Night settles over the usual debate about the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, and the same problem keeps showing up: a lot of people argue from what they can see, not what they can’t.
Leadership, information, and who actually decides
The war, though, has thinned out that balancing act.
By its own count, Israel has killed more than 250 senior Iranian leaders, including Khamenei, the commander of the IRGC and numerous senior IRGC figures, the defense minister, and many others.
Khamenei’s son Mojtaba was chosen as the new supreme leader, but his control is uncertain.
It has been reported that the airstrike that killed his father injured him, perhaps severely, and he has not been seen in public.
Even without these injuries, he would need time to consolidate power; his father took years to do so.
That leaves outsiders—and even, maybe, some insiders—with an awkward uncertainty: today, it is not clear if Mojtaba Khamenei is a leader or a figurehead.
Either way, the relative strength—and viewpoints—of the different factions that made up Iran’s deep state is also unclear.
Iran’s regime today is probably more conservative and hostile to the United States, with younger IRGC figures empowered.
How that general characterization translates into specific outcomes is unclear.
Five unknowns that could shift the conflict
In a war, it gets worse.
Because of the Israeli assassination campaign, Iranian leaders cannot regularly meet or communicate without risking further attacks.
That makes it hard for them to develop a common threat picture and understand what’s working and what isn’t.
And when you can’t verify reality together, you start to lean on narratives—sometimes the useful kind, sometimes the self-serving kind.
So the third unknown becomes blunt: does Iran really think it has won?
Now that the shooting has been put on hold, Iran’s leaders seem to be walking tall, issuing demands to end long-standing sanctions and declaring that they will impose tolls on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran found an effective way to impose heavy costs on the United States by attacking U.S.
allies in the Gulf and stopping traffic in the strait.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, taunted Americans on X recently, noting that they may soon be “nostalgic” for $5 a gallon gas.
But facts on the ground—if you can call them that—don’t match the swagger.
Iran has suffered staggering losses.
The United States and Israel have destroyed much of its military and more than half of its missile launchers, in addition to killing many of its leaders.
Iran’s bridges, ports, and other critical infrastructure have been bombed, with Iranian officials estimating the damage from the war at $270 billion.
It is in Iran’s interest to claim it is winning, just as it is in U.S.
President Donald Trump’s interest to say “we won.” Misreading either side’s claims matters here.
Iran’s poor information flows may lead some leaders to misperceive how well things are going for them.
Iran may be bluffing, but it may also believe, wrongly, that it can make expansive demands at the negotiating table without the risk of resumed conflict.
The next unknown is escalation capacity.
Both the United States and Iran are threatening to inflict more pain should the conflict resume.
But Iran’s ability to do so is uncertain.
Historically, Iran has mixed aggression and caution—subverting neighbors and spreading influence when it sensed weakness, then pulling back as the brink approached.
Tehran’s battered military still can threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz with a mix of mines, drones, and small boats, but the growing U.S.
military presence in the region—including more Marines and special operations forces—lets the United States push back, including with a presence on the ground, if the Trump administration is willing to risk escalation.
Misryoum also flags something that sounds counterintuitive given Iran’s history: nor has Tehran used international terrorism, despite its long history of backing terrorist groups and using terrorism to punish its enemies around the world.
Such strikes would enable Iran to inflict pain directly on the United States as well as supportive allies.
Iran, however, may lack the capability to launch these attacks due to a U.S.-led disruption campaign, and Tehran may fear such attacks would backfire.
Finally, there is domestic vulnerability.
In late December and January, Iran’s clerical regime faced the most serious demonstrations in its history.
To regain control, the regime slaughtered thousands of peaceful protesters.
One U.S.
and Israeli goal at the start of the war, now seemingly abandoned, was regime change in Iran.
Today, even as the regime nervously eyes the United States and Israel, it must also fear its own people.
Iran has arrested, and even executed, regime opponents in the latest round of fighting.
That pressure can push Iran in different directions.
Additional economic pain would increase criticism of the regime and make sanctions relief vital, strengthening U.S.
leverage.
At the same time, it is politically hard for a weak regime to make concessions—such as abandoning the nuclear program—without admitting that all of Iran’s pain and suffering could have been avoided by a more accommodating stance before the war began.
None of this is just academic.
Uncertainties about leadership authority, informational integrity, perceived success, escalation thresholds, and domestic vulnerability are not peripheral; they are the core determinants of how the war may evolve.
Strategies built on confident assumptions about Iranian decision-making are likely to be brittle.
Misreading who holds real authority could lead to ineffective deterrent signals.
Underestimating information distortions within the regime could produce false expectations about rational restraint.
And the part that sticks—awkwardly, even—is how easy it is to mistake a posture for a plan.
Taking claims of victory at face value—or dismissing them entirely—risks misunderstanding Iran’s willingness to continue or expand the conflict.
The most dangerous failure could be judging escalation thresholds or how sensitive the regime is to internal unrest, triggering actions that produce precisely the outcomes the United States and Israel seek to avoid.
A more prudent approach is to treat these five questions not as analytical gaps to be quickly filled (although doing so would be desirable) but as enduring uncertainties to be managed.
This requires humility, continuous reassessment, and a willingness to hedge against multiple plausible interpretations of Iranian behavior.
In a conflict where the most decisive factors lie behind closed doors, the greatest risk is not what we fail to see but what we assume we already understand—though, honestly, you still wish somebody could simply see the room where the decisions get made.
After all, the day’s work ends, the files close, and you hear only the hum of the newsroom lights.
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