Iran’s government is unlikely to feel significant impact or soften its negotiating position as a result of new US military strikes, according to a new intelligence assessment described by current and former US officials.
Analysts at American spy agencies also have concluded that Tehran and Washington are, for now, stuck in an indefinite limbo between peace and war, the officials said - an uneasy dynamic given the increasingly deadly nature of the tit-for-tat hostilities between the two nations.
The findings, which have been briefed to the administration, appear to underscore the dilemma President Donald Trump faces in a war that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started in February.
Trump’s current course of ever-expanding attacks appears to have led to a stalemate. But with the war deeply unpopular at home, continuing escalation by the US - such as the possible introduction of ground troops - poses political risks for the President with no guarantee of military success.
The latest intelligence report was written primarily by the CIA, where analysts have underscored the Tehran regime’s staying power despite the loss of many of its top leaders and much of its military hardware to US and Israeli attacks.
In May, a CIA analysis concluded that Iran could survive a US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship.
The CIA declined to officially comment on the new report.
Intelligence assessments like those on Iran are not intended to be concrete predictions of the future, current and former intelligence officials say.
Rather, they are a snapshot of current and likely future trends based on all available classified intelligence, including human espionage and technical collection, as well as open-source material.
Jonathan Panikoff, former deputy US national intelligence officer for the Near East, said the Trump administration appeared to believe that constant military strikes would eventually make Tehran more flexible.
Panikoff, senior director at the Atlantic Council think tank, said: “That assessment is almost certainly incorrect”.
He said Iran’s government had repeatedly shown that its number-one priority was survival of the regime, and it was willing to suffer blows despite the harm to its people and economy.
He added that he was sceptical Trump would launch a ground invasion, saying “significant flare-ups in this conflict” were followed by periods of calm and then renewed fighting.
Inside Iran, US officials said they increasingly saw tensions within the Tehran Government between those Washington considered pragmatists and those seen as hardliners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and elsewhere whose power has grown.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US had heard directly from Iranians in government that they supported a diplomatic agreement, but he acknowledged “there’s a tension” with hardliners who seemed to oppose it.
Rubio acknowledged he did not know what would happen if the hardliners prevailed, adding: “I don’t think it’ll be good for Iran. I mean, Iran’s economy is in shambles, right?”
Over the weekend, supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf - Iran’s chief negotiator in earlier talks with the US - urged unity as “a necessary condition for victory in the struggle against the enemy”.
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