Nezam vs. Vatan: A State at War with Its Nation

A deterrence strategy built to save the system is now putting Iran itself at risk.

Satellite image of the Persian Gulf at night

More than a month into the war that began on February 28, the Islamic Republic has moved from failed deterrence to a strategy that now threatens Iran’s survival as a state.

President Trump’s threat to strike Iran’s power plants and bridges if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened shows how badly the Islamic Republic’s deterrence strategy has failed. It was supposed to prevent war. Instead, it is now putting Iran at risk of state failure.

From Failed Deterrence to State Failure

For more than two decades, the Islamic Republic spent huge national resources on three pillars of deterrence: the nuclear program, the missile program, and a network of regional proxies. The goal was simple. It wanted to make the cost of attacking Iran so high that no major military campaign would be launched against it.

The economic cost of this strategy was enormous. It is hard to measure it exactly. One study estimates that sanctions alone cost Iran about $1.2 trillion between 2011 and 2022. Other public estimates have put the broader long-term cost of Iran’s nuclear path at around $2 trillion or more. For a country like Iran, that is a huge price to pay.

The 12-day war of June 2025 showed the weakness of that strategy. Missiles, proxies, and Iran’s nuclear threshold status did not stop the attack. They did not protect Iran once the fighting began either. Most importantly, the nuclear program, which the regime had long presented as its ultimate shield, became a reason for attack rather than a source of protection.

After the 12-day war, the regime turned to a second form of deterrence. This one relied on geography and economics. Tehran made clear that if another war began, it would widen the conflict. It would target infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region and threaten the waterways, energy routes, and trade on which both the region and the wider world depend. The Islamic Republic followed through on that promise after the current war started. The message was clear: if Iran could not stop pressure directly, it would spread the cost across the Persian Gulf and beyond.

That strategy is also backfiring. Once infrastructure becomes a tool of pressure, it also becomes a target. The same power plants that serve civilian homes also supply military sites, underground facilities, and what the regime calls its missile cities. By attacking the infrastructure of others, the Islamic Republic is putting Iran’s own infrastructure in the line of fire. Trump’s threat shows where this logic can lead.

This is the state eating itself. By weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz and the economic life of the Persian Gulf, the regime is not only endangering others. It is also damaging its own oil income and burning the goodwill of the few states that might still prefer a diplomatic way out. A strategy presented as deterrence is consuming the conditions of Iran’s own survival.

Nezam Against Vatan

For years, the Persian Gulf countries helped Iran’s sanctions-busting system work. They provided the financial, commercial, and logistical channels that enabled Tehran to survive sanctions, pressure, and isolation. But when the current war began, the Islamic Republic was willing to put that same system at risk. The number of missiles and drones launched at Persian Gulf countries, compared with those launched at Israel, made that clear. This was not just spillover from the war. It was part of the regime’s logic of violence. The channels that helped the Islamic Republic survive sanctions also helped sustain the missile and drone production it now uses to threaten the region. The countries that enabled that system are now exposed to its consequences.

Now the wider region is experiencing what the Iranian people have endured for nearly half a century. At home, the regime kills at scale. Abroad, it spreads fear and destruction at scale. In both cases, the aim is the same: to preserve the system through violence. In January 2026, the regime killed thousands of its own citizens in a nationwide crackdown. Now, by widening the war and normalizing attacks on infrastructure, it is exposing those same citizens to the risk of retaliation from outside. A system that wages one war against external enemies and another against its own people cannot credibly claim to protect the nation.

That is why the distinction between Iran and the Islamic Republic matters. Iran needs stability, trade, investment, and a workable regional environment. The Islamic Republic has chosen something narrower: regime survival through coercion. The deterrent was built to save the Nezam. It is now helping destroy the Vatan.

The survival of the system has been decoupled from the survival of Iran as a country.

That is the real measure of failure. The regime spent national wealth on a first deterrence strategy that failed and backfired. It then turned to geography and economics as a second deterrence strategy, and that too is backfiring. The result is not security. It is a regime trying to save itself in ways that could destroy Iran as a state.

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