Iran’s Nuclear File; State populism and the Final Anti-people Marathon – Abbas Mansouran

To understand the nuclear crisis of the Islamic state, one must begin with war rather than centrifuges, analyzing the nature of the first political-Shiite Islamic state established in 1979, which declared the “export of the Islamic Revolution” to be its religious and state duties.

What is observed today in the nuclear dispute with the United States, confrontation with Israel, sweeping sanctions, and regional crises is the visible part of a larger project whose survival relied on societal securitization, crisis generation, crisis export, and the formation of the “Shiite Crescent.” This process reproduced an ideological state identity under the banner of political Islam, much like Shah Ismail Safavid, who transformed the Shiite sect into a hegemonic ideology in Iran through the sword and blood, utilizing regional leaders.

1. From the “Atoms for Peace” Project to War and the Embassy Occupation

Iran’s nuclear program began during the Pahlavi era within the “Atoms for Peace” framework with West German assistance for technological, energy, and medical applications. After the 1979 Revolution, it resumed in the late 1980s with Russian help, emerging in a context where war, repression, ideology, and state survival overshadowed everything else.

Contrary to state narratives, the roots of the eight-year war lie in the Islamic state sowing the initial seeds of devastation. The first shot was practically fired in 1980 by inciting Iraqi Shiites to rebel against Saddam Hussein. When Saddam arrested and executed Ayatollah Sayyid Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister Amina Sadr (Bint al-Huda), Ruhollah Khomeini rejected their asylum request, stating: “Remain there and fight!”—regarding Sadr as an ideological and jurisprudential rival. This slaughter catalyzed the war machine, leading Baghdad to launch a “preemptive invasion” to prevent the crisis from spilling over its borders.

This war was a deeply engineered hyper-crisis directed against the radical, emancipatory potential of the 1979 Revolution. The forces on the streets, in factories, and in universities heralded an atmosphere of freedom, carrying the largest dynamic socialist, revolutionary, and labor force in the Middle East.

The end of the 8-year war presented a “poisoned chalice” to Khomeini. The state realized that regional expansion had failed, the dream—”The road to Jerusalem passes through Karbala”—had not materialized, and the war of attrition had failed to shift the regional balance. Consequently, from the early 1990s onward, a new project was prioritized: establishing strategic deterrence to guarantee the regime’s survival through a three-pillar framework: the missile program for retaliatory capability, regional proxy networks to drag war abroad, and the nuclear program as the ultimate guarantee of survival. Instead of resolving its legitimacy crisis domestically, the Islamic state sought security by destabilizing Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

The greatest blow to this revolutionary and labor movement was delivered by direct repression—causing over 100,000 deaths in the 1980s—and from within by the Moscow-aligned Left. The Tudeh Party and the Soviet Union labeled the Islamic state an “anti-imperialist force,” hijacking leftist slogans to legitimize the regime’s conduct, driving a dagger into the back of the women’s, leftist, and labor movements.

Under this doctrine, the 444-day “occupation of the U.S. Embassy” in 1980 and the “war with Iraq” revealed their garrison-like, repressive functions. The embassy occupation falsely portrayed the sovereignty as radical to suffocate freedom-seeking, while the war became a blessing used to declare a permanent state of emergency. Both crises served as a full-scale counter-coup in the 1980s to crush revolutionary movements in Kurdistan, the Turkmen Sahra, Azerbaijan, Sistan and Baluchestan, and Khuzestan, as well as workers’ councils and democratic demands.

The cost of this anti-people policy was paid by the lower-class societies of Iran and Iraq with hundreds of thousands of dead, ruined cities, and political deadlock. Under this deadlock, systematic corruption rings formed within the IRGC, the Velayat-e Faqih apparatus, and state bodies over the world’s largest oil and gas table. This war enabled the IRGC to enter commercial brokerage through the weapons black market, allowing it to clamp its claws down as the primary owner of Iran’s financial cartels.

2. The Iran-Contra Paradox: The Primacy of Survival Over Belief

During this era, the fundamental contradiction in the Islamic state’s foreign policy was exposed. A state building its rhetorical legitimacy on absolute hostility toward Israel and imperialism was, in practice, purchasing weapons from those very countries. The “Iran-Contra” file (the McFarlane affair; purchasing weapons from the U.S. and Israeli black markets to fund the Nicaraguan contras against the Sandinistas) was a prominent example.

Israel regarded Saddam’s Iraq as the greater threat, consenting to the bombing of Iraq’s nuclear base (the Osirak explosion) and indirect arms collaborations with Tehran. This proved that within the logic of the Islamic state, ideology is always subordinate to pragmatism: the survival of power.

Khomeini’s doctrine was formulated with a foundational sentence: “Preserving the regime is among the most binding of all obligations.” This phrase became the regime’s strategic doctrine and sacred law. From then on, truth, transparency, accountability, and even primary Sharia rulings (prayer, fasting, Hajj) could easily be suspended for the regime’s survival.

3. The Concept of “Taqiyya” as a Tool of Systematic Deception

Within this framework, the concept of taqiyya (religious lying) acquired a fresh, Machiavellian meaning. Rooted in Shiite tradition and historical experience under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates to protect lives, it was utilized by the Islamic state to preserve political power while acquiring nuclear weapons under denial. In this structure, taqiyya became the rule. The denial of economic realities, concealment of the nuclear program, and redefinition of defeats as victories fell under this religious umbrella.

Peaceful energy was an affront to public intelligence; a country possessing the world’s second-largest gas reserves did not need underground facilities and decades of backbreaking sanctions unless producing a nuclear bomb. These sanctions devastated workers and the deprived while turning a profit for state factions, money laundering empires, and oil-smuggling networks, such as the economic cartel of the Shamkhani family. Instead of this massive security apparatus, a fraction of these expenses could have created dozens of modern power plants, solar networks, and sustainable industrial infrastructure.

4. The Abdul Qadeer Khan Network and the Scenario of the “Hidden Nuclear Leap”

The role of Abdul Qadeer Khan and the Pakistani nuclear technology-smuggling network is of particular importance. During the decades when the Islamic state was rapidly expanding its enrichment capacity, it received technical knowledge, first-generation centrifuge designs, and sensitive technologies from this informal network.

Today, the Islamic state has attained the technical knowledge to produce a nuclear bomb; even if a portion of its overt facilities has been destroyed in military strikes, it can easily rebuild bomb production tools, ultrasonic missile warheads, and weapons laced with nuclear materials by pumping released, timed funds.

5. The Tragedy of a Rentier Economy

While the direct cost of nuclear infrastructure is estimated at 20 to 30 billion dollars, the true catastrophe lies in “lost opportunities.” Sanctions, reduced investment, capital flight, and currency collapse have inflicted cumulative damage estimated at between 500 billion and over 1 trillion dollars.

With just 500 billion dollars, it was possible to:

• Establish 330 large power plants to permanently solve the industrial blackout crisis.

• Create millions of jobs and curb environmental, water, and energy crises.

Instead, this wealth financed domestic repression, Bashar al-Assad, and proxy networks (Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PMF, Zainabiyoun, Fatemiyoun, Alawiyoun, Husayniyoun, Houthis). By increasing to 60% and reducing the “breakout time,” the state practically held the world hostage for its survival.

The Islamic state has integrated into the “Eurasianism” paradigm, aligning with Alexander Dugin’s “Fourth Political Theory.” This doctrine rejects Western liberalism, offering ideological justification for anti-Western, multi-polar alliances. For Tehran, entering the Eurasia umbrella under Moscow and Beijing’s shadow is not an economic choice, but a desperate geopolitical refuge to secure regime survival and institutionalize its garrison-like governance.

6. The Doctrine of “Strategic Depth” in the Logic of the Velayat-e Faqih

In the logic of the Velayat-e Faqih, the state is the agent for “preserving the regime,” and the political and military market for ruling capitalist relations. Hence, any tool, tactic, or policy that guarantees survival is deemed legitimate. Within this framework, billions of dollars were spent to expand the “Axis of Resistance.” From Hezbollah in Lebanon to armed groups in Iraq, from supporting the Syrian state to Hamas, all expanded the strategic depth of the Islamic state. In the eyes of the regime’s leaders, defensive lines passed through Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Sana’a, Gaza, Nigeria, and Venezuela.

However, this policy carried a backbreaking price, causing unchecked inflation, structural unemployment, and severe erosion of infrastructure, while regional projects swallowed vital resources. The 2019 slogan “Bread, Work, Freedom, Council Management” from workers at Haft Tappeh and Ahvaz Steel marked the labor movement’s transition to a council-based class orientation, forming an unbridgeable chasm between the state and society. This nationwide rift manifested in labor protests, teacher uprisings, the women’s movement, the bloody protests of December 2017 and November 2019, and the historic “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement (the Jina Uprising) of 2022.

7. From the Mirage of the JCPOA to the Collapse of the Leader’s and Command’s House and Faction

Under such conditions, the 2015 “JCPOA” agreement led by Barack Obama emerged to contain the nuclear crisis. The Obama administration believed enrichment could be limited, while the Islamic state viewed it as economic breathing room and a chance to buy time.

From the beginning, the JCPOA was a clash of approaches. Western states sought containment; however, the Islamic state strived to attain the bomb by generating crises and buying time without abandoning its strategic foundations. For the state, the phased agreement was a tool for financial opening without fundamental changes to its regional policies, crimes against humanity, and power structure.

With Donald Trump’s first term, this rift became obvious. The Trump group considered the JCPOA inadequate, viewing the missile program, the IRGC, and regional networks as part of the problem. Trump’s order to withdraw signaled the beginning of the “maximum pressure” strategy. Following that, the Islamic state cast aside limitations; uranium stockpiles leaped to 60% enrichment, returning the crisis to the main orbit of politics.

However, the most significant development of recent years (particularly with the 12-day, 49-day, and the recent two-day conflicts between Iran, Israel, and the U.S.) took place in the strategic blows dealt to the power structure. These confrontations dealt lethal blows to the command, security, and leadership hierarchies, eliminating senior military command down to the third tier and seriously weakening the “Axis of Resistance.” What was once introduced as strategic depth has transformed into a heavy burden on a state at a dead end.

The nuclear crisis is no longer merely a technical crisis; it is the mirror of the regime’s survival crisis. The survival of the state’s factions faces a political impasse, economic collapse, a legitimacy crisis, a succession crisis, regional isolation, and social movements nearing 80 million, with a canyon of blood between the coup factions and society.

Today, for neoliberalism and the globalization of capital, the expiration date of the remnants of the Islamic state’s factions has reached its end. The nuclear file is the history of an exhausting marathon in which the state, for survival, imposed war, sanctions, poverty, unemployment, three-digit inflation, and regional adventurism upon society. Now that its strategy is distressed and grounded, the nuclear crisis has become a survival crisis for the regime itself.

The primary issue is no longer what the regime will do with a stockpile that monitoring bodies estimate to be at least around 460 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60%—a stockpile whose existence the state claims remains beneath the mountains or has turned to dust. The primary issue is whether a structure that built its logic of survival on the nuclear program, societal securitization, domestic repression, gallows, prisons, and the confiscation of society’s existence fundamentally possesses the capacity for political and economic reconstruction and self-reproduction in the deepest crisis of its historical existence.

The nuclear crisis reflects the complete face of the gridlocked Islamic state: a deep chasm between the survival logic of the rulers and the vital needs of the people, between garrison-like securitization and freedom, and between ideology and objective reality.

If this is so, what will be the future of this impasse? Can fresh agreements—even if temporary and on paper—and a colorful Trump halt the machine of collapse? And most important of all, what is the position of the “Third Force”—meaning the massive mass of Iranian society, women, workers, and laborers—in this multi-variable equation?

Abbas Mansouran

June 17, 2026