The conventional wisdom says Donald Trump’s "maximum pressure" campaign and Benjamin Netanyahu’s relentless shadow war brought the Islamic Republic of Iran to its knees. It’s a compelling narrative. You see the protests on the streets of Tehran, the plummeting rial, and the smoking ruins of nuclear facilities, and you think the end is near. But if you look closer at the internal mechanics of Iranian power, a different, more uncomfortable reality emerges. By pushing the regime into a corner, the U.S. and Israel didn’t trigger a collapse. They triggered a consolidation.
They basically handed the hardliners a "get out of jail free" card.
For decades, the Iranian political system survived on a delicate, often chaotic balance between "reformists" who wanted to engage the West and "principlists" who viewed every olive branch as a Trojan horse. When Trump tore up the JCPOA (the 2015 nuclear deal) in 2018, he didn't just exit a contract. He effectively executed the Iranian moderate movement. Figures like Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif, who staked their entire careers on the idea that negotiating with Washington could bring prosperity, were left looking like fools.
The death of the Iranian middle ground
The most significant casualty of the maximum pressure era wasn't the Iranian economy, though that took a massive hit. It was the internal debate. Before 2018, you could actually find vibrant, albeit constrained, arguments in Tehran about how much the country should open up. Small businesses were popping up. Tech startups were looking for foreign VC. People were hopeful.
Then the sanctions hit. Not just any sanctions, but a total financial blockade.
When you destroy the private sector, you don't hurt the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). You help them. The IRGC thrives in a black-market economy. They control the ports, the smuggling routes, and the "bonyads" (charitable foundations) that operate as massive, tax-exempt conglomerates. As legitimate businesses withered because they couldn't access the SWIFT banking system, the IRGC-linked firms stepped in to fill the void. They became the only game in town. They are the ones who can move oil, bring in consumer goods, and pay salaries when nobody else can.
Trump and Netanyahu thought they were starving the beast. In reality, they were killing off the beast’s competition.
Why the outside threat is a gift to dictators
Every sociology student knows that an external threat is the best way to quiet internal dissent. The Islamic Republic has used this playbook since the 1980s. During the Iran-Iraq War, the "Sacred Defense" allowed the nascent regime to crush its domestic rivals under the guise of national survival.
Netanyahu’s frequent presentations of "secret nuclear files" and the targeted assassinations of scientists like Mohsen Fakhrizadeh certainly damaged Iran’s technical capabilities. No doubt about that. But politically, they were a godsend for the Supreme Leader. Every time a bomb goes off in Isfahan or a cyberattack hits a gas station, the regime’s propaganda machine goes into overdrive. They tell the public: "See? The world is out to get you. If you protest against us, you are a tool of the Zionists."
It creates a "rally 'round the flag" effect that even people who hate the mullahs feel. They might despise the morality police, but they don't want their country turned into another Libya or Iraq. The fear of chaos often outweighs the desire for change. By making the threat of regime change feel like an existential threat to the Iranian state itself, the West helped the clerical establishment wrap itself in the Iranian flag.
The shift to the East was the final piece
The most lasting consequence of the Trump-Netanyahu era isn't found in the Middle East. It’s found in the deepening ties between Tehran, Beijing, and Moscow. Before the JCPOA was scrapped, Iran was at least looking West. They wanted Airbus planes. They wanted French oil technology.
Once the door to the West was slammed shut, Iran had no choice but to pivot. They signed a 25-year strategic partnership with China. They became a critical supplier of drones for Russia’s war in Ukraine. This isn't just a temporary alliance of convenience. It’s a structural shift in the global order.
This "Axis of the Sanctioned" provides the Iranian regime with something it never had before: a safety net that doesn't depend on the good graces of the White House. China buys the oil through "teapot" refineries. Russia provides the military hardware and veto power at the UN. The regime is arguably more secure today than it was in 2015 because it's no longer vulnerable to Western economic pressure in the same way. They've built a "resistance economy" that, while miserable for the average citizen, is perfectly functional for the elite.
The irony of the 2022 protests
When the "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini, many observers thought this was finally it. The pressure had worked. But notice what happened. The regime didn't blink. The hardliners, who had spent the last four years purging moderates from the parliament and the presidency, held a total monopoly on the security apparatus.
There were no more "moderate" voices in the halls of power to suggest a compromise. Because those voices had been silenced by the failure of the nuclear deal, the only response left was brute force. The regime’s survival instinct was honed by years of maximum pressure. They learned how to live under siege.
If the goal was to make Iran a more dangerous, more radicalized, and more entrenched adversary, then the policy was a roaring success. If the goal was to help the Iranian people achieve a more representative government, it was a catastrophic failure.
Realities for the next decade
We have to stop assuming that economic pain automatically leads to political change. In many cases, it leads to the "North Korea-fication" of a state. The elite gets richer through smuggling, and the middle class—the very people who usually lead democratic revolutions—is liquidated.
If you want to understand where Iran is going, stop looking at the rhetoric coming out of Washington or Jerusalem. Look at the trade volume between Iran and its neighbors. Look at the sophistication of their domestic missile industry, which grew because they couldn't buy weapons elsewhere.
To actually impact the situation, the focus needs to move away from blunt instruments that punish the 85 million people living there. Strategies that bypass the regime to provide internet access or support for labor unions are far more threatening to the mullahs than another round of banking sanctions that only the IRGC knows how to circumvent.
Start by tracking the "shadow fleet" of oil tankers that keep the regime's lights on. Understanding how the IRGC launders money through regional hubs is more useful than any political speech. The era of "maximum pressure" proved one thing: you can't starve a regime that has already learned how to eat in the dark.
