핵심요약

• 2022년 마흐사 지나 아미니 사망 사건은 이란 내 대규모 시위의 촉발점이 되었습니다.
• 이란 정부는 2022년 말과 2023년 초에 시위대 400명 이상을 살해한 것으로 보고되었습니다.
• 이란 정치 엘리트들은 협상 의도가 전쟁으로 이어질 수 있음을 학습했습니다.
• 이스라엘과 미국은 핵 시설을 겨냥한 전쟁(2025년 6월) 및 대규모 폭격(2026년 2월)을 통해 유사한 전략적 의도를 공유합니다.

도입

본 기사는 이란의 정치적, 사회적 변동이 미국과의 외교 관계 및 지정학적 역학에 미치는 영향을 분석합니다. 투자자 관점에서 이 기사는 이란의 내부 정치적 불안정성과 외부 강대국 간의 전략적 상호작용이 미래 중동 지역의 에너지 및 무역 환경에 미치는 잠재적 위험과 기회를 이해하는 데 중요합니다. 특히, 정치 심리학적 학습이 실제 군사적 행동으로 이어지는 과정을 분석함으로써, 현재의 지정학적 리스크가 어떻게 변화할 수 있는지에 대한 예측의 틀을 제공합니다.

본문 1: 사회-정치적 압력의 동력

이란 내에서 발생한 대규모 시위는 정부의 정책적 실패와 대중적 정당성 약화라는 내부적 압력이 외교 정책에 직접적인 영향을 미치는 동력임을 보여줍니다. 2022년 시위는 하이잡(hijab) 규제에 대한 불만에서 시작하여 점차 이슬람 공화국의 전복 요구로 발전했으며, 이는 정부에 대한 외부 및 내부 압력을 증가시켰습니다. 이러한 사회적 동력은 단순히 국내 문제로 끝나지 않고, 이란 정부가 대외 전략을 수립하고 실행하는 데 있어 심각한 제약 조건으로 작용합니다. 즉, 내부의 불안정성이 외교적 협상 테이블에서 이란의 입장을 강제하는 핵심 변수로 작용합니다. 이는 이란의 외교적 자율성과 정책 결정 과정에 대한 외부 세력의 영향력을 측정하는 중요한 지표가 됩니다.

본문 2: 정치 엘리트의 전략적 학습과 군사적 현실

이란의 정치 엘리트들은 미국 행정부, 특히 도널드 트럼프 대통령에 대해 최소 네 가지를 학습했습니다. 가장 중요한 학습은 미국의 협상 의도가 전쟁 준비로 이어질 수 있다는 점입니다. 실제로 2025년 6월 이스라엘과 미국이 이란의 주요 핵 시설을 겨냥한 '십이일 전쟁'을 시작한 사건은 이러한 학습이 현실화되었음을 보여줍니다. 또한, 2026년 2월 이란 군사 및 민간 기반 시설에 대한 대규모 폭격과 고위 정치 지도자 암살 사건은 협상 외의 강경한 전략이 현실화될 수 있음을 입증합니다. 이는 정치적 학습이 단순한 인식 변화를 넘어 실제 군사적 행동과 전략적 선택으로 이어질 수 있음을 의미하며, 외교적 담론이 군사적 현실에 의해 재구성되는 과정을 보여줍니다. 이처럼 정치적 심리학적 이해는 외교적 관계의 변동성(volatility)을 극대화시키고, 잠재적인 충돌 위험을 높이는 결과를 초래합니다.

본문 3: 다차원적 변동성과 장기 전망

이란의 변동성은 국가-사회 관계, 엘리트 내부 역학, 경제, 외교라는 네 가지 차원에서 복합적으로 작용합니다. 외교적 관계의 안정성은 단순히 양국 간의 협상 결과에만 의존하는 것이 아니라, 내부의 사회적 압력과 엘리트 간의 권력 균형, 그리고 경제적 동력이라는 내부 변수들에 의해 결정됩니다. 장기적인 관점에서 볼 때, 미국과 이란 간의 관계가 지속적인 불안정성을 보일 경우, 이는 중동 지역의 에너지 시장과 국제 안보 환경에 지속적인 불확실성을 야기할 것입니다. 따라서 미래의 관계는 단기적인 외교적 합의보다는 내부적 정치적 안정성과 경제적 상호의존성이라는 두 축에 의해 더 크게 좌우될 가능성이 높습니다. 외부의 군사적 개입 가능성은 여전히 상존하지만, 장기적인 안정은 내부의 정치적 학습과 사회적 동력의 변화에 달려있다고 판단됩니다.

결론

이란과 미국의 관계는 내부의 정치 심리학적 변화와 외부의 군사적 학습이 교차하는 복잡한 지정학적 환경 속에서 움직이고 있습니다. 향후 관계의 전망은 이란 내부의 사회적 압력이 어떻게 외교적 전략에 반영되고, 이것이 다시 군사적 행동의 가능성을 어떻게 조정하는지에 달려있습니다. 투자자들은 이러한 정치적, 사회적 변동성이 외교적 합의의 안정성을 훼손할 수 있다는 점을 고려하여, 지정학적 위험 지표와 이란 내부의 정치적 안정성 지표를 종합적으로 모니터링할 필요가 있습니다. 향후 이란의 정치적 학습이 외교적 실질적 변화로 이어질 가능성에 주목해야 합니다.

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원문 링크: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMimAFBVV95cUxOOVluNEwxSmp5SUhsXzY4cXUzNUxQWlZMRmtIbUtLTGtsR0ExYk41akdaQWdBanZpaXhDZmoySm00aEVxcDU1MkU4bFpsZzNrV01May1GMEJiZGt0WjZrTW1rTFdSaUZwVldscFh0c3hGeW5SaUM3SUh6TEhpM2xUSFhnOHFKY0xnSzRJU3NqN2JuejJ4VzZXYg?oc=5

War, political psychology and the future of US-Iran relations - Clingendael

By Hamidreza Azizi and Erwin van Veen

In September 2022, the death of Mahsa Jina Amini marked a major turning point for Iran. The event sparked lengthy nationwide protests across socio-economic classes and population groups whose demands rapidly evolved from discarding controversial hijab regulations to calls for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian government responded with repression, killing over 400 protesters in late 2022 and early 2023, according to human rights groups. The protests of January 2026 reflected the same public discontent and reinforced the negative spiral of government underperformance and popular legitimacy. They also increased the external and internal pressures on Iran’s government compared with the protests of 2022/2023.

The Clingendael blog series ‘ Iran in transition ‘ explores power dynamics in four critical dimensions that have shaped the country’s transformation since 2022: state-society relations, intra-elite dynamics, the economy, and foreign relations. This blog examines the prospects of a more lasting deal between Iran and the United States including the feasibility of alternative strategies and insights recently gained by war.

Political learning and psychology

Over the past years, Iran’s political elites have learned at least four things about the US administration, and particularly President Donald Trump. First, a stated US intent to negotiate can mean that Washington also prepares for war and might even initiate it during negotiations. This happened twice: in June 2025 when Israel and the US launched what became the Twelve-Day War against Iran, particularly targeting its key nuclear facilities; and second, in February 2026 in the form of a massive campaign of bombardment of Iranian military and civilian infrastructure, along with the assassination of senior political figures, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Second, Israel and the US operate with similar strategic intents, irrespective of any publicly aired grievances or growing dissatisfaction among Trump supporters. As Israel is an implacable foe based on its intent to maintain nuclear hegemony in the region, the implications of this partnership are relatively predictable. Without verifiable evidence of a fundamental rupture between Israel and the US regarding Iran, Tehran assumes it is only a matter of time before Israeli leaders once more convince a US administration to resume covert operations, economic warfare or even renew its military assault.

Third, in an aerial and naval war Iran can at best hope to be an irritant to US military might (e.g., by striking radar arrays, refuelling aircraft and similar enablers). Its medium-range deterrence by delegation (i.e., the ‘axis of resistance’) turned out to be a poor substitute for cutting-edge conventional warfighting capabilities during open war. Nevertheless, given sufficient time, Iran can impose substantial costs on U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf as well as on the global economy. Closing the Strait of Hormuz and possibly the Bab al-Mandab, however, requires the kind of justification that comes with being on the receiving side of large-scale and unprovoked US and Israeli aggression. It is not an offensive weapon. Moreover, Tehran has limited direct leverage against Israel.

Fourth, President Trump’s mercurial and narcissistic behaviour means that high-level U.S. statements, whether from him or from his inner circle, including Rubio, Hegseth, Witkoff, Kushner, and Vance, mean little. It is U.S. actions that count and provide proof of intent. In fact, US high-level statements have become so erratic since the start of the war on 28 February 2026 that it is hard even to assume they intend to thicken the fog of war to American benefit.

From an Iranian perspective, these insights graft themselves on decades of mistrust deriving from US support for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war ( despite the Iran-Contra affair ), the US invasion of Afghanistan, the US invasion of Iraq, over two decades of economic warfare against Tehran and being bombarded twice while negotiating in good faith, all of it on spurious grounds. It was not Iran that invaded Iraq in 1980; it was not Iran or the Taliban that committed the horrors of 9/11; Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction; Iran abandoned efforts to militarize its nuclear program in the period 2003-2009, and it concluded as well as implemented the nuclear deal of 2015.

This is not to say the Iranian government does not intimidate its neighbours with missiles or armed groups linked to it when it feels a need to do so, severely represses its own population and manages Iran’s economy poorly. It does all these things. Before 28 February 2026, Iran’s political elites were in fact shaken. Massive protests had just rocked the country, tougher US sanction enforcement – along with the reimposition of the UN sanctions under the ‘snapback’ mechanism – was hurting, the economy was doing badly, and Iran’s regional influence was fast diminishing.

American political ‘learning’ has been more straightforward and basically amounts to the twin insight that the Iranian revolutionary Islamic project, its political elites and constituencies are resilient and hard to break while they are also capable of imposing substantial cost on the US by closing the Strait of Hormuz. We put ‘learning’ in brackets because the US intelligence community was aware of these facts and yet its professional opinion was ignored by President Trump .

Tehran needs a new grand strategy

It is in this context that Iran views the Memorandum of Understanding that was concluded on 18 June 2026. The bottom line of this reading is that whatever else it is or promises, Tehran considers the memorandum primarily as another stage in its decades-old confrontation with Israel and especially the US unless hard and irreversible evidence proves otherwise.

This begs the question of how the Iranian government might prepare for a potentially prolonged period of ambiguity. There are indications suggesting that Tehran accepted the arrangement due to the nature of its content (it is non-committal beyond things Tehran already promised in the past; it sort of sequences verifiable steps by the US with verifiable steps by Iran; and it does not close any doors but rather creates opportunities regarding frozen assets, the Strait of Hormuz and the mooted recovery fund). Economic calculations also played a role. War damage in Iran is estimated around $270 billion , real GDP is projected to decrease by over 6% in 2026 and the naval blockade compounded an already steep inflation rate that now exceeds 80%.

A grand strategy is a theory of security . In practical terms, this means that Tehran will need to reconsider at this moment how to make itself as safe as possible from future US or Israeli pressure and attacks. Despite having remained unbowed under fire by both the US and Israel, Iran does not have many good options.

Maintaining the axis of resistance is a given in any Iranian grand strategy for ideological as well as practical reasons, but its limitations have been exposed (see above). Also, most of its members have interests of their own and older members like the Badr Corps and Asaib ahl al-Haq in Iraq have become more focused on domestic politics than on the idea of transnational ‘resistance against imperialism and Zionism.’ Even a restored Hezbollah will have to content with a less permissive domestic environment.

In brief, Iran is weaker than it may look like and will probably have to settle for a grand strategy that combines enhanced passive resilience with increasing ‘nuisance capabilities’ (drones/missiles) that is backed up by the nuclear option or closing key waterways.

Washington ‘just’ needs a new strategy

Tehran is fortunate that the US does not have a straightforward strategy for defeating it available, i.e. a theory of victory . Washington tried leveraged negotiations that resulted in deal-making (the JCPOA, preceded by sanctions), intensified economic warfare and military action (twice). Yet, the Islamic Republic of Iran is still standing.

The US cannot follow the Israeli strategy that amounts to a military campaign of indeterminate duration aiming at the complete destruction of Iran’s industrial base, including its defence, energy, nuclear and productive sectors because this puts the global economy at risk by means of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and potentially Bab al-Mandab, alongside Iran’s retaliatory strikes on comparable civilian targets across the region. Iran has demonstrated that it is resilient enough to use time to impose mounting economic costs on the adversaries. The energy-import dependent and low-income countries in Asia and Africa that suffered most from the recent closure of the strait did and do not have the global clout to mobilize against its effects while the rest of the world simply tried to get by or paid the bill. It would be a long game with massive damage and unpredictable risks to America’s global reputation, strengthening Russian and Chinese in the process.

Neither can the US return to the status quo ante 28 February 2026 by trying to slowly strangle the Iranian economy via sanctions. Tighter sanction enforcement – or a return to the naval blockade of Iran – will meet with the same Iranian response of closing Hormuz. Identical problems of economic cost that mount with time and are globally distributed are likely to arise when this strategy is pursued.

Given these limitations, the US under President Trump is essentially coming back full circle to the nuclear deal of 2015 that it may once more secure but on less favourable terms due to its inability to bend Iran to its will by coercive means. Less favourable terms may mean, for example, the need to lift all sanctions and not just those strictly related to Iran’s nuclear program and expediting the unfreezing of Iranian assets. This is at least what the current MOU promises as steps to be taken by Washington once a final deal has been reached.

Yet, after the midterm elections, the US is likely to have time on its side in the sense that Iran might need revenues resulting from unfrozen assets and lifted sanctions more than that the US needs a hard and verifiable Iranian commitment to forego nuclear activity for a specified period. This is because wartime damage has worsened Iran’s socio-economic situation considerably, which the government ignores it at its own peril. At the same time, the experience with Russia shows that economic pain does not necessarily translate quickly into social instability or reduced political legitimacy if the cause is viewed as just or repression high enough.

With this in mind, the US might decide to tie part of the carrot of unfreezing tranches of Iranian assets abroad and staged sanction relief to verifiable Iranian commitments, complemented by a longer-term investment and engagement strategy that seeks to revive Iran’s entrepreneurial middle class and reduce the economic dominance of the Guards (IRGC). This is a long-term play with uncertain results, but it might be the best the US has available today.

However, today’s Iranian leadership is more audacious and assertive than when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was in charge. In a sense, it gained confidence by not having lost (akin to Hezbollah facing Israel’s military might in 2006) and having developed Hormuz as a trump card. Given such renewed confidence, Tehran is not necessarily inclined to bow in the face of any renewed economic pressure or make concessions on nuclear issues that it considers violating its rights. In addition, the large-scale lethal repression of January 2026 put a dampener on protests in the near to medium-term, together with the horrors of war. No authoritarian regime survives by repression alone, but repression combined with elite unity, a sizeable social constituency – which went to protest every night during the war and now feels empowered – and loyal security forces will probably suffice. A major risk of this situation to regional stability is that the Iranian leadership will overplay its hand in its dealings with the US – generally or just regarding the Strait of Hormuz .

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMimAFBVV95cUxOOVluNEwxSmp5SUhsXzY4cXUzNUxQWlZMRmtIbUtLTGtsR0ExYk41akdaQWdBanZpaXhDZmoySm00aEVxcDU1MkU4bFpsZzNrV01May1GMEJiZGt0WjZrTW1rTFdSaUZwVldscFh0c3hGeW5SaUM3SUh6TEhpM2xUSFhnOHFKY0xnSzRJU3NqN2JuejJ4VzZXYg?oc=5