For well over 50 years, long before the popular 1979 Revolution that then enabled Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolutionary Party to grab total power in 1980 (having shut down, exiled, imprisoned or killed all political opposition in the fledgling post-revolution proto-democracy), I have been privileged to enjoy a close personal and professional relationship with Iran, its people and some of its institutions. I have visited Iran many times, traveled around this vast country, advised on national industrial and economic issues, spoken at national and local conferences, and published numerous papers and articles on Iran. I have met thousands of Iranians in many strata and walks of life.

Of course, such personal exposure inevitably brings both insights largely inaccessible to foreigners and also potential biases. Such biases are not necessarily problematic but merely reflect the fact that personal exposure is likely to add to an outsider’s knowledge and also modify their understanding of why they are as they are and see the world as they do. Gaining such cultural insights greatly aids communication. Of course, acquiring such insights by “abduction” is not the same as necessarily agreeing with whatever is revealed. I was a kind of opportunist “barefoot ethnographer,” a participant observer, not a “disciple.”

Nevertheless, with this unusual level of access and understanding over such a long period, I confess to having become somewhat conflicted — the more so over recent years since President Donald Trump first came to power in the US in January 2017 and took a decidedly aggressive stance against Iran, and his subsequent unrestrained joint military attacks with Israel on Iran in 2025 and 2026. On the one hand, who would not want a freer, unrepressed and more prosperous life for Iran’s 94 million population and both national and regional security and peace for all nations in the Middle East (including Iran and Israel)? But, on the other hand, has the increasing belligerence of Israel and the US towards Iran, culminating in their joint unprovoked mass bombing of Iran in February and March 2026 (an undeclared but de facto imposed war) delivered — or ever likely to — those desirable objectives?

Iranians are conflicted

Having endured decades of imposed wars, international sanctions, economic decimation, pariah status, great hardship, authoritarian government and a suffocating lack of personal freedom, those still in Iran desperately crave a normal, safe, peaceful and hopeful life for themselves and their families. But, does the recent US and Israeli military onslaught against Iran really herald such a change, or is it fools’ gold offered by devils-in-disguise?

The present Iranian population, inside and outside Iran, is very conflicted. Some of their reasons are broadly similar to my own, outlined above. In addition, most Iranians, including, I would gauge, a majority of those thirsting for a change of governance, are also angered not only by being relentlessly bombed but also by the sheer “might is right” arrogance and the megalomaniacal and bloodthirsty anti-Iranian rhetoric and vilification emanating from Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and others in the White House coterie. The Times, noted for its right-leaning pro-US editorial worldview, ran a scathing article on America’s Iran War, which noted that Trump’s White House had twisted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s famous maxim that “Jaw, jaw is better than war, war” to now mean “Jaw, jaw is better for war, war.” Providing copious examples of quotes by Hegseth, Trump and others, the article opined, “You’d be forgiven for thinking that Donald Trump and his staff’s salvoes were culled from a Bond villain.” More on Team Trump’s psycho-dramatics later.

A profile of Iran’s population

The Iranian population today comprises three discernible main worldview groupings. Group 1 are ultra-conservative die-hard Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) regime supporters. One subgroup, amounting in total to some 10% of the adult population, incorporates the vast majority of state and municipal officials, judiciary, senior and middle-ranking military officers, most of the Shia clergy and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including their Baseej enforcers. In addition, a larger subgroup includes the relatively uneducated and conservative masses in low-income jobs. The latter sub-group is estimated to be some 20% of the adult population. Following the targeted killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini by US-Israeli bombing on February 28, 2026, vast defiant crowds celebrated the succession of his son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khameini, as Iran’s Supreme Leader on March 9, 2026.

Group 2 comprises well-educated, Western-oriented 18–35-year-olds, typically living in the Tehran-Karaj conurbation of some 12 million people or in other large cities across the country. This group, which accounts for an estimated 40% of the adult population, are desperate for substantive liberal change in Iran’s governance, economic reform and rapprochement with the US. They have provided the majority of street protesters against the IRI regime. These unarmed protests have been going on for several years, during which large numbers of protesters have been killed or wounded on the streets by armed IRGC/Baseej forces, or have been jailed, and some even executed. Reported beatings, torture, sexual assault and even murder of arrested protesters are legion. The most egregious period of regime crackdown so far has been over several weeks from December 2025 to February 2026, when many thousands of protesters were reportedly killed.

Group 3, amounting to an estimated 30% of the adult population, comprises over 35-year-olds with rents, mortgages and families to provide for or elderly parents to look after in an ongoing hyperinflationary economy, all of whom value safety and economic and political stability. These include large numbers of middle-aged veterans of the 1979 Revolution and Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) who survived firstly the hardships and privations of that era and then the decades of Western economic sanctions up to the present. Most of this group, while fed up with years of international sanctions, chronic corruption and economic mismanagement, and yearning for change, veer away from actively deposing the IRI regime unless it is done by nonviolent means and does not involve interference from external forces or interests. Like Group 2, they would greatly welcome a change to a liberal, competent and noncorrupt regime, but not by their openly challenging the IRI regime or engaging in its violent overthrow.

Why aren’t Iranians rising to depose the IRI regime?

As if to demonstrate the Trump regime’s appalling ignorance of Iran’s long history and its contemporary reality, in the days before the US and Israel’s joint blitzkrieg on Iran started in February 2026 and while bilateral negotiations between Iran and Washington were still proceeding, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, made an astonishing public statement. With a puzzled facial expression and language, he said that the President was “curious” as to why Iran was “not capitulating” to his demands to give up immediately and forever all nuclear ambitions and activities (military and civil) and cease backing and using armed proxies to terrorise the region, while having to accept that all US economic sanctions against Iran would remain in place. Or else!!

Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi gave his own succinct and telling answer: “Curious to know why we do not capitulate? Because we are IRANIAN.” In other words, Trump and Witkoff appeared unaware of a core national characteristic of the cultural and psychological makeup of Iranians, namely an absolute resistance to foreign threats and bullying or any kind of attack on their national identity, sovereignty, territory and self-determination. Such national pride, patriotism and “unto death” stoic resistance served them well during the eight years of the Iraqi-imposed Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) in which Iraq was backed and armed by the US and other Western countries.

With vastly superior military equipment and US backing, Saddam Hussein said he expected to win this war in a few weeks or months, but after eight years, he had to concede a stalemate ceasefire. The same stoic and tough resistance has characterized Iran’s response to subsequent decades of increasingly harsh international economic sanctions, largely orchestrated by the US. With a 7,000-year history and national survival of Persia ingrained in their culture, today’s Iranians are unlikely to be impressed or swayed by the threats, swagger or attacks (military or economic) from the 250-year-old neophyte USA. Defiance and resistance will be their defining response.

The common reaction to Witkoff’s and Trump’s puzzlement, from the bevvy of seasoned political analysts, historians, Iran watchers, journalists, etc. (e.g., CNN), was one of initial incredulity at the breathtaking ignorance and naivety of these two most senior representatives of the US government regarding Iran’s history and US–Iran relations. This was then quickly followed by unrestrained guffaws at such an embarrassing display.

Further embarrassing puzzlement has been expressed by Trump and White House grandees about why the Iranian population has not heeded Trump’s exhortations to rise up and sweep away the IRI regime. In addition to the police, the IRI regime has established an extremely well-organized, well-armed and ruthless internal security system (IRGC plus Baseej militias) to keep the population in line. In contrast, anti-regime protesters and the general population are unarmed, unorganized and lacking in any identifiable national or even local leaders. It is amazing that so many unarmed protesters have nonetheless persisted in challenging the IRI regime for so many years. Many have already paid the price with their lives or serious injury, but to seek to overthrow the regime by force without any weaponry or organization would be doubtless suicide.

In addition, as outlined above, most of the estimated 70% of the adult population who want regime change shy away from engaging in violent overthrow or else recognize its futility without leadership, organization and weaponry. The detailed analysis of the thirst inside Iran for regime change, and the percentage likelihoods of the various scenarios for it happening, provided by my colleague James Denton’s Fair Observer article in early 2023, is still highly relevant. 

In addition, when Iranians hear Trump imploring them to rise up and overthrow the IRI regime, they scoff cynically at the notion that he would ever provide them with any tangible assistance to achieve such an outcome. Even in Trump’s first presidency, he and his then White House team were keen on regime change in Iran. As I wrote in 2018 (pages 234-235) in a chapter on The Alt-Right Anti-Iran Project, “they envisaged this resulting from a popular uprising inside Iran” but failed to understand that, just as when US-backed Saddam Hussein launched his unprovoked war on Iran in 1980, the whole population including those disaffected by the IRI regime responded with zeereh parcham (rally to the flag) patriotism. 

As recently as January 2026, the US Department of Defense (unofficially now Department of War) issued a new National Defense Strategy document, which contains (paragraph 2) the following statement: The Department will “no longer be distracted by interventions, endless wars, regime change and nation building.” Iranians ask themselves why, in less than two months, Trump has radically changed his mind, or was this new doctrine intentionally a complete fiction?

Iranians also vividly remember US President George H.W.Bush in 1991, urging the Iraqi population to rise up against Saddam Hussein with implied promises of US military assistance. No such help materialized, and the Iraqi Marsh Arabs, Shia anti-Ba’athist insurrectionists in Najaf and Karbala, and Kurds in northern Iraq, in particular, suffered mass slaughter. Iranians today take full note of how glib and duplicitous US Presidents can be in sacrificing foreign populations from the safety of the White House. It is unsurprising, then, that they would not be persuaded by Trump’s implied but doubtful promises of practical assistance to overthrow the IRI regime. 

Lack of a credible leader

What about the lack of any political group or popular leader in Iran who could replace the Islamic regime and its Supreme Leader? It is unsurprising that any potential contenders fail to make themselves known, since to do so would invite rapid detention or elimination by the current regime. 

Ah, but have no fear, there is surely a ready-made leader-in-waiting in the person of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah, who has been living in comfortable exile in the USA for much of the time since 1979. He was then still in his teens. He has never held any government office or responsibility, but has established a prospectus and well-oiled publicity campaign for his return to Iran as the next Shah. The campaign has essentially been to reestablish the Pahlavi monarchy and to reintroduce an imperial style of semi-feudal governance like his father’s. More recently, perhaps sensing such an outdated model just won’t fly with Iran’s population today, he has raised the possibility of his returning as a constitutional figurehead monarch “at an appropriate time.”

Crown Prince Reza appeals mainly to older Iranians, those old enough to remember the Pahlavi era before 1979. These are mainly Iranian emigrés abroad and a minority inside Iran who hanker after the pre-Revolution days. Although Reza is well educated, articulate and charming and receives much publicity and airtime in the West, his prospectus suffers from a number of handicaps. 

The outdated “reprise model” of his father’s pre-Revolutionary era is one handicap. Others include his lack of government experience and, apparently, a poor intellectual grasp of the extent and depth of state governance requirements for such a strategically pivotal country as Iran. However, perhaps the most damning criticism is a lack of self-awareness of his controversial personal attitude and conduct in public. In recent years, he has made no secret of his keenness for a post-IRI Iran to return to strong and friendly relations with Israel, which existed during his father’s reign.

While such sentiments are perhaps not in themselves outrageous, unverified videos and photos from 2023 of the Crown Prince and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with arms round each other’s shoulders and beaming faces (since deleted from internet sources), and Reza socializing with Israeli politicos and “big shots” in a Tel Aviv nightclub, have been received very badly among Iranians generally. Such behavior demonstrates a shallow regard for the sensitivities of the Iranian people and a preparedness to engage in what many see as inappropriate collaboration with Iran’s sworn enemy.

Even President Trump, while not unfriendly towards Reza Pahlavi and offering him words of encouragement and photo opportunities, has nevertheless made it clear that he does not regard the Crown Prince as a credible new leader for a post-IRI Iran. 

MAGA President Bluto Knuckledragger rules the world

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.” This famous quotation from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem in 1818 about the Egyptian pharaonic ruler Ramses II (Ozymandias in Greek) was intended not to idolize the greatness of Ozymandias but rather to warn of the vulnerability of leaders with inflated and narcissistic egos to unnoticed context changes over time and unforeseen developments and events that they cannot control.

Unsurprisingly, President Trump is widely thought of as an Ozymandias figure, given his unrelenting penchant for uttering grandiose and bombastic statements about his own superlative greatness and achievements, contrasted with equally bombastic assertions about the alleged worthlessness or bad character of — well — just about anyone and everyone, from foreign leaders, US politicians, judges, corporate leaders, dignitaries, celebrities, sports stars, film stars, pop stars, religious leaders, journalists, ethnic groups, non-Judeo-Christian religions, particular nationalities, disabled people, refugees etc.

Even a small fraction of such insults and invective would be unbecoming, unprofessional and unacceptable from any person holding even a minor position of responsibility or authority, let alone a President of the US. But, clearly, the Bluto Knuckledragger (the main antagonist of Popeye) personality of this King Ozymandias could not care less.

Trump’s vast array of pet hates, targets for disparaging remarks and petulant Executive Orders naturally includes anyone who dares to disagree with, contradict or challenge him in any way, or simply stand their ground on what they regard as their own national best interests. So, unsurprisingly, Iran has long been a candidate for his angry invective, petulance and threats, culminating in his 2025 military strikes and current 2026 Operation Epic Fury, otherwise known as the War on Iran.

In the past ten years, there have been many published analyses and commentaries on the source of Trump’s often bizarre emotions and behaviour. For example, Professor Tim Wilson’s video in 2026 on Trump as a dangerous liability suggests that his childlike tantrums stem from an arrested development, whereby his adult personality is locked into a permanent state of infantile perception, attitude and behavior. 

The 2019 book Dangerous Charisma by Professor Jerrold Post, psychiatrist and political psychologist, examines the psychopathology of Trump and his followers, which is highly relevant to his wide-ranging neoimperialist aggression, unsupported territorial claims and bullying against several countries, mainly traditional allies of the US. Most countries trading with the US have also capitulated to his bizarre tariff aggression. Countries (e.g., Canada, Greenland, Denmark, Panama) confronted by his potential land-grab rhetoric are still attempting to negotiate a way out. Venezuela’s historically anti-US authoritarian dictatorship has been left in power following the US short-lived invasion, the extraordinary rendition of President Nicolas Maduro to await trial in the USA and the US effectively taking control of Venezuela’s vast oil industry. Meanwhile, Trump has now established an oil blockade of Cuba and threatened to end its 67-year-old communist regime.

However, confronted by an Iran that is not just uncooperative, resistant and noncompliant to US demands but also steadfastly defiant, Trump’s narcissism, delusional paranoia, and fragile and easily wounded ego finally responded in 2025 to Netanyahu’s persistent urging for the US to join Israel in a massive unprovoked and pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear and other facilities in June 2025 (the Twelve Day War). The further unprovoked preemptive attack in February 2026, but on a much larger scale (Operation Epic Fury), is still ongoing. However, Trump’s apparent ignorance about Iran and its post-World War II history, his lack of grasp of military matters (or perhaps his deliberate dismissal of good advice from the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]), his inadequate war planning, his frequent and often contradictory changing and expansion of the war’s objectives, and contradictory statements from Trump and his Cabinet colleagues have been characteristic.

Also characteristically, Trump has continued with his narcissistic, grandiose hyperbole regarding the current war on Iran. Almost every day, he has issued formal statements in such language, or similar statements on his Truth Social online platform or at press conferences or public events, for example, March 8, 2026, and his triumphant, if premature, claim “We won! We won!” on March 12, 2026. Trump also appears to be unconcerned when US or Israeli missiles inflict mass civilian casualties on Iran’s cities (e.g., a girls’ school in Minab). At a Republican conference, he even gloated in “gallows humor” style over the death of nearly 100 sailors when, without warning, the US sank an Iranian warship in open waters off Sri Lanka, some 3,400 kilometers from Iran, remarking with a smirk, “It’s more fun to sink ‘em” than to capture them.

But what about all the sycophants and “yes men and women” that Trump has surrounded himself with as his White House Cabinet and entourage? These, too, fall under the scope of Jerrold Post’s political psychological assessment. Two Secretaries of State in particular evidently share Trump’s penchant for displaying a narcissistic, aggressive, bullying, self-congratulatory style: Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has unilaterally and without Congressional approval retitled his post to that of Secretary of State for War. 

The armchair comic book warriors

Hegseth has been especially vocal about the Iran War, giving regular briefings extolling the US’s military supremacy, predicting a quick and overwhelming victory, and dismissing Iran’s military capabilities with contempt. In many ways, Hegseth’s wild anti-Iran invective has far upstaged that of Trump. For example:

“They are toast, and they know it.”

“We will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you”.

“This was never meant to be a fair fight; we are punching them while they are down, as it should be”.

The Iranian leaders are “rats in hiding,” and the newly elected Supreme Leader has been “disfigured” by US/Israeli bombing.

On day 13 of Operation Epic Fury, Hegseth gave a lengthy one-man public statement and press briefing on the war’s progress, seeking to convince an increasingly sceptical American public that early victory was assured with a complete annihilation and capitulation of Iran, and to soothe domestic and global anxieties and markets about growing economic damage. Reaction inside the US and globally has been cool and largely unconvinced.

It is not just Hegseth’s self-aggrandizing, triumphalist language, his repeated exaggerated assertions of Iran’s crushing imminent defeat (now stretched already from one week to four–six weeks or longer) and his bloodthirsty, undiplomatic words that cause increasing skepticism and alarm. Just as telling are his physical presentation, body language and stage performance.

Hegseth always appears immaculate and well-groomed, perhaps reflecting his grounding as a Fox News TV presenter. Although this may be a potential advantage for audience acceptability, in his case, it seems excessive. Rather than cutting the gravitas figure of a Secretary of State, his square-jawed, clean-cut, lightly tanned, play boy visage makes him look much more like a telegenic model for TV adverts for male grooming products, toothpaste or tanning lotion. Add to this his uncontrolled habit of looking overly earnest and sincere, his dramatic turns of phrase, his dogmatic assertions, his aggressive evangelical delivery and his constant emphatic hand gestures, and he falls naturally into the genre of crusading “hard sell” politico-religious televangelists so popular in the US.

Another unmistakable trait is Hegseth’s barely suppressed, constant bubbling anger. This anger seems to be caused by deep frustrations, particularly relating to his strongly held Christian fundamentalist beliefs and American Crusade agenda (set out in his book of that name) that he would like to see fulfilled, but which so far seems to elude him. His controversial worldview on this issue involves his seeking to impose on the Pentagon an “onward Christian soldiers” culture that normalizes exclusively Christian ideology and language from a bygone era and sanctifies using America’s military might to achieve notionally superior Christian subjugation or elimination of non-Judeo-Christian religions and nations. The US war program against Iran, which started in 2025, has become Hegseth’s major launch pad for his personal crusade and fixation to ensure a Messianic return, a second coming of Christ, through declared US supremacy and, as necessary, intimidation, conquest and subjugation of “the other.”

His ethnocentrist, religiocentrist and politically partisan superiority beliefs, agenda and actions also apply to the US Military and the US population overall. This directly rejects the equal rights of all citizens guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. Hegseth’s White House Colleagues, President Trump, the Republican Party and many of their supporters have raised no complaints or objections about this flagrant rejection of the Constitution that Trump and all his Cabinet have sworn under oath to uphold.

For Hegseth, his knowledge of the history of Iran and its relationship with the US appears to start with the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the “evil Ayatollahs.” No apparent recognition of the CIA’s orchestration (with British involvement) of the 1953 coup against the Shah’s Prime Minister Dr Mohammad Mossadegh, which relegated the Shah to the role of Washington’s puppet — and sowed the seeds of the 1979 Revolution. As the distinguished Professor Ali Ansari has put it, “The coup revealed America’s influence and malevolent ambitions in Iran. The immense sense of betrayal that was felt – and cultivated for later generations.”

Deep mistrust of the US government stemming from the 1953 coup continues today, seared into the psyche of every Iranian, and accentuated by Trump’s demand that any new national political leader of Iran must meet his approval. Trump, the suzerain imperator, sees Iran’s future only as a US vassal state, and Hegseth seeks to oblige.

Hegseth exudes a juvenile, immature attitude towards governance, international affairs, international conflict and the prosecution of war. His gung-ho jingoistic fervor for battle whenever he addresses audiences betrays the excitement of a 13-year-old armchair “warrior” getting carried away reading Captain America comic books or playing video war games. His vicarious “fantasy hero” exposure to battle avoids him ever being in harm’s way, unlike all the American service personnel sent into the Iran War theater.

Vance also shares Hegseth’s barely suppressed bubbling anger. He rarely smiles and always looks possessed by inner demons and ready to explode. His outrageous televised screaming spectacle against Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy (a US ally) in the latter’s White House meeting with President Trump on February 28, 2025, with Trump and others egging him on, will surely go down in history as the most disgraceful display of undiplomatic bullying in modern times.

While less vocal than Hegseth on the Iran War, by Vance’s rhetoric and published statements, he nonetheless shares Hegseth’s militant worldview on Christian fundamentalist supremacy and the importance of the US government imposing this on its own population and the rest of the world. He is reportedly a supporter of the Seven Mountains Mandate, namely that the state should actively advance Christian supremacy in US society via control of seven key spheres: government, religion, education, family, business, media, arts and entertainment.

Unlike Hegseth, who possesses a very high degree of certitude about his identity and divinely ordained Christian mission, Vance appears conflicted and unhappy with his identity. Born James David Bowman, he first changed his name in 1990–91 to JD Hamel and then again to JD Vance in 2013. It is rare for males to change their surname, although his first surname change appears to have a reasonable justification. However, more than one surname change is extremely rare. There is speculation that he may suffer from some kind of narcissistic delusion of grandeur condition that drives him towards gaining enhanced public and political approval and adulation by reinventing his name to something more memorable, attractive and high-powered.

Hubris, delusion and the illusion of total victory

As many seasoned military and statecraft experts and observers have noted, all the hyperbolic US triumphalism spewing out daily from King Osymandias’s White House regarding a total Iranian defeat may be a tad premature on several major counts.

Beware hubris. The US has failed repetitively to learn from its past strategic mistakes overseas regarding inflated false assumptions that its undoubted massive military superiority alone will guarantee total victory in all respects, e.g., the Vietnam War, Iraq Wars and Afghan debacle. Unleashing overwhelming military firepower may succeed in causing a target country great loss of life, economic and material damage, and even capitulation, but military victory alone cannot win hearts and minds or guarantee long-lasting peace. Total victory also requires ensuring that a defeated enemy retains sovereignty, builds stable governance, rebuilds a strong economy, ensures political and religious freedoms and human rights, and stays at peace with other countries.

When it comes to Iran, the Trump White House has failed miserably to acknowledge the old maxim “know your enemy but know yourself better.” The limited individual and collective self-awareness displayed has been as pitiful as their knowledge and awareness of the Middle East in general and Iran specifically. 

Destructive, damaged personalities and pathological traits also seem to pervade the Trump White House and negatively influence US policy towards Iran. Large-scale field and clinical studies (e.g., Fritzon, Brooks et al, 2016; and 2020, pages 295–325 and 327–365) have revealed that compared to a normative expectation of some 3% of the general population exhibiting clinically raised levels of psychopathy, when it comes to boardrooms and similar power centers, the prevalence rises to 20%. Could it be even higher among the Trump White House Cabinet and entourage? And, what about the governing groups in Iran and Israel? Perhaps all countries should conduct “due diligence” clinical psychological evaluation of political leaders, just as is often already standard for police and military personnel. Such screening might then encourage “Jaw, jaw” rather than “War, war.”

Perhaps soon the long-suffering Iranian people might finally be able to chant with confidence the Persian New Year invocation “Sad saal beh, az in saalha” — (May the next) one hundred years (be) better than these years.

[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.