Iran's leadership can read the financial pages, chart the West's vulnerability in a long war, and study the U.S. political calendar. That is the core of Tehran's survival calculus, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, writing in Foreign Policy. Polls show the war is supported by less than half the country - and midterm elections are coming.
The regime's bet on American fatigue is not just theoretical, "Hvylya" reports. Even typically pro-Trump voices have begun questioning the campaign. Podcaster Joe Rogan, usually a Trump supporter, called the war "crazy" on Tuesday. Iranians are listening - and drawing conclusions about America's political stamina.
Regime spokesman Mohammad Marandi captured Tehran's defiant posture in a video posted amid the bombing, insisting the war would continue until Washington accepted that striking Iran was never an option. Trump's own negotiator, Steve Witkoff, acknowledged last month that the president could not understand why Iran had not already capitulated - a question, Ignatius notes, that an earlier generation asked about the Viet Cong.
The columnist argues this persistence is rooted in something deeper than political calculation. People who feel they have nothing left but their pride and dignity will keep fighting even when facing an overwhelming adversary. That pattern, Ignatius writes, has held from Vietnam to Gaza - and now Iran.
Also read: Ferguson and Haass on Iran: A War That Must End in Weeks - or Become a Catastrophe.