The Iranian regime considers its own survival to be the “most important virtue of all virtues”. Given the limited legitimacy of the Ayatollah regime in Iran, which harbours very strong secular and even democratic undercurrents, it finds itself in a constant survival mode. The regime’s survival strategy is explicitly manifested in Iran’s aggressive foreign policy. Through a permanent low-intensity war, it has attempted to keep Israel at bay and push the US out of the Middle East via proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Assad regime.

The objective of this strategy was clear: to create strategic depth so that its own centre would be protected by a larger periphery, making it difficult to hit Iran and enabling it to inflict damage on its opponents.

After 7 October 2023, Israel dismantled this proxy-for-proxy strategy. In this guest lecture, Michaloliákos reflected on the few options still available to the Iranian Ayatollah regime.

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