Why Won’t Iran Accept Trading Its Strategic Gains for Money?
Ali Haidar, Al-Akhbar Newspaper
It is not possible to understand Iran’s performance in the negotiations that followed the American- Israeli” aggression against the Islamic Republic solely through an economic lens.
It is true that the impact of economic pressure and sanctions is severe, and that access to frozen assets and financial revenues is not a minor issue for a state facing significant internal and external burdens. However, the flaw in many Western and “Israeli” readings is that they assumed this pressure would eventually push Iran, at a certain moment, to trade elements of its strategic power for financial gains.
What the experience has shown is almost the opposite: Iran does want money, but not at the cost of weakening its deterrent capability, its ability to survive, or its freedom of maneuver. From this perspective, Iran’s equation is not based on ignoring the economy, but on placing it within a broader conception of power- one in which money becomes a tool to strengthen the state’s resilience, enable it to fund its institutions, ease internal pressures, and expand its political room for maneuver.
Military and political power, on the other hand, is what preserves the state and the system, prevents coercion, protects resources, and forces adversaries to recognize the limits of the pressure they can apply.
Building on this, Iran has refused- directly or indirectly—to turn negotiations into a grand bargain in which it relinquishes the pillars of its deterrence in exchange for economic gains. It has not accepted placing its missile program on the negotiating table, it has not treated Hezbollah as a burden to be discarded, it has not viewed its regional influence as merely a financial liability to be scaled back, nor has it agreed to a return to the previous status quo in the Strait of Hormuz that would reduce it to a passive observer in one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints.
The latter perhaps offers the clearest illustration of Iran’s approach. Iran does not seek to permanently close the Strait, since sustained disruption would harm it as much as others. At the same time, however, it does not accept that it remains open solely under rules defined by others. In other words, the issue is not simply about transit fees or financial revenues, but about sovereignty, influence, and the capacity to shape the rules of the game.
Iran has refused to turn the negotiations into a deal in which it relinquishes the pillars of its deterrence in exchange for economic gains.
The same applies to Hezbollah. Iran does not view it as a bargaining chip, but as an embodiment of its system’s values, and considers its preservation and support part of a broader deterrence architecture that grants Iran regional depth.
For this reason, it is difficult to expect Tehran to accept a complete separation between any nuclear or financial understanding and the regional arenas, which are not, in the end, a peripheral element of its strategy but an integral part of its definition of power.
The recent war has only reinforced this trajectory rather than reversing it. The lesson Tehran has likely drawn is that absorbing economic and military losses is less dangerous than losing deterrence, and that the economy can be gradually rebuilt as long as the state retains its capacity for maneuver. By contrast, the loss of power instruments exposes it to coercion, threats, and repeated strikes.
From this perspective, Iran appears willing to bear a high cost, so long as that cost does not turn into a strategic concession that alters its position in the region.
If power is what protects money rather than the other way around, then Iran will approach any economic offer through the lens of its impact on its deterrent position. It will accept de-escalation only if it provides time and space to rebuild its capabilities, while rejecting any form of sustained calm if it becomes a mechanism for stripping away its leverage.
For this reason, Tehran will negotiate over sanctions and the nuclear file, but it will resist any attempt to expand the scope of talks to include its missile arsenal, its regional allies, or the Strait of Hormuz. As a result, the United States will ultimately find itself compelled to narrow or reorder its objectives, focusing on preventing escalation or managing the nuclear issue, rather than seeking a comprehensive transformation of Iranian behavior all at once.
In the Gulf and the broader region, this equation means that any de-escalation with Iran will remain incomplete unless it accounts for Tehran’s own understanding of its role and sources of power. This is something Gulf states seeking stability and the protection of energy and trade flows are expected to recognize, while “Israel”, for its part, is likely to continue viewing it as a persistent threat.
In the end, it is clear that Iran does not choose between the economy and power as if they were absolute opposites. Rather, it seeks financial gains within a framework that preserves its strength and prevents the dismantling of its deterrence architecture.
In the Iranian view, power is what protects the system, the state, its resources, and its regional position. Money, however important it may be, remains a tool for strengthening strategic assets, not a substitute for them.
