Heavyweight boxing legend Mike Tyson once remarked that “everyone has a strategy until they’re punched in the face.” The second, unspoken part of his observation was the importance of being able to regroup after your plan goes awry.
Tyson was probably talking about the savage take-no-prisoners approach that in the 1980s earned him three world heavyweight titles and the moniker of the “baddest man on the planet.” But he could just as easily have been referring to Iran today.
For decades, the Islamic Republic cultivated the image that it was a formidable strategic force, weaponizing assorted proxy groups, exporting its ideology through subversive means and menacing its neighbors with increasingly robust military capabilities. But that narrative has taken a real beating in recent weeks.
Since it began in late February, the U.S.-Israeli military campaign has had a major effect on Iran’s strategic capabilities. As Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, recently detailed before the House Armed Services Committee, the joint strikes have succeeded in obliterating more than 85 percent of the defense industrial base that Iran relies on for producing ballistic missiles, drones and naval craft. The regime’s air and naval combat capabilities also have been systematically dismantled. Just as significant, Iran’s ability to sustain and resupply its vast network of terrorist proxies—from Lebanon’s Hezbollah to Yemen’s Houthis to Shiite militias in Iraq—has been massively damaged.
These setbacks are more than mere tactical defeats. They represent an unraveling of the regional strategy by which Iran has historically projected power and influence in the region.
To be sure, the conflict has not been without its costs for the United States and its allies. Tehran has demonstrated the ability to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz, and its disruptive actions have sent global energy prices soaring and created an uneasy diplomatic stalemate with Washington. There is also still major deadlock over the future of Iran’s nuclear program, a key priority for the Trump administration. And despite the hopes of many at the outset, the war has not resulted in the kind of grassroots mobilization that could lead a qualitatively new political order in Tehran.
Even so, Iran’s remaining leadership understands very well that its regional position has eroded dramatically. That is why, even as it seeks to rebuild its strategic capabilities, the Iranian regime is now busy adapting both its strategic tools and its regional message.
One way they are doing so is ideological in nature. On a recent visit to North Africa, experts told me that Iranian representatives and affiliated clerics are now pushing a more inclusive pan-Islamic narrative in Africa and throughout the Middle East. This approach, they said, abandons Tehran’s traditional promotion of sectarian Shiite Islam in favor of a broader religious appeal—one intended to mobilize Muslims generally in opposition to the United States and Israel, as well as against regional regimes that cooperate with them. Such a rebranding is shrewd, because it allows Iran to potentially expand its influence across majority-Sunni societies where its outreach was previously marginal, and divisive.
A second adaptation involves the creation of additional proxies. Established Iranian-supported groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are now under intense pressure, degraded by Israeli military operations and cut off from reliable Iranian resupply. But Tehran appears to be cultivating new actors to compliment these traditional ones.
For instance, counterterrorism experts have begun raising the alarm over a new extremist faction known as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, or HAYI. Although just weeks old (having emerged following the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran this spring), the group has already claimed responsibility for a string of attacks on Jewish sites and Western institutions throughout Europe. And while it has not yet been conclusively tied to Tehran, Western officials are increasingly operating under the assumption that the organization is very much a product of the Iranian regime’s efforts to diversify its strategic tool kit.
These innovations reflect a sobering reality: The Iranian regime may be down, but it is far from defeated. It is, moreover, adapting in ways that will invariably pose a problem for Western security—and a political and ideological challenge for its Muslim neighbors. In this regard, Iran’s remaining leaders seems to have internalized Tyson’s lesson: When it comes to strategy, the things that matter most are resilience and adaptability.