“The Iranian regime is more stable than had been predicted,” Oded Ailam, former head of the Counterterrorism Division at the Mossad and currently a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), tells GeoTrends.
As the international community closely monitors the ongoing negotiations between the United States and Iran, Israel is quietly preparing for every possible course of action. Against this backdrop, Ailam—a veteran intelligence official with rare insight into the region’s fault lines—argues that the only credible threat to the Islamic Republic would emerge from a precise combination: sustained external pressure meeting internal fracture from within the regime itself.
– Senator Lindsey Graham, during his recent visit to Israel, declared that action against Iran is a matter of weeks, not months. With that in mind, how would you assess the stability of the Iranian regime today?
The Iranian regime is more stable than most had predicted—and the primary reason is its willingness to deploy brutal force against its own people. This approach is no accident; it is rooted in the regime’s careful study of the Arab Spring. Tehran observed a stark pattern: wherever governments met unrest with overwhelming violence, they survived; wherever they hesitated, they fell—as happened in Egypt and across the region.
Syria, above all, became their reference point. Assad held on for nearly 13 years after 2011, and he did so precisely because he was prepared to use indiscriminate force without restraint. Iran drew the lesson, applied it without apology, and it worked.
– Yet discontent is clearly widespread. How deep does public opposition to the regime actually run?
Deeper than the streets would suggest. Unlike the protests of 2019 and 2022, this wave of unrest remained confined to specific segments of society—Generation Z, driven from the middle class into poverty by economic freefall, parts of the bazaar sector, some Kurdish factions, and scattered regional groups. What was notably absent was anything resembling the 2022 Amini protests, when strikes paralyzed major oil companies and brought transport workers out en masse. That kind of cross-sectoral breadth simply was not there this time.
Yet none of this means the Iranian people support the regime. An honest, unbiased survey would likely reveal that around 85% of society opposes it—including significant portions of the Shiite base—ground down by runaway inflation, an economy teetering on the edge of collapse, and corruption that has hollowed out public trust at every level. And still, the majority did not take to the streets. The students were out there protesting while the teachers watched from the balcony.
– So what would it actually take to destabilize or change the regime?
It would not look like 1979. I do not see masses storming government buildings and seizing power—that scenario is off the table for now. What remains plausible is change from within. One can reasonably assume that the Americans, particularly the CIA, maintain quiet channels with influential figures inside the regime. But any internal shift of that kind would need to be paired with serious external pressure: crushing economic sanctions, possibly a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz cutting off Iranian oil exports, and coordinated measures targeting the economic pillars that keep the regime functioning.
Consider the scale: roughly 85% of Iran’s revenue comes from oil. China sources about 15% of its oil imports from Iran. Türkiye depends on Iranian gas for around 15% of its economy. Striking those foundations could accelerate collapse—but only if something is already moving on the inside.
The Americans may also have missed a window. Had they acted around six weeks ago, it might have triggered a chain reaction within the regime—possibly even a coup. There is historical precedent: in 1953, the CIA and British intelligence dismantled Iran’s democratic government and reinstated the Shah, largely to protect oil interests in the wake of BP’s nationalization. A similar architecture of pressure and internal leverage would be required today.
What makes this harder is the absence of a credible opposition figure. There is no one capable of uniting the country’s factions—certainly not Pahlavi, who remains deeply unpopular inside Iran despite the slogans chanted by diaspora communities abroad. Many Iranians see him as a symbol of inherited privilege, not liberation. That leadership vacuum is one of the protest movement’s most crippling weaknesses.
So to answer directly: the real threat to this regime, if it comes, will not come from the street. It will come from a precise convergence of external pressure and internal fracture.
– We are seeing extensive delays in external intervention, even as unrest persists and both sides remain locked in negotiations. How should the West read Iran’s strategy at the table?
Iran’s strategy is not difficult to read—it is the strategy of the bazaar. The Iranians are masterful negotiators, and their first and overriding objective is to buy time. They want to postpone any potential military action for as long as possible, because they believe time is working in their favor. The longer a strike is delayed, the more the resolve of the United States and neighboring countries may erode—giving way to economic calculations and concerns about regional stability, particularly in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Türkiye, all of which have a significant stake in the current equation.
– Where does Iran draw its red lines in these talks?
On ballistic missiles—and that line is absolute. Tehran has come to understand that its nuclear program is no longer its primary deterrent, and neither is the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps). The one capability the regime cannot afford to surrender is its ballistic missile arsenal. Symbolic or cosmetic concessions may be drafted, signed, and presented to the world, but any genuine limitation on ballistic capabilities is simply off the table. Without those missiles, the regime believes it would be left fully and fatally exposed.
The nuclear program, for its part, is currently frozen in practice and not advancing in any meaningful way. Iran faces serious obstacles to resuming full enrichment activities. That said, it still holds approximately 420 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, and roughly three and a half tons enriched to 3.2%—material that could be upgraded further down the line. A significant threat, though not an immediate one. Ballistic missiles, however, are the one card Tehran will not place on the table under any circumstances—and any agreement that fails to account for that reality is built on sand.
– What do we actually know about what is being discussed behind closed doors—and how much room does Trump have to maneuver?
Very little, if anything. Public declarations and private negotiations are two entirely different worlds—the tone, the positions, the language all shift dramatically once the cameras are off. What we can reasonably infer is that Iran is quietly probing how much it can concede on the nuclear file while keeping its ballistic missile program and proxy network firmly intact—two areas the Trump administration has, so far, shown little appetite to compromise on. Whether that calculus is shifting in Geneva, Oman, or elsewhere remains largely opaque.
Nor can we be certain how much pressure Trump’s advisers are bringing to bear on him—particularly those pushing for a deal at almost any cost, echoing Kissinger’s famous counsel to Nixon during Vietnam: “let’s declare victory and get the hell out of here.” Trump may well be tempted to present whatever emerges as a stronger agreement than Obama’s 2015 deal, even if the substance beneath it is thin. What is already clear is that human rights and any meaningful support for the Iranian people have quietly disappeared from his agenda.
That said, I do not currently see an imminent American military strike. Washington understands this would not be a swift, contained operation—it would be a prolonged and costly conflict. Iran would retaliate forcefully: moving to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 25% of global oil passes, and striking at Saudi Arabia and the UAE in ways that could destabilize the entire region.
Preventing that scenario is a genuine priority for this administration. But one must always leave room for the unexpected. Iran does not think in Western terms, and its leadership must also tend carefully to its domestic image—it cannot be seen capitulating to the “Great Satan,” as the United States is called, or to the “Small Satan,” Israel. That internal balancing act makes Iranian behavior considerably harder to predict than any negotiating framework would suggest.
– Türkiye seems to be filling the vacuum left by a weakened Iran—and both Minister Chikli and Deputy Foreign Minister Haskel have described it to me as an evolving strategic threat to Israel. Do you share that view?
Unquestionably. Türkiye is actively constructing what I would call a “Sunni crescent”—a new arc of influence that may eventually displace the far weaker “Shiite crescent” Iran has dominated for the past three decades.
Erdoğan’s ambitions are anything but modest: he wants Türkiye to emerge as a fully-fledged regional superpower, and his long-term strategic thinking carries unmistakable echoes of Ottoman-era reach. We see this playing out in Somalia, across Africa, and in a series of regional security developments that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.
– And how does Türkiye’s military posture fit into this picture—particularly at sea?
It is a dimension that deserves far more attention than it receives. Türkiye currently operates around 197 naval vessels—roughly comparable to the combined fleets of Israel and Greece—but it is the Anadolu drone carrier that changes the equation entirely. Just recently, Türkiye demonstrated for the first time the launch of armed drones from the vessel and their successful recovery. That is not a minor milestone; it is a potential game-changer for naval warfare in the region.
For Israel, the implications are direct and serious, particularly regarding the security of offshore energy infrastructure—the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields are now within a different threat calculus. Greece faces its own set of concerns. Both countries would be wise to take these developments with the gravity they deserve.
– Yet Türkiye and Iran are not natural allies. How does Erdoğan actually view the prospect of Iranian collapse?
With considerable unease—and that tells you a great deal about his calculus. Türkiye maintains adversarial dynamics with Iran and is deeply involved with Azerbaijan, so there is no love lost between Ankara and Tehran. But Erdoğan is a strategic pragmatist. A full collapse of the Iranian regime could push roughly three million refugees into Türkiye, fueling internal instability and, critically, strengthening groups like the PKK—an outcome he cannot afford. Beyond that, Erdoğan almost certainly fears something even more unsettling: a post-regime Iran that realigns with Israel and the West. That would fundamentally redraw the regional map in ways deeply unfavorable to Turkish ambitions.
So Erdoğan’s preferred scenario is neither a strong Iran nor a disintegrated one. He wants Iran contained—weakened enough to be manageable, but stable enough to avoid catastrophic spillover. A pit bull on a leash, if you will. That metaphor captures his position precisely: the threat remains, but it is controlled. And for now, that suits Erdoğan just fine. Türkiye is also attempting to build new regional alignments—deepening ties with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and positioning itself as an indispensable mediator, even seeking to host U.S.–Iran negotiations in Istanbul, though Iran ultimately preferred the Omanis as a more trusted interlocutor.
– Concluding, are we entering a new Middle East order—or a prolonged period of instability?
It is the right question to end on, and the answer hinges almost entirely on what emerges from the negotiations between the United States and Iran. If no common ground can be found—which currently appears the more likely outcome, given Tehran’s unwillingness to move on the issues that matter most—then instability is not a risk, it is a trajectory.
At present, Iran does not feel the kind of acute pressure that might have forced its hand weeks ago. The delays from the Trump administration have given the regime breathing room, and Iranian leadership has drawn a clear conclusion: Washington does not want a major escalation that could set the entire region alight. That belief emboldens them to run out the clock. Iran appears inclined to drag negotiations on for as long as possible—another month, perhaps more. It is telling that Trump, who typically sets tight two-week deadlines, extended his timeline to a full month in this case, a flexibility that did not go unnoticed in Tehran. In the end, what happens in those negotiating rooms will do more to shape the future of this region than any military posture or political declaration. The stakes could hardly be higher.