Who will shape post-war Iran?

As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its sixth month, Washington appears to be betting that sustained military pressure will fracture Tehran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently suggested that members of the Iranian government had contacted the Trump administration, presenting this as evidence of divisions between officials seeking an agreement and more hardline forces.Those divisions exist, but Washington may be misreading how war affects them. For now, external attack has compressed disagreement rather than produced an open rupture. When the fighting subsides, a struggle is likely to emerge over Iran’s recovery. Security institutions can argue that the country endured because it retained the capacity to retaliate and must now restore deterrence. The government is more likely to push for prioritising trade, oil revenues, reconstruction and diplomacy.Mojtaba Khamenei’s first major test will be whether he can turn these rival visions of Iran’s future into a binding post-war strategy that the country’s different centres of power are prepared to follow.Dispersal of powerIran’s political system disperses decision-making across elected and unelected institutions while concentrating ...