Interesting analysis. Thank you. However, whether it’s a breakdown as you put it or a sign of survival as others see it, the end effect is the same if US/Israel don’t finish it, namely, the regime lives to fight another day.
Even if the regime falls, they could have a backup plan for ultimate revenge afterward. We can’t let our guard down. This is an ideological/religious war and not just a war between states.
I assume that either you don't live in the US or are too young to remember anything. Any American old enough remembers 1979, 1983,1988. The large fraction of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by Iranian IEDs. Thousands of American lives taken by Iran, both civilians and military. Iran has been at war with America for 47 years.
Your comment is either ignorant or willfully stupid.
Btw: If you really think that we need to start new wars because of shit that happened last century, when are we going to bomb Tel Aviv for taking out the USS Liberty? 🤔
Looking forward to the day that I can visit a free Iran and then take a direct flight from Tehran to Tel Aviv and sample some Israeli beer on an Israeli beach.
Personally I’m looking forward to the IRGC realizing that you just can’t stay safe without nukes, and firing off a couple at Tel Aviv. Thereby solving numerous problems in the region at once.
An outstanding piece by Mehdi. In fact, the metaphor I use is a race between two teams of runners: 1. The Regime and 2. the US/Israel. The regime team’s runners are endurance types. استقامت. On the other hand, the US/Israel team’s are sprint types. سرعت.
ُThe endurance team wants the sprinters to run out of breath, whilst the sprinters want to capture the goalpost first.
But this argument misses a third actor: The long-suffering people of Iran, the so-called 85%ters. ۸۵ درصدی ها. The ratio of Iran’s population against the religious fascists of Tehran.
If the sprinters cause enough damage to the endurance team’s assets, then the endurance side will show cracks and that is when the third set of runners those with sprint and endurance skills will come and capture the cup. Once and for all. For Iran and her future children. For all of us. Amen!
The IRGC is the only thing holding the country together now, and it is getting weaker every day as the US and Israel strike its bases. At some point, the balance of power between it and the Artesh (regular military) is going to tip against them. Then we will see the regime implode when the Artesh leaders decide that they’ve had enough of the regime and mutiny.
Mehdi, this is a sharp and disciplined argument—and it forces a necessary correction to a very common analytical reflex: equating visible activity with systemic health.
Your core point about “mosaic defence” is especially important. Systems designed for decapitation do not fail in the way outsiders intuitively expect. They don’t go quiet—they fragment and continue. In that sense, continued missile launches, street repression, and even bureaucratic continuity can indeed be consistent with degradation rather than control.
But there is a risk in moving too far in the opposite direction.
What you describe is not necessarily a collapse phase. It may also be a transition into a lower-coherence but still functional wartime mode. Fragmentation is not binary—it exists on a spectrum. A decentralised system can lose efficiency, visibility, and coordination while still retaining enough internal alignment to operate strategically, especially when the objective is not victory but endurance.
That distinction matters.
Because the key analytical question is not whether the centre is weakened—it clearly is—but whether it has lost the ability to set boundaries for the system. Even loosely coordinated networks can remain dangerous and politically effective if they still operate within an understood strategic frame. The quote you highlight about pre-authorised actions cuts both ways: it signals degraded control, but also prior planning and retained intent.
The same applies to repression. A degraded apparatus is not the same as a failing one. Historically, regimes under pressure often become less precise but more brutal. The loss of surveillance density and command integration can reduce efficiency—but it can also increase unpredictability, which in some cases suppresses mobilisation rather than enabling it.
On the political side, I think your reading of elite silence as “paralysis under uncertainty” is persuasive—but again, indeterminate. Waiting behaviour is not unique to collapsing systems; it is also typical of regimes where the outcome of external pressure is unclear. Elites hedge when they do not know which way the wind will settle—not only when they believe the structure is about to fall.
Where your argument is strongest is on the economic layer. If patronage and pay begin to fail—especially around Nowruz—that is not just degradation, it is a direct strike on regime cohesion. Authoritarian systems can survive fragmentation of command more easily than fragmentation of payment.
So the picture that emerges is perhaps slightly different:
Not a system that has clearly entered collapse, but a system operating inside its designed failure mode— where collapse becomes possible, but not yet inevitable.
And that leads to the strategic crux.
If Tehran’s calculation is that Washington will not sustain pressure long enough to turn degradation into breakdown, then the regime does not need coherence—it needs time. In that sense, the burden of proof shifts outward. The decisive variable is no longer what Iran is, but how long external pressure is maintained against what it has become.
Your framework is valuable because it warns against premature conclusions of resilience.
But the inverse warning is just as important: systems built to survive decapitation can look like they are collapsing— and still outlast the people trying to collapse them.
I see little reason, besides wishful thinking, to confuse the regimes durability and survival with “ACKSHUALLY all those rallies in support of the regime in Iran, means the mullahs are TOTALLY losing control!”
He’s just coping. Yet another exiled Iranian with dual loyalties.
Frankly we should deport people like him back to Iran. The real security threat isn’t the IRGC, it’s people like him with a vested interest of continuing their old conflicts in their new countries.
This analysis could be true, it could also be wishful thinking. Every sign of strength and / or resilience cannot all mean weakness and fragility. We won’t know what the real state of this regime is until the people hit the streets en masse. If they don’t, then the regime is almost certainly going to last, and we will never know how close - or how far away - from collapse it actually is.
It occurs to me that the source of the system’s resilience—it’s decentralization into a mosaic of independent commands—could also be its weakness. At what point does a local commander decide he would be better leader than the supreme leader?
Does Iran also have a doomsday plan - where they strike after the regime has actually fallen? Such a plan may involve exploding smuggled nuclear warheads inside the USA, possibly with the help of sleeper agents or sympathizers, and could have a very long timeline. If they have only a few nuclear weapons, this is how I believe they will use them. They would not use missiles, since most of their missiles get shot down.
But I read that Iran is still shipping oil and at much higher prices. Therefore their oil revenue has gone up by billions of dollars since the start of the war. So why doesn't the government have enough money?
There seems to be an aspect of this insightful analysis that has not been mentioned. Iran’s Mosaic strategy belies the notion that the regime was negotiating in good faith.
Negotiation may have been part of the mosaic strategy enabling the regime to play “rope a dope“ with the West while it hardened its defensive positions and worked feverishly to build nukes and long range missiles.
“Negotiation“ is the cornerstone of all anti-war propaganda that is flowing out of Democratic operatives in the mainstream media and many members of the lunatic right (e.g., Tucker Carlson). Their claim that the Iranian regime was negotiating in good faith collides with the reality of Mosaic. Arguably, both things could be true, but continuing factual evidence of bad faith negotiation by Iran indicates otherwise.
In reality, the only way that Mosaic works is if the West caves. I truly hope that doesn’t happen, because a regime that brutalize’s its citizens, murders thousands of dissidents, and threatens its neighbors should cease to exist—sooner rather than later.
Interesting analysis. Thank you. However, whether it’s a breakdown as you put it or a sign of survival as others see it, the end effect is the same if US/Israel don’t finish it, namely, the regime lives to fight another day.
Even if the regime falls, they could have a backup plan for ultimate revenge afterward. We can’t let our guard down. This is an ideological/religious war and not just a war between states.
There is certainly a very real danger of various factions forming militias and terrorist groups.
Nah, it’s just another war for Israel.
Ayatollah bros haven’t done anything to me. I wish them all the best and to keep firing those missiles.
I assume that either you don't live in the US or are too young to remember anything. Any American old enough remembers 1979, 1983,1988. The large fraction of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by Iranian IEDs. Thousands of American lives taken by Iran, both civilians and military. Iran has been at war with America for 47 years.
Your comment is either ignorant or willfully stupid.
Btw: If you really think that we need to start new wars because of shit that happened last century, when are we going to bomb Tel Aviv for taking out the USS Liberty? 🤔
Who cares. They should never have been there in the first place.
The lesson here isn’t “war with Iran is good!” Lmao! The lesson is: “Stay out of Israel’s wars.”
This began as a three week peace negotiation that ended badly.
Even if Trump feels pressured to end the war, Israel will continue because our lives depend on it.
Looking forward to the day that I can visit a free Iran and then take a direct flight from Tehran to Tel Aviv and sample some Israeli beer on an Israeli beach.
From your mouth to God’s ear.
Personally I’m looking forward to the IRGC realizing that you just can’t stay safe without nukes, and firing off a couple at Tel Aviv. Thereby solving numerous problems in the region at once.
From the US side, there has been no purpose to continue for several days now.
Thanks for explaining what is creating the condition we observe.
An outstanding piece by Mehdi. In fact, the metaphor I use is a race between two teams of runners: 1. The Regime and 2. the US/Israel. The regime team’s runners are endurance types. استقامت. On the other hand, the US/Israel team’s are sprint types. سرعت.
ُThe endurance team wants the sprinters to run out of breath, whilst the sprinters want to capture the goalpost first.
But this argument misses a third actor: The long-suffering people of Iran, the so-called 85%ters. ۸۵ درصدی ها. The ratio of Iran’s population against the religious fascists of Tehran.
If the sprinters cause enough damage to the endurance team’s assets, then the endurance side will show cracks and that is when the third set of runners those with sprint and endurance skills will come and capture the cup. Once and for all. For Iran and her future children. For all of us. Amen!
The IRGC is the only thing holding the country together now, and it is getting weaker every day as the US and Israel strike its bases. At some point, the balance of power between it and the Artesh (regular military) is going to tip against them. Then we will see the regime implode when the Artesh leaders decide that they’ve had enough of the regime and mutiny.
That is the missing piece in the analysis.
perhaps when the pay checks stop & the US puts them on the payroll
Mehdi, this is a sharp and disciplined argument—and it forces a necessary correction to a very common analytical reflex: equating visible activity with systemic health.
Your core point about “mosaic defence” is especially important. Systems designed for decapitation do not fail in the way outsiders intuitively expect. They don’t go quiet—they fragment and continue. In that sense, continued missile launches, street repression, and even bureaucratic continuity can indeed be consistent with degradation rather than control.
But there is a risk in moving too far in the opposite direction.
What you describe is not necessarily a collapse phase. It may also be a transition into a lower-coherence but still functional wartime mode. Fragmentation is not binary—it exists on a spectrum. A decentralised system can lose efficiency, visibility, and coordination while still retaining enough internal alignment to operate strategically, especially when the objective is not victory but endurance.
That distinction matters.
Because the key analytical question is not whether the centre is weakened—it clearly is—but whether it has lost the ability to set boundaries for the system. Even loosely coordinated networks can remain dangerous and politically effective if they still operate within an understood strategic frame. The quote you highlight about pre-authorised actions cuts both ways: it signals degraded control, but also prior planning and retained intent.
The same applies to repression. A degraded apparatus is not the same as a failing one. Historically, regimes under pressure often become less precise but more brutal. The loss of surveillance density and command integration can reduce efficiency—but it can also increase unpredictability, which in some cases suppresses mobilisation rather than enabling it.
On the political side, I think your reading of elite silence as “paralysis under uncertainty” is persuasive—but again, indeterminate. Waiting behaviour is not unique to collapsing systems; it is also typical of regimes where the outcome of external pressure is unclear. Elites hedge when they do not know which way the wind will settle—not only when they believe the structure is about to fall.
Where your argument is strongest is on the economic layer. If patronage and pay begin to fail—especially around Nowruz—that is not just degradation, it is a direct strike on regime cohesion. Authoritarian systems can survive fragmentation of command more easily than fragmentation of payment.
So the picture that emerges is perhaps slightly different:
Not a system that has clearly entered collapse, but a system operating inside its designed failure mode— where collapse becomes possible, but not yet inevitable.
And that leads to the strategic crux.
If Tehran’s calculation is that Washington will not sustain pressure long enough to turn degradation into breakdown, then the regime does not need coherence—it needs time. In that sense, the burden of proof shifts outward. The decisive variable is no longer what Iran is, but how long external pressure is maintained against what it has become.
Your framework is valuable because it warns against premature conclusions of resilience.
But the inverse warning is just as important: systems built to survive decapitation can look like they are collapsing— and still outlast the people trying to collapse them.
I see little reason, besides wishful thinking, to confuse the regimes durability and survival with “ACKSHUALLY all those rallies in support of the regime in Iran, means the mullahs are TOTALLY losing control!”
He’s just coping. Yet another exiled Iranian with dual loyalties.
Frankly we should deport people like him back to Iran. The real security threat isn’t the IRGC, it’s people like him with a vested interest of continuing their old conflicts in their new countries.
This analysis could be true, it could also be wishful thinking. Every sign of strength and / or resilience cannot all mean weakness and fragility. We won’t know what the real state of this regime is until the people hit the streets en masse. If they don’t, then the regime is almost certainly going to last, and we will never know how close - or how far away - from collapse it actually is.
It occurs to me that the source of the system’s resilience—it’s decentralization into a mosaic of independent commands—could also be its weakness. At what point does a local commander decide he would be better leader than the supreme leader?
Iran = the erratic lunges of a trapped animal.
Does Iran also have a doomsday plan - where they strike after the regime has actually fallen? Such a plan may involve exploding smuggled nuclear warheads inside the USA, possibly with the help of sleeper agents or sympathizers, and could have a very long timeline. If they have only a few nuclear weapons, this is how I believe they will use them. They would not use missiles, since most of their missiles get shot down.
But I read that Iran is still shipping oil and at much higher prices. Therefore their oil revenue has gone up by billions of dollars since the start of the war. So why doesn't the government have enough money?
Any resilience is courtesy of Obama and Biden, who sent them billions of dollars to finance it.
Iran has no weapons or military equipment. The US has stopped its attack and is focused on the Strait.
Good work, author that was very helpful. 🤞 let’s hope the Iranian people escape this nightmare.
Very good piece.
Love it
There seems to be an aspect of this insightful analysis that has not been mentioned. Iran’s Mosaic strategy belies the notion that the regime was negotiating in good faith.
Negotiation may have been part of the mosaic strategy enabling the regime to play “rope a dope“ with the West while it hardened its defensive positions and worked feverishly to build nukes and long range missiles.
“Negotiation“ is the cornerstone of all anti-war propaganda that is flowing out of Democratic operatives in the mainstream media and many members of the lunatic right (e.g., Tucker Carlson). Their claim that the Iranian regime was negotiating in good faith collides with the reality of Mosaic. Arguably, both things could be true, but continuing factual evidence of bad faith negotiation by Iran indicates otherwise.
In reality, the only way that Mosaic works is if the West caves. I truly hope that doesn’t happen, because a regime that brutalize’s its citizens, murders thousands of dissidents, and threatens its neighbors should cease to exist—sooner rather than later.