Yaroslav Trofimov

And if that is allowed to happen, that would really transform the balance of power in the entire Middle East and the world, because Iran will be dominating global energy markets.

So now they are, in a way, in a much stronger position than they were before the war.

And if the war ends with them still controlling the state of Hormuz, that would be a strategic victory for the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Well, I think, you know, the Iranian system was always very complicated because you had on the surface elections and the parliament and a president who is still there, but who really holds very little actual power.

Then you have the Revolutionary Guard, the IRGC, that is really the strongest force and has the strongest military muscle.

And after his death, his son, Mostafa Khamenei, was named as the new supreme leader, but nobody has seen him.

Nobody has heard him since then.

It's not clear whether he's alive, and if he's alive, if he's been injured, and how badly.

And so, in fact, the power seems to have come to the Revolutionary Guard.

So the commanders, they are determined to keep fighting.

This is a very solid organization with many layers.

They've been preparing for this war against what they call the Great Satan and the Little Satan since the revolution in 1979.

They knew it was going to happen, and they made plans, perhaps unlike the U.S.

And now they're executing them.

And then again, if you look at the Gulf states, a lot of the imports that sustain them, food, cement, you name it, it's all coming to their ports through the Strait of Hormuz.

So it's really one of the most vital waterways in the world.

They're letting a few very small numbers from so-called friendly countries like China and India.

But they are talking about making this a permanent system and insisting that any ceasefire with the U.S.

will involve a new international arrangement for the Strait of Hormuz.

Well, you know, Iran's strategy through the decades was to create this network of proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, like the Houthis in Yemen, who would fight its enemies and would absorb the blows while the Iranian mainland was not bombarded by anyone and the Iranians could