the reverse. But if one were to only imbibe content put out by Iran and its supporters, one would think it is prevailing over Israel after its initial strikes on Tel Aviv.

The ultimate reason for the mismatch of rhetoric and action was unintentionally summed up by the Iranian Mission to the U.S. in New York, whose social media account stated plainly that “Iran shall respond to any threat with a counter-threat.”

As Israel and the U.S. pressure Iran to stand down and surrender with warnings of increased carnage, the government seems to see no alternative but to fire threats right back, whether they can back them up or not.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei finds himself in a no-win scenario. Rolling over in the face of Israeli attacks, making concessions for the sake of peace with an aggressor state, would undermine and dissolve his legitimacy in the minds of his followers.

For this reason, Khamenei has thumbed his nose at any and all demands for Iran to surrender to Israel, including those coming from the White House, and claimed that his country will be able to inflict “irreparable damage” on the U.S. if it becomes involved.

“Intelligent people who know Iran, the nation, and the history of Iran will never speak to this nation in the language of threats, because the Iranian nation cannot be surrendered,” Khamenei said. “The Americans should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage.”

Iran’s inability to effectively punish its neighboring enemy, as well as geopolitical common sense, indicates that it is incapable of inflicting much damage at all against the domestic U.S., though military bases in the region remain possible targets.

But even if Khamenei was content to suffer a prolonged war and the casualties that come with it, there still exists the growing threat of a regime change being instigated by the conflict.

Israel has been extremely effective in decapitating not only Khamenei’s military but also internal security institutions that have historically suppressed popular uprisings. The disintegration of these agencies is drastically weakening the government’s control over the nation.

Trump has made clear that while Khamenei is currently a target of military strikes, his eventual assassination remains on the table.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” the president said in a post on Truth Social. “He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.”

The president is also floating the idea of a U.S.-led strike, saying, “I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran has got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate.”

In the face of existential threats and internal instability, Khamenei can do little but insist that, actually, the U.S. monitoring the conflict is a sign of Israeli fatigue.

“The very fact that the Zionist regime’s American friends have entered the scene and are saying such things is a sign of that regime’s weakness and inability,” he said Wednesday afternoon.

Israel is clear that its ultimate goal is to pound Iran into total submission to restore some semblance of the country’s prerevolutionary society. The Israeli military seems prepared to push forward with or without the U.S.

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Short of a drastic reversal in policy from Tel Aviv or the deployment of an Iranian weapon thus far unknown to the West, Khamenei and his government find themselves on a sinking ship with no lifeboats.

The only action they can take is to continuously insist that the day of reckoning is just around the corner.