"Hit us and we shall hit you ten times harder!" This is how General Muhammad-Ali Jaafari, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) has responded to speculation about a possible attack by the United States and/or Israel on Iran's nuclear installations.
Jaafari replaced General Yahya Safavi last year after the latter made a speech in which he implicitly warned the mullahs that Iran's military was not ready for war against far more powerful enemies.
Those familiar with Iranian military capabilities know that it is Safavi's sober assessment, and not Jaafari's bluster, that reflects the true situation.
The problem is that Jaafari can make his claim because he, and his political masters in Tehran, are convinced there would be no military action against their regime.
In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the then newly-minted President of the Islamic Republic and darling of the IRGC, unveiled a strategy based on the assumption that once George W. Bush is out of the White House, the United States would bite the bullet and accept a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic as "regional superpower" in the Middle East.
Two events convinced Ahmadinejad that his strategy was correct:
The first came in May 2006 when the Bush administration, then at the nadir of its unpopularity because of the situation in Iraq, joined the line of supplicant Europeans begging Tehran to negotiate a deal.
That unexpected shift in Washington's policy produced the opposite effect.
Far from persuading Ahamdinejad that this was a good time to defuse the situation, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's attempt at nuance and multilateral diplomacy convinced Tehran that the Americans had blinked.
The second event that confirmed Ahmadinejad's belief that "America cannot do a damn thing" came with last year's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Using a language of obfuscation, the NIE claimed that Tehran had abandoned key aspect of its nuclear program in 2003. The NIE undermined the whole case brought by the International Atomic Energy Agency against the Islamic Republic.
Whatever one might say about Ahmadinejad, one thing is certain: he plays an open hand. He is convinced that the US does not have the stomach for a fight and that Bush is the last American president to even dream of pre-emptive war.
He thinks the dominant mood in the US, and the West in general, is one of pre-emptive surrender.
Ahmadinejad may well be right: there is not going to be any war against the Islamic Republic.
Here is why: as soon as there are tangible moves, not just threats, leaked through The New Yorker's investigative reporters, that could threaten the existence of he Khomeinist regime, Tehran will announce a temporary suspension of its uranium enrichment program in accordance with three United Nations' Security Council resolutions.
Such an announcement will instantly defuse the situation, break the diplomatic coalition created by Bush, and, possibly, even inspire Nancy Pelosi to praise Ahmadinejad as a man of peace. To launch a war against Iran in such a situation would become politically impossible, even if John McCain is president.
A temporary suspension would not undermine Iran's plans to build a "nuclear surge capacity" - that is to say producing all that is needed for making atomic warheads without actually manufacturing bombs. Iranians, inspired by 3,000 years of history, know the value of patience. They are not in a hurry. They know that weaving a Persian carpet sometimes takes years.
In 2003, Iran did announce a suspension of its uranium program. Now, however, we know that even during that suspension, Tehran was working on other aspects of its nuclear project.
This time, the regime might accept another temporary suspension only if its own survival is at stake.
Taking measures that might hurt the people of Iran won't do the trick. The mullahs are as concerned about the welfare of their people as Saddam Hussein was about that of the Iraqis and Robert Mugabe is of the Zimbabweans. Sanctions already imposed by the UN make life more difficult for the average Iranian but have little effect on the regime.
This means that the Islamic Republic will not, indeed cannot, offer any concessions unless faced with the prospect of regime change.
Ahmadinejad has said as much, albeit in different words.
He has castigated his predecessor Muhammad Khatami for accepting suspension in 2003 when the regime was not in danger. Khatami says he did so because at the time, shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, he feared that the Americans might make a right turn and march on Tehran as well.
In other words, it was fear of regime change that persuaded the mullahs to accept suspension five years ago. As soon as that fear was gone and Bush appeared to be headed for a political lynching in his own country, the program was resumed at an even faster pace.
The way Western politicians talk about it, one gets the impression that the Iranian nuclear issue is a quirk of the mullahs that could be fixed with the threat of sticks and promise of carrots. It is not.
The Iranian nuclear issue has three layers.
The first concerns the power struggle in Tehran. Ahmadinejad has built his macho image on this issue. If he backs down he will be politically dead.
The second layer concerns the regime's strategy for hegemony in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic needs tactical "nuclear parity" to guarantee it won't be attacked with nuclear weapons as it proceeds to drive the Americans out of the Middle East, help destroy Israel as a Jewish state, and impose Khomeinism on the Arabs in the name of Islamic unity.
The third layer concerns the regime's ambitions, spelled out by Ahmadinejad and others, to create an international coalition to challenge the global system dominated by the United States.
Ahmadinejad has already promised anti-American regimes in Latin America "full support and protection" against the "Great Satan" in Washington. Iran is already laying the foundations for an armaments industry in Venezuela. One day a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic may extend its nuclear umbrella to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador and, why not, even Cuba.
The Islamic Republic has been at war against the United States and the international system it leads for almost 30 years. This has been a low intensity war because the US and its allies have shied away from full-scale confrontation. The US has shown it has lots of power but not the courage to use even a fraction of it. The Islamic Republic's power, on the other hand, is "tiny," as Senator Barack Obama has noted. But the mullahs have been prepared to use that "tiny" power in full, with already devastating effects.
The issue is not how to avoid war with the Islamic Republic. It is how to end a war that has been going on for almost 30 years.
As in all wars there are three ways to end this one: surrender, make a deal, or win.
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