Iran's new tactics force US to reconsider its capacity for pain
When Israel and the US launched their operation against Iran, the core expectation was rapid regime change in Tehran.
While this outcome may still formally remain on the table, recent messaging from Washington suggests a partial recalibration away from that initial assumption.
Developments on the ground have failed to produce the anticipated shock and public fury necessary to trigger internal collapse in Iran. As the war enters its fourth day, it has expanded horizontally. Instead of unravelling, the Islamic Republic’s system has adopted a posture of resilience, while inflicting damage on locations connected to its enemies.
This is forcing the US and Israel to reshape their regime change calculations and assumptions about Iran’s negotiating position. Following the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran sees negotiations as a distant possibility.
Iran is therefore responding coldly to diplomatic overtures from regional states and openly warning them about hosting US bases and military assets. This is not merely ideological rigidity. It reflects a strategic assessment that negotiations or a ceasefire that do not produce structural change in the conflict environment would only invite a larger assault in the medium term.
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Two practical developments reinforce this concern. First, the US administration itself has acknowledged that the war may be neither short nor limited. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon that “additional casualties are expected”.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to calm fears by saying, “This isn’t Iraq. It’s not endless.” But the very need to deny an “endless” trajectory is evidence that the prospect of a long, drawn-out war is part of the public discourse.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has echoed this phrasing. This repetition reflects joint US and Israeli efforts to contain growing concerns that the initial shock-and-awe phase has not yielded the expected breakthrough.
Moreover, after admitting that the US knew Israel would attack Iran and that Iran would then “come after us”, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expanded rather than narrowed the operation's objectives, saying the US wanted to eliminate Iran’s ballistic missile capability.
“We have targets,” Rubio said, “we will do what is necessary for as long as it takes to achieve those objectives.”
This follows earlier remarks by Hegseth that there is no “nation-building” agenda in Iran, and Rubio’s subsequent refocusing on ballistic missiles underscores the same point: the US and Israel find themselves far from achieving the strategic outcomes they set out with.
This gap has created pressure for a new exit pathway, even as tactical successes are amplified and statistics inflated to sustain momentum. Israel has long insisted that regime change in Iran would ultimately require ground components.
In this context, the inclusion of Iranian opposition and Kurdish groups as potential leverage appears to have entered Washington’s strategic thinking. When Rubio stated, “We are not currently postured for ground forces. The president has options. He does not rule anything out,” it suggested that the US may be prepared to assume greater risk and potentially a longer war to compensate for early strategic shortfalls.
This framework is as much a product of Israeli-US miscalculation as it is of Iran’s own operational adjustments. Tehran’s decision to abandon intermittent large salvos against Israel in favour of sustained, distributed strikes designed to exhaust defensive resources was as unexpected as the initial decapitation strike targeting Khamenei.
Iran's new approach
Iran’s strategy has altered. Tehran appears to have concluded that damage inflicted on Israel alone, given US and European backing, will not produce a decisive political fracture. Instead, it is pursuing a strategy aimed at generating regionalised cost.
Yet this approach carries serious constraints for Tehran as well. Senior Iranian officials are reportedly conducting internal calculations to ensure sustainability and to reassert control over elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
'With the assets they overlooked, we can sustain this level for at least two months. Our stockpiles and plans are aligned'
- Iranian military official
One Iranian military official described the situation candidly. “After the first wave of attacks, communication with leadership was disrupted. The chain between regional military organisations and the centre was broken,” he said.
“Units that had been briefed on alternative attack plans acted with initiative within their areas of responsibility. By the morning of the second day, coordination was restored, and we began to see results. However, there are still several groups within the Guards that need to be brought fully under control.”
The same official added: “We have put things back in order through multi-layered planning. Our capacity allows us to sustain this war in the region for months. We paid the highest price - we lost our leader. But the cost for the US will be higher. Their focus was obvious. With the assets they overlooked, we can sustain this level for at least two months. Our stockpiles and plans are aligned.”
Indeed, by the second day of fighting, Iran had begun imposing tangible costs on the US. Although regime change rhetoric has not disappeared, it has receded in emphasis. Washington’s regional posture and global credibility are being tested.
The resilience test
Early indicators of the resilience test are visible. Iran’s attritional strikes on at least six US military facilities across the Middle East have raised questions about defensive capacity among Gulf states hosting US assets.
The UAE and Qatar reportedly face the risk of rapid depletion in certain segments of their defence inventories and have sought support. Iran is not confining the conflict to the Israel-Iran axis but is actively testing the durability of the broader US regional security umbrella.
In discussions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of the UAE and Qatar, it was reported that the Emiratis said they were unhappy with their country being hit despite not being used as a launch platform for attacks on Iran, and that Putin indicated he would transmit this message to Tehran.
'Azeris, Kurds, Lurs, and Sunni groups in the northwest have long-standing grievances with Tehran'
- Israeli source
This suggests that Iran is deliberately disrupting the region’s US-aligned networks and reminding Gulf countries that if Iran survives this phase, it can always impose further damage.
Iran’s new tactics are testing the political and logistical foundations of the US security umbrella in the Gulf and complicating its message to Europe, which is that an American presence there is indispensable.
Energy and maritime trade remain the most dangerous lever in Iran’s cost-imposition strategy. Iranian warnings that vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz could be targeted rattled markets and insurers. Oil and gas prices have soared, with Saudi Arabia shutting its largest oil refinery and Qatar closing the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Washington’s domestic priority of maintaining low fuel prices is colliding with Iranian escalation in the Gulf. Tehran’s logic is straightforward: even if military costs to the US are limited, global and shipping disruptions will magnify the political cost.
As that cost rises, so does Iran’s bargaining leverage, provided the conflict remains state-centric and does not spiral into uncontrolled fragmentation.
Internal conflict in Iran
With no apparent large anti-regime mobilisation inside Iran - despite Netanyahu’s calls for Iranians to rise - a striking development has been US President Donald Trump’s reported phone conversations with Kurdish leaders. The US may then be edging towards an alternative long advocated in Israeli circles: internal destabilisation.
“Azeris, Kurds, Lurs, and Sunni groups in the northwest have long-standing grievances with Tehran,” an Israeli source said. “In many ways, they are ready. Once the framework is clear, they can be mobilised. We have told the Americans this would reduce costs.”
Iranian officials dismiss this approach as a fantasy. “Israel has previously attempted to insert teams from these groups into Iran. We are monitoring developments in Iraq,” a senior Iranian security official responsible for western Iran said.
“The moment US attacks began, we also began tracking this possibility and conducted preventive strikes. We warned some Kurdish groups with whom we have communication. Israel should stop selling illusions to minorities in the region.”
Iran has struck not only US bases in Iraq but also camps associated with Iranian Kurdish groups, the KDPI and PAK. At least five camps near Erbil were reportedly targeted.
Whether the proxy ground component Israel seeks to activate in western Iran will prove effective remains uncertain. However, any such escalation would generate additional regional costs, particularly in Turkey and other neighbouring states, whose reactions to a widening internal conflict in Iran would add another layer of complexity.
Ultimately, the emerging picture suggests the war’s trajectory will be determined less by immediate tactical gains and more by the balance of accumulated costs. The US frames the conflict as potentially long and casualty-bearing. Iran responds by deliberately stretching time and distributing pressure across multiple domains.
Strikes on Gulf bases, attacks on diplomatic targets, Hormuz-related energy volatility and market disruptions function as interconnected components of a broader strategy: transforming a regional military confrontation into a crisis impacting alliance networks, economies and domestic politics.
The central question now extends beyond Iran. How will the resources and vulnerabilities exposed by this conflict affect Washington’s strategic timetable regarding China? And more critically, if China were to employ a similar cost-distribution strategy at a larger scale, how would the US respond?
In that sense, the Iran crisis is not only a regional test. It is a test of American limits.
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