Since the announcement of the ceasefire between Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other, and the disclosure of the memorandum of understanding signed in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, Iranian parties have begun promoting a narrative based on attempting to exploit the failure of the US administration to achieve its goal of overthrowing the regime or forcing it to accept its conditions, portraying it as a political victory and resilience, and a strengthening of its military capabilities and regional influence.

The transition of the United States from the stage of political confrontation and economic blockade to the stage of direct war and the use of military force constituted a shock for the Iranian leadership, whose long-term goal was not to continue the confrontation with Washington and turn it into a military one, but rather to achieve recognition of its role and position in regional equations, without having to enter the system of US interests or what is known as the US axis.

The political expressions that contributed to shaping the shock for the Iranian leadership—namely, this leadership, from founder Ruhollah Khomeini and later Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—came from ruling out any broad US war against Iran and its regime. They expressed this by asserting that 'America cannot commit any folly,' either as a result of the doctrinal and ideological dimension upon which the founder built, or considering what Iran has achieved in terms of possessing military capabilities, regional influence, and strategic depth in West Asia, as Supreme Leader Khamenei believed.

Perhaps the narrative provided by the former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, before his assassination and after the assassination of the Supreme Leader, in an interview he conducted with the official Iranian Radio and Television Foundation about some details of a meeting he had with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, which took place at the latter's request during one of his visits to the United States in 2015, constitutes a clear expression of the Iranian mentality in its view of the importance of its position on the international map, the difficulty of the US military option, and Washington's desire to restore its relations with Iran given its pivotal geopolitical and geoeconomic weight internationally, and that the importance of this weight was the motive for preserving the Iranian plateau as a unified geographical entity when the major powers agreed on the division of the region after the First and Second World Wars.

Despite the major slogans raised by the Iranian regime, from 'Death to America' to seeking to achieve the 'supreme' doctrinal and ideological ambition of eliminating the Israeli entity and erasing it from existence, the goal was not and will not be to inflict defeat and end US hegemony or eliminate Israel, but rather to seek a major settlement under which Washington officially recognizes the Iranian role and position, in return for Tehran normalizing its relations with Washington without subordination or submission to the political will of America. The two milestones of the 2015 agreement on the nuclear program with the administration of former President Barack Obama, and the memorandum of understanding signed by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 17 of last year, constituted the most prominent indicators of this Iranian desire.

Iran's ambition to reach this equation with successive US administrations over three decades was based on and relied on a discourse that antagonizes Washington on one hand, and relies on a nuclear program that places Iran close to the nuclear threshold, in addition to a broad base of regional influence through the proxies it planted in West Asia on the other hand, especially since these proxies formed an ideological and strategic depth for it and its regional project, aiming to push Washington to accept Iran as a regional power, a power that does not fall under the US security umbrella.

The Iranians were aware of the sensitivity of this equation, especially on the Israeli side, and that the main battle and primary conflict would not be with Washington, but between their ambitions and those of Tel Aviv, and who extends its hegemony and control over the Middle East region and has the decision-making power there. This was expressed by a number of Iranian leaders such as Ali Larijani and Ali Shamkhani, who were killed by Israel in the recent war, and spoke about the need for Washington to abandon its absolute support for Tel Aviv, and move towards a kind of balance in dealing with regional powers that have a role and influence, and recognition of its position on the map of regional equations.

If these leaders were shocked by Washington's rapid transition from a policy of containment, blockade, and political and economic isolation to a policy of direct military and security confrontation, then this reveals the extent of the Iranian error in reading the complexities of the relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv. Despite Washington's affirmation of the functional role of Tel Aviv in the equation of US interests, as affirmed by US Vice President JD Vance, and also the special envoy of President Trump to Syria and Iraq, Tom Barrack, that US interests are prioritized if these interests conflict with Israeli interests or any other ally. Consequently, its handling of the path adopted by President Trump in achieving US interests on the global level did not take into account the possibility of moving to the military level and direct confrontation, and that what was possible with any previous US president will not be effective with Trump, who is fond of breaking free from all constraints and rules in international relations.

President Trump's decision to return to war, overturn the negotiating table, end the ceasefire, and stop the implementation of the memorandum of understanding produced by the negotiating path sponsored by Pakistan, brings back to the forefront the possibility that Trump has opened a new path that revives the basic ambition that converges with Tel Aviv's ambitions: dismantling the Iranian regime and eliminating it through military pressure, economic exhaustion, and the possibility of internal conflicts.

With this return and the attempt to re-impose Trump's conditions on Tehran, including the end of all its ambitions in a manner resembling surrender, Trump has fired a shot at the equation that Tehran wants to reach, i.e., recognition of its role without being part of the US axis, in an attempt to revive the experience of the opening led by Kissinger to China in 1972. However, what fell out of Iranian calculations is that that opening was imposed by the Cold War and Washington's efforts to weaken its rival the Soviet Union and prevent any alliance between the two, while the one Iran seeks to encircle is none other than Washington's regional arm in Tel Aviv, and that the US interest has not yet reached a reading that allows it to abandon this arm in favor of a new equation in the Middle East in which Iran has a position, a role, and partnership.

Translated from Independent Arabia

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