Iran's Fantasy of Strength:
When Bazaar Tactics Collide with Reality
Pierre Rehov, The Gatestone Institute
This is not containment. It is disarmament. It is the eradication of Iran's nuclear ambitions as a strategic variable. And it is accompanied by equally stringent regional and military demands: the cessation of financing, arming, and directing the organizations of the proxy terrorist network that has defined Iranian power projection for decades.... The United States is not seeking behavioral change. It is demanding total transformation.
The regime in Tehran still stands, which is its all-encompassing objective. Iran's territory is not occupied and its capacity to inflict damage — through missiles and proxies — has not been fully neutralized. The costs Iran has imposed on its neighbors and adversaries, both militarily and with political pressure... are perceived as significant. From this perspective, the war might not appear lost to them. In an ongoing war, one does not surrender. One bargains.
Most importantly, Tehran is betting on time. After all, Trump just promised not to bomb Iran's power plants for another ten days. Trump, in their reading, is a dealmaker, not an occupier. He seeks outcomes, not endless wars. And in the echo chambers of Western media, where narratives of American overreach and impending quagmire are readily amplified, Tehran finds confirmation of its own illusions.
In the end, the outcome will not be determined by rhetoric or by the theatrical posturing of preconditions. It will be determined by the hard realities of power. It is overwhelmingly, decisively, and unmistakably tilted against Iran. Those now in charge of Iran... may no longer recognize that.
US President Donald J. Trump has reportedly laid out a 15-point peace plan to Iran — with conditions that, taken together, amount to Tehran's near-total strategic capitulation.
In response, the Iranian regime has not merely rejected them; it has countered with a series of conditions so detached from reality that they raise a fundamental question: is Tehran negotiating or hallucinating?
What is unfolding is not a classic diplomatic standoff between two adversaries seeking a middle ground. It is a confrontation between a superpower-backed coalition imposing terms from a position of overwhelming superiority, and a regime that behaves as though it were dictating the outcome of a war it is, in fact, losing.
The substance of the American demands is not improvised but instead reflects a coherent objective: the dismantlement of Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure combined with a permanent ban on uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, the transfer of enriched uranium stockpiles to the IAEA, and the imposition of intrusive, unlimited inspections.
This goes far beyond anything envisioned in the 2015 Obama-era JCPOA "nuclear deal". This is not containment. It is disarmament. It is the eradication of Iran's nuclear ambitions as a strategic variable. And it is accompanied by equally stringent regional and military demands: the cessation of financing, arming, and directing the organizations of the proxy terrorist network that has defined Iranian power projection for decades — Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iraq's PMF. Add to this the requirement to maintain the Strait of Hormuz as an open international waterway and the elimination of ballistic missile capabilities, and the picture becomes unmistakable. The United States is not seeking behavioral change. It is demanding total transformation.
Yet, in classic Trump's "art of the deal" fashion, the offer includes sweeteners: lifting sanctions, support for a civilian nuclear program, and the removal of the "snapback" mechanism. In other words, a pathway is offered to survival, under new rules. The only inconsistency lies in Tehran's response.
What Iran is putting on the table so far is not a counterproposal. It is a daydream built on an apparent misreading of reality. Tehran demands the recognition of its sovereign right to enrich uranium, the preservation of its nuclear infrastructure, and the limitation of IAEA inspections. It demands the full and immediate lifting of all sanctions before talks even begin, along with guarantees that no future US administration will reinstate them — an absurdity under American constitutional constraints. It demands explicit assurances of regime survival, and the end of covert operations and targeted strikes. It refuses any reduction of its regional proxy footprint, insisting on maintaining influence in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, and on preserving alliances with terrorist organizations in those countries. It rejects meaningful constraints on its ballistic missile program. And, in a final act of surreal audacity, it demands financial compensation for damage inflicted by US and Israeli strikes—including, in some formulations, "moral damages" for eliminated operatives.
How can such a gap exist between reality and Iran's perception of it? The answer might lie in a combination of ideological rigidity, strategic miscalculation, and possibly the intellectual degradation of the Iranian leadership itself. Over the past year, and especially through targeted operations attributed to Israel, many of the regime's most capable strategists, military planners, and scientific minds have been eliminated. What remains is not the intellectual elite that once shaped Iran's long-term strategy but a second-tier leadership —less sophisticated, less disciplined, and perhaps more prone to operate according to instinct rather than analysis. These may not be grand strategists but rather functionaries steeped in a culture of transactional bargaining and accustomed to the logic of the bazaar, where the first offer is deliberately absurd and the negotiation is a theatrical performance of endurance.
Protecting the Free World, however, is not a bazaar, and Trump is clearly not a carpet merchant.
The first shock, for any observer, is that Iran seems not to perceive itself as being in a position of defeat. From a Western perspective, the United States and Israel, since the first day of the war, have been dominating Iran militarily, technologically, and operationally. Iran's military and nuclear assets have been decimated, its networks disrupted, and its vulnerabilities exposed. All the same, the regime in Tehran still stands, which is its all-encompassing objective. Iran's territory is not occupied and its capacity to inflict damage — through missiles and proxies — has not been fully neutralized. The costs Iran has imposed on its neighbors and adversaries, both militarily and with political pressure — particularly on a US president navigating domestic constraints — are perceived as significant. From this perspective, the war might not appear lost to them. In an ongoing war, one does not surrender. One bargains.
The second shock is applying bazaar tactics to high-stakes geopolitics. Extreme demands are just the opening move. One starts at the maximum to negotiate down to the acceptable. The objective is not to reflect reality, but to shape the negotiation space. By presenting conditions that are, on their face, unacceptable, Tehran is attempting to see if Trump desires a rapid resolution. Tehran may believe that if Trump fears a prolonged conflict that could evolve into a Vietnam-style quagmire — or, in more contemporary terms, a Ukraine-style stalemate — then he will make concessions.
This calculation is reinforced by Iran's belief — whether genuine or feigned — that it retains leverage. The Strait of Hormuz remains under its influence, a maritime chokepoint through which a significant portion of the world's oil and gas flows. From Lebanon, Hezbollah continues to bombard Israel with hundreds of rockets, while the Houthis in Yemen have not yet escalated. Iran's economy, battered but not collapsed, has adapted to decades of sanctions. Most importantly, Tehran is betting on time. After all, Trump just promised not to bomb Iran's power plants for another ten days. Trump, in their reading, is a dealmaker, not an occupier. He seeks outcomes, not endless wars. And in the echo chambers of Western media, where narratives of American overreach and impending quagmire are readily amplified, Tehran finds confirmation of its own illusions.
Even within serious analytical circles, this perception is bolstered. The Wall Street Journal has noted that Iran behaves as though it believes it is winning — and therefore demands a steep price to end the conflict. In the ideological framework of the Islamic Republic, the regime cannot afford to lose face. Its legitimacy is built on resistance — against the "Great Satan" and the "Zionist entity." For Iran's regime to accept negotiations under terms that reflect defeat would be to undermine the very narrative, however illusory, that sustains it. For the leadership, acknowledging strategic failure is not merely a diplomatic setback; it is an existential risk. It signals weakness. It invites internal dissent. It fractures the illusion of invincibility that authoritarian systems require to survive. Therefore, the regime does what such systems always do: it doubles down on rhetoric, inflates its demands, and projects strength even where weakness is evident.
On the US-Israel side, there is a structured, coherent strategy backed by overwhelming force and clear objectives. On the Iranian side, there is a negotiation posture shaped by ideological rigidity and a cultural reflex toward exaggerated bargaining.
What we are witnessing, therefore, is not simply a diplomatic impasse. It is a collision between two fundamentally different ways of understanding power. For Washington and Jerusalem, power is measurable, operational, and cumulative. It is expressed through capabilities, alliances and outcomes. For Tehran, in its current degraded state, power is performative. It is asserted, declared, dramatized — sustained through narrative rather than grounded in reality.
This premise is why Iran's position appears so irrational to Western observers. It is not that the regime is unaware of its vulnerabilities. It is that acknowledging them would be even more dangerous, internally, than ignoring them. So it constructs a parallel reality in which it acts as if it is still calling the shots — hoping to remain a regional power and a force to be reckoned with — despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
There is, however, a limit to how long such a dissonance can be maintained. Negotiation, by its very nature, is a process of convergence. At some point, positions must align with reality or with one another. The question is not whether Iran will eventually adjust its demands, but at what cost and under what pressure. The current posture is not sustainable. It is a delaying tactic, a psychological shield, a final attempt to negotiate from a position that no longer exists.
And this is where the strategic asymmetry becomes decisive. Trump is negotiating from a position of leverage, timing and control. Unlike the bazaar merchants of Tehran, he does not need to start high to negotiate low. He can start high and stay there.
In the end, the outcome will not be determined by rhetoric or by the theatrical posturing of preconditions. It will be determined by the hard realities of power. It is overwhelmingly, decisively, and unmistakably tilted against Iran. Those now in charge of Iran — like Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, who was offered so many off-ramps that he refused to take — may no longer recognize that.
Pierre Rehov, who holds a law degree from Paris-Assas, is a French reporter, novelist and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of six novels, including "Beyond Red Lines", "The Third Testament" and "Red Eden", translated from French. His latest essay on the aftermath of the October 7 massacre " 7 octobre - La riposte " became a bestseller in France. As a filmmaker, he has produced and directed 17 documentaries, many photographed at high risk in Middle Eastern war zones, and focusing on terrorism, media bias, and the persecution of Christians. His latest documentary, "Pogrom(s)" highlights the context of ancient Jew hatred within Muslim civilization as the main force behind the October 7 massacre.
