Michael Stephens, a senior associate research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, stated that Iran is committed to prolonging the war because it believes economic pressure does not pose a fundamental threat to the regime's survival. He pointed out that nearly six months into the war, Iran has become convinced that the United States has no intention of launching a ground offensive, and that "the existential threat has disappeared." Therefore, Tehran hopes to accelerate the pace and inflict greater pain on President Trump, and the best approach is to "drag it out." Stephens also stated that, contrary to the widespread expectation before the war that the regime could collapse at any moment due to large-scale demonstrations, Iran is clearly not collapsing, and the US seems to have no effective means to force Iran to submit. He concluded that the Iranians are able to "continue to survive in the stalemate"—enduring pain, but not facing an existential crisis, which is precisely the real dilemma facing the United States.
