Soon after I first arrived in Iran as Britain’s deputy ambassador in 2003, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a sermon at Friday prayers at Tehran University in which the UK featured prominently. He attacked my country in strong terms, blaming us for most of the region’s ills.
I was perplexed. Britain and Iran were – in those happier days – trying to build warmer relations. I couldn’t understand why there had been such an outburst of vitriol. So I went to see the head of a think tank associated with the supreme leader’s office, in a smart building in cool, leafy Northern Tehran on the lower slopes of Mount Tochal.
He was bemused by my obvious stupidity. I had misunderstood the Ayatollah’s message entirely. I should not have focused on the nasty things that Mr Khamenei had said, but rather on the even nastier things that he hadn’t said. And so I got an early lesson in the complex, subtle ways in which the Iranian regime acts and communicates.
The Iranian regime might not feel subtle to those at the receiving end of its drones and missiles across the Gulf. Iran’s attacks have felt to its neighbours like mindless escalation, a lashing out and the actions of a bully. But as always, there is method in Iran’s actions, and discerning that method is vital in working out how best to respond.
At its heart, Iran’s doctrine of “horizontal escalation” is the opposite of a rush to all-out war. Rather, it is a way for Iran to expand the breadth of the conflict in a way that plays to its strengths, avoids escalating directly against US forces, saves face against a more powerful adversary, and – crucially – creates levers that can become concessions in the inevitable negotiation that will lead us back to peace.
Imagine where we would be if Iran had limited the conflict only to a straight fight with the US and Israel. From the regime’s perspective it would be fighting stronger opponents on their adversaries’ terms, with escalation taking it only to an increasingly bad defeat. Tehran would have no leverage that could be safely calibrated or traded. The negotiation would be focused on a small number of binary issues – such as dismantling nuclear centrifuges – where any outcome would feel like a straightforward loss. As a result, that outcome would involve a loss of face that would be disastrous for those who negotiated it.
Instead, by blocking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, getting their Houthi allies to do the same in the Bab El Mandeb strait, attacking their neighbours in the Gulf directly and through proxies, and thereby broadening the conflict both geographically and across domains, Tehran has dramatically improved its negotiating position.
As a result of these apparently escalatory actions, it has a series of new levers that are both reversible and tradeable. It has created leverage over its stronger adversaries by shifting the burden of pain on to third parties. It has created a diplomatic off-ramp by giving itself the ability to dial down its different actions in return for specific concessions, like unfreezing assets or granting oil export waivers. It has also created the potential for a negotiation that can be sold at home as a victory under pressure, rather than a humiliation.
This approach will not have been a surprise to those who know Iran, even if the scale and speed of it was a shock. In the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq war, Iran responded to Iraqi attacks on its oil facilities and shipping by mining international waters and attacking civilian oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. It traded hostages taken by its proxies in Lebanon to get the arms from the US during the Iran-Contra affair. It still regularly detains foreign and dual nationals on trumped-up espionage targets, which are then shamelessly used as bargaining chips to get confiscated assets unfrozen or its own agents released.
The key for those dealing with Iran's escalation is figuring out whether they are doing it tactically, in order to build negotiating leverage, or strategically because they believe they are fighting an existential war.
On this, there are some tell-tale signs in Iran’s current behaviour. They are keeping the back channels open, emphasising their readiness to reverse actions if their conditions are met rather than declaring non-negotiable end states. Many of their actions are through proxies or are unattributed acts in the grey zone, rather than clear and extreme state acts intended to alter the balance of power permanently. Though deeply unwelcome, their actions have been to a large degree controlled and incremental, designed to test reaction thresholds and allow calibration.
This is not a regime that is trying to win an existential war. It is a regime wanting to strengthen its hand for the inevitable negotiated solution, giving itself leverage and allowing its negotiators to do a deal which saves their face and that of their country.
One final story, back at Tehran University for Friday prayers. This time I was there myself, sat on a carpet surrounded by tens of thousands of men loyal to the regime who were chanting “death to England”. After one such bout of chanting, my neighbours turned to me and asked me where I was from. When I answered “England”, their faces lit up, and they invited me to their home for coffee. And that was a lesson for me that, whatever the furious, complex and often shocking behaviour of their regime, the Iranian people remain true to a culture of hospitality and warmth, and deserve better.
