The Iranian regime’s imperial delusion is crumbling. After decades spent fueling proxy wars and exporting revolution, Tehran now finds itself more isolated and impotent than ever. The linchpin of its regional empire, Syria, has collapsed into disarray. Its prized proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, are battered, demoralized, or disarmed. And now, with Donald Trump’s bold Gaza peace initiative gaining traction, the Islamic Republic’s game is up.
For years, Iran’s ayatollahs dreamed of a Shi’ite crescent stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean, forged in blood and ideology. They poured billions into Bashar al-Assad’s regime, propped up Hezbollah as a state within a state in Lebanon, armed the Houthis in Yemen, and positioned Hamas as their outpost on Israel’s southern flank. It was all meant to project power, intimidate adversaries, and deter Western intervention.
But that grand strategy has failed. Spectacularly.
The recent Gaza peace deal, brokered by Trump, has not only opened a path to Israeli/Palestinian stabilization, but it has also detonated the core of Iran’s regional leverage. Hamas, once Tehran’s crown jewel among Sunni resistance proxies, is now in retreat. Its leadership has been decimated. Its military capabilities shredded. Under the terms of the deal, if it holds, it will be disarmed and replaced by a new, internationally monitored governing structure in Gaza.
Iran has lost its southern front against Israel, and with it, much of its regional utility. Hezbollah fares little better. Once feared for its firepower and entrenchment, it now finds itself under sustained and surgical Israeli strikes that have crippled its command structure. Once a regional power broker, Hezbollah has become a liability, dragging Lebanon further into economic ruin and international isolation. Iran’s multi-decade investment is being flushed down the drain.
Even in Yemen, the Houthis, long celebrated by Tehran as a revolutionary “resistance movement”, are on the back foot. International naval coalitions have curtailed their Red Sea piracy. Arab coalitions have kept them hemmed in. Iran can no longer sustain or expand its influence there. The Houthis are no longer a strategic asset, they are a faltering burden.
And then there is Syria, once the jewel of the Levant, now the shattered heart of Iran’s imperial adventure. For years, Tehran poured in billions to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s blood-soaked regime, deploying IRGC thugs and Hezbollah mercenaries, shipping oil, arms and credit in a desperate bid to keep their puppet alive. Yet all that treasure and blood has come to dust. Assad is gone, toppled amid the rubble he created. Russia now calls the shots in Damascus, while Iran’s grand land corridor to the Mediterranean lies in tatters. The so-called “axis of resistance,” once trumpeted as the spearhead of Tehran’s power, is faltering fast, exposed, exhausted, and staring into the abyss of its own making.
In short, Tehran’s regional ambitions are unravelling. Its proxies are decimated. Its alliances are crumbling. Its empire is rotting from within. This collapse is not occurring in a vacuum. There is a sea change in Western policy. The days of appeasement are over. Washington and European capitals are waking up to the reality that Tehran’s regime is not a misunderstood actor seeking respect, it is a theocratic kleptocracy bent on destabilizing its neighbors and suppressing its people.
For too long, Western diplomats tiptoed around the mullahs’ red lines, desperately seeking deals and detente. In the process, we emboldened the regime’s worst impulses. We let them get away with hostage diplomacy, nuclear brinkmanship, and brutal crackdowns on their own citizens. But now, the tide is turning. Trump’s Gaza peace deal is more than a ceasefire. It is a strategic recalibration. It signals that the international community is ready to marginalize spoilers and empower solutions. And that shift leaves Iran out in the cold. Tehran’s rulers are scrambling. They know their strategy is collapsing. That’s why they’ve started making quiet noises about peace. Trump recently revealed that Iran is “totally in favor” of the Gaza deal and has been involved in “very good conversations.” But let us not be fooled. These are not the gestures of a reformed regime; they are the death rattles of a failed one.
Inside Iran, the pressure is building. The economy is in freefall. The population is restless. Women, students, and workers have taken to the streets in waves of defiance. The regime’s only answer is brutality. The Revolutionary Guards shoot, jail, torture and hang, but they cannot extinguish the demand for freedom. The regime’s internal decay mirrors its external collapse. The ayatollahs can no longer export their crisis through war. They can no longer hold the region hostage through proxy violence. They can no longer count on Western indifference.
We stand at a pivotal moment. For the first time in decades, Iran’s regime is on the defensive, strategically, economically, diplomatically. The international community must not squander this opportunity. It’s time to stop treating the Islamic Republic as a partner to be appeased and start treating it as the malignant actor it is. That means ramping up sanctions, isolating its enablers, empowering its opposition, and supporting the Iranian people’s aspirations for democracy and dignity. Iran’s regional empire is collapsing. Let it. Better yet, help it fall. Let that be the legacy of Trump’s peace deal, not just a ceasefire in Gaza, but the beginning of the end for Tehran’s long reign of terror.
Struan Stevenson is the Coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change (CiC). He was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.
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