The war has reshaped the Middle East’s strategic landscape and taught Iran that making concessions to U.S. President Donald Trump would be a mistake, says Tehran-based analyst Ali Akbar Dareini.
Dareini, an analyst at the Tehran-based Center for Strategic Studies, told Al Jazeera: “Through the war, Iran learned that if you make concessions to someone like Trump, everything is over. Iran wanted to raise the cost of confrontation for the United States.” He said Washington is now trying to economically strangle Iran.
Dareini said: “Trump believed that if he showed strength and threatened military action, Iran would back down. But Iran did not.” He added that U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff has acknowledged that Trump is frustrated.
He further said that, facing a second round of sanctions, Iran “will not surrender,” because its reasoning is that Washington cannot completely isolate the country. “You cannot cut off Iran’s contact with the outside world — a country that has land and sea borders with 15 nations.”