(SeaPRwire) –   By: Julian Holbrooke

Tehran prefers a foreign enemy over domestic peace because external conflict remains the only reliable tool left to suppress a deeply disenchanted population. The recent U.S. airstrikes against Iran, triggered by renewed flare-ups in the Strait of Hormuz, play directly into a calculated strategy of survival through friction.

Official Washington messaging often frames these military exchanges as a failure of deterrence or a breakdown in regional diplomacy. U.S. officials previously offered Tehran concrete guarantees providing a clear pathway to peace, explicitly promising not to seek regime change, yet Iranian forces subsequently attacked commercial shipping and targeted coalition bases in Jordan and Bahrain.

The real motivation behind these hostile maneuvers stems from internal vulnerability rather than external posturing. According to Dr. Majid Sadeghpour, political director of the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, the supreme threat to the regime is not bombs falling from the sky, but the ticking clock of a domestic population uprising driven by economic collapse and high inflation.

Decades of severe economic mismanagement and strict religious rule have pushed the Iranian public to the brink, leading to major uprisings suppressed through deadly force and arbitrary detentions. By maintaining a state of active war with the United States, regime leaders successfully hijack public attention, forcing exhausted citizens to look outward rather than organizing for internal change.

Vice President JD Vance noted that Tehran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz is diminishing as its operational capabilities erode by the day, yet the provocations continue regardless of economic or military cost. President Donald Trump dismissed the utility of a bargaining table, stating he couldn’t care less about signing a worthless agreement and challenging the Iranian public to finally rise up and fight.

The regime calculates its survival based on the hours following any ceasefire, dreading the exact moment an exhausted populace looks around and asks how to dismantle the state apparatus. Until that inevitable internal reckoning arrives, the ruling leadership will deliberately drag out its conflict with Washington to keep the fires of nationalism burning and the gates of domestic dissent bolted shut.

Author bio: Julian Holbrooke, an overseas international relations analyst who frequently contributes to major European daily newspapers on regional security and statecraft.