Michael Stephens, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute,
said Iran is deliberately seeking to prolong the war because it does not view
economic pressure as an existential threat to the regime. After nearly six
months of fighting, Tehran is convinced the US will not mount a ground invasion
and that "the survival threat has gone," so it is trying to accelerate
operations to "make Trump feel greater pain" and prefers to "drag it out."
Stephens said, contrary to pre-war expectations of imminent collapse after mass
protests, Iran has not fallen and Washington appears to lack effective means to
compel Tehran; Iranians can "continue to live in a stalemate" — suffering but
not facing a survival crisis, which he described as the core problem for the US.
