The War of the Clocks: What If Time Is No Longer on Iran’s Side
Not so long ago, I described the conflict between the United States and Iran as a “war of the clocks.” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/iranunited-states-clock-war-has-begun-gilles-touboul-u6oof/?trackingId=cdNxk%2FeRnZ41Ye9bSP6B8w%3D%3D) The idea is quite simple: in a prolonged conflict, the side that can wait the longest without giving in holds the advantage. Initially, I thought this advantage was on the Iranian side. Why? Because the United States is a democracy. Donald Trump must think about the midterm elections, public opinion, the cost of war, the price of gasoline, and Americans’ fatigue. A war that drags on too long without clear results quickly becomes hard to defend politically. Iran, on the other hand, operates differently. The Iranian regime doesn’t need to win free elections. It can control information, suppress protests, and force its population to accept a level of suffering that many democracies would struggle to bear. So I thought that time could work in Tehran’s favor. Today, I’m less sure.
Because the real question may not be who can wait the longest. The real question is: who suffers the most while waiting? And on this point, Iran now seems much more fragile than I thought. The Iranian economy had already been suffering for a long time due to sanctions. But Tehran had learned to live with them. The regime found ways to sell its oil, bypass some restrictions, and continue trading, especially with China. The problem today is that sanctions are no longer the only issue. Now there is war, difficulties exporting oil, American pressure, inflation, a decrease in purchasing power, and growing challenges in financing the economy.
This is where the situation becomes dangerous for the regime. A dictatorship can arrest opponents. It can shut down media outlets. It can disperse protests. But it cannot decree that inflation does not exist. It cannot indefinitely prevent people from seeing their standard of living decline. And most importantly, it cannot fix the problem if the state’s revenues themselves start to fall. This is likely Iran’s real weak point today.
Washington is not only trying to impoverish Iran. The United States is mainly trying to confront Tehran with several problems at once. The regime must finance the war. It must maintain subsidies. It must support its economy. It must pay its state apparatus. It must fund its security forces. And at the same time, it must prevent popular discontent from getting out of control. As long as Iran could deal with these problems separately, the regime could hold on. But when they all hit at once, the situation changes.
This is where Washington’s tightening grip becomes clear. The goal may not be to directly topple the regime. The goal is to make the cost of waiting higher and higher. In other words, Washington is trying to convince Tehran that waiting a few more months will cost it more than accepting a compromise now. This does not mean that Iran will “surrender.” That word is too strong. We must distinguish three things: agreeing to negotiate, accepting concessions, and seeing the regime collapse. These are three completely different scenarios.
The Islamic Republic still has a powerful security apparatus. The Revolutionary Guards remain essential to the regime’s functioning. The Iranian opposition remains divided. And history shows us that a dictatorship can survive a very long time, even with a devastated economy. So it would be dangerous to think that economic collapse automatically leads to regime change. North Korea is probably the best example. But that doesn’t mean the economy doesn’t matter.
It becomes truly dangerous when the difficulties start to directly affect the regime’s ability to function. At that point, we must watch more than just protests. We need to look at divisions at the top, funding problems, the loyalty of security forces, the behavior of economic elites, and above all, the regime’s ability to keep distributing resources to its supporters.
This is where the “war of the clocks” becomes more interesting. There is not just one clock. There are several. First, there is the American clock: elections, public opinion, the cost of war, and the price of oil. Then, there is Iran’s economic clock: oil exports, inflation, currency, and state revenues. There is also Iran’s social clock: how long can the population endure yet another drop in its standard of living? And finally, there is the regional clock: the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices, China, Gulf countries, and the effects on the world economy.
That’s why the United States also doesn’t have unlimited time. If the crisis drags on too long, Washington can suffer the cost of its own strategy. Energy prices may rise. American opinion may turn. Markets may start to worry. And the November elections are approaching.
So the entire American strategy seems to hinge on a very simple race: making the Iranian economic clock tick faster than the American political clock. That’s probably what matters most today.
At the start of this standoff, I thought the authoritarian nature of the Iranian regime gave it an important advantage in a war of endurance. I think that much less now. A dictatorship may have more political patience than a democracy. But it doesn’t necessarily have more economic resilience. And that’s probably what many of us underestimated.
The real rule of the war of the clocks may ultimately be this: the winner is not the one who has the most time ahead. It’s the one who can withstand the consequences of passing time the longest.
And for the first time since the start of this confrontation, it’s possible that Tehran needs a deal more than Washington does. But Washington still has to turn Iran’s vulnerability into a political result. And above all, it must do so before its own clock catches up with it.
