Does Iran Want a War with America?

Just a day prior to the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy, Steven Erlanger, the future New York Times heavyweight who was then just a young reporter for the Boston Globe, filed a dispatch for The New Republic arguing the religious phase of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic was ending.

First the hostage crisis and then the Iraqi invasion less than a year later, allowed Khomeini to rally Iranians around the flag and gave him time to consolidate his resolution.

Forty-five years later, the Islamic Republic again faces a persistent legitimacy crisis. Protests have rocked the country with increasing frequency since 1999. During the 2022-2023 “Woman Life Freedom” movement, Iranians openly rejected theocratic rule. For the regime, it is the perfect storm as “Maximum Pressure” resumes and the 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei faces his own mortality.

By provoking direct military action, first by Israel and now ruling out nuclear negotiations and ramping up support for the Houthi’s terrorist campaign against international shipping and freedom of navigation through the Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea, Khamenei is daring the United States to attack Iran directly.

Traditionally, the Pentagon has refrained from direct strikes on Iran, despite direct Iranian complicity in the terrorism deaths of thousands of Americans for five reasons. First, the Pentagon feared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might retaliate against U.S. regional facilities such as the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain or the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Second, the United States largely recognizes the Iranian people are both nationalist and Western-leaning and did not want to antagonize them. Third, U.S. officials rightly feared a slippery slope to war. Fourth, many analysts rightly asked if military strikes could achieve their objective, or if they would simply kick the can down the road. Finally, the pro-Islamic Republic lobby has been effective as have Iranian diplomats who approach the State Department and Congress with the “rogue actor” lie and tempt them with the olive branch of meaningful diplomacy.

Khamenei likely believes he is pursuing a win-win strategy. First, he can puff himself up to his supporters with his defiance of the United States. Second, even in the unlikely event the White House responds by striking Iran directly, he can use the crisis to rally Iranians around the flag and burnish his nationalist credentials.

Khamenei is detached from reality; his gamble will fail. Just as Israel struck with precision, removing S-300 anti-aircraft missile batteries in Isfahan, so too can the United States now strike Iran with precision. President Donald Trump showed himself willing on March 15, 2025 to strike Houthi leaders where they slept.

Khamenei’s own isolation is now an asset to Trump: Every nap Khamenei takes may now be his last, with those within blast radius of his body all but guaranteed to be Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elite. The same holds true for senior Qods Force generals.

Nor is it certain that Iranians would any more rally around the flag if the target was Khamenei himself. Iranians are nationalistic, but they realize Khamenei does not represent Iranian nationalism. Why else would Iranian public sector strikers march under banners, “Forget about Palestine and think about us.”?

The key for the United States will be nuance and minimizing the casualties ordinary Iranians take. Consider history: While many nationalist Iranians resent the U.S. role in the 1953 countercoup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, few remark upon the U.S. occupation of their country just eight years earlier.

If Khamenei wants to provoke U.S. bombing of Iran, he may quickly discover it will be his final miscalculation.