If there is one lesson Iran should take from the last several years, it is that no missile, no military doctrine, and no foreign policy can substitute for the support of its own people. The first alliance Iran must build is not with another government. It is with the Iranian people themselves.
For decades, ordinary Iranians have borne the cost of geopolitical conflict. They have endured sanctions, inflation, currency crises, shortages, isolation, and uncertainty. They have watched opportunities disappear, industries stagnate, and talented young people leave the country in search of better futures elsewhere. Whatever one thinks of the Islamic Republic, it is impossible to deny that the Iranian people have paid a heavy price.
The government’s highest priority should therefore be neither ideology nor regional politics, but prosperity. Iran possesses immense natural resources, an educated population, a strategic geographic position, and one of the oldest and richest civilizations on earth. There is no reason Iranians should not enjoy a standard of living comparable to that of the most successful countries in Asia.
This requires a change in priorities. Economic growth should come before social engineering. Innovation should come before bureaucracy. Opportunity should come before restriction.
Many of the regulations that unnecessarily intrude into daily life should be reconsidered. Moral policing has become a source of division rather than unity. The state should focus less on controlling how people live and more on creating the conditions under which they can thrive. The strongest societies are not those that constantly police their citizens; they are those that inspire loyalty through competence, opportunity, and rising living standards.
A prosperous Iran would be a stronger Iran. A freer Iran would be a more confident Iran. A government that visibly improves the lives of its citizens would possess a legitimacy that no foreign adversary could easily undermine.
The second lesson is more uncomfortable. Iran should assume that the current ceasefire, whatever form it takes, is temporary.
Wars may end. Rivalries often do not.
Many in Tehran believe that the strategic objective of Israel and influential groups in Washington has not fundamentally changed. They believe that pressure on Iran—through sanctions, isolation, military threats, covert operations, and diplomatic campaigns—will continue regardless of temporary agreements. Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, it would be difficult to argue that relations between Iran and the West are likely to become normal soon.
From the Iranian perspective, the pattern appears centuries old. Persians remember invasions, interventions, occupations, coups, sanctions, and attempts by foreign powers to shape Iran’s destiny. They see a historical continuum stretching from ancient imperial rivalries to modern geopolitical competition.
Others may interpret history differently, but what matters strategically is how nations understand their own experience. Many Iranians have concluded that external pressure is not an exception. It is a permanent feature of their geopolitical environment.
If that assumption is correct, then Iran must think in decades rather than months.
That leads to the question of alliances.
For many years, Iran attempted to balance relationships with Europe, Russia, China, and various regional actors. The results have been mixed. Europe has often proven unwilling or unable to act independently of Washington. Russia has been a useful partner at times but remains primarily focused on its own interests and challenges. Neither relationship provides the foundation for long-term economic transformation.
China is different.
China is now the world’s largest industrial power, one of its largest trading nations, and increasingly one of its most influential geopolitical actors. Unlike many Western countries, China does not frame its relationship with Iran primarily through ideological or political conditions. Beijing’s interest is straightforward: energy, trade, infrastructure, markets, and strategic stability.
Iran offers China exactly what China needs: energy resources, strategic geography, access to the Middle East, and a critical position linking East Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Europe.
China offers Iran something equally valuable: investment, technology, industrial development, export markets, and an economic partner powerful enough to reduce the impact of Western pressure.
This does not mean Iran should become dependent upon China. Dependence merely replaces one vulnerability with another. Rather, Iran should seek a comprehensive strategic partnership that strengthens both countries while preserving Iranian independence.
The relationship should go beyond oil sales. It should include industrial development, transportation infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, ports, railways, aviation, education, and scientific cooperation. Iran should become an indispensable part of the emerging Eurasian economy.
The objective should be simple: make Iran so economically connected, technologically capable, and strategically important that attempts to isolate it become increasingly impractical.
The mullahs have been ‘secret’ partners with the West for many decades only to find themselves at the short end of the stick – when administrations change. It is well known, for example, that Ayatollah Kashani secretly aligned with the CIA to topple Mossadegh in the 1953 coup (that restored the Shah’s administration). The Iran-Contra saga revealed secret alliances and channels between the Reagan administration and the Mullahs. No one should ever forget that Khomeini flew from Paris to Tehran in a French government-chartered Air France 747. It is also well known, for example, that Rafsanjani and Rouhani were British shills inside Iran’s government.
If the war demonstrated nothing else, it fully showed how a change in administration in Washington can fundamentally shift ‘secret’ alliances. Western agents inside Iran were betrayed. Many were killed. Many were outed. An alliance with the West is fundamentally unsustainable. The mullahs need new partners.
Ultimately, however, no foreign partnership can save the Mullahs if they neglect their own citizens. The alliance with China may be important. The alliance with the Iranian people is essential.
The future strength of Iran will not be measured by how many enemies it can threaten or how many wars it can survive. It will be measured by whether young Iranians choose to stay, build businesses, raise families, innovate, and believe that their future lies within their own country. The mullahs should put aside internal repression, moral policing, and oppressive hijab enforcement. Even opponents of the regime should be welcome – provided they do NOT pose any violent challenges to it. They should allow legitimate, non-violent political opposition. The regime has shown its resilience – they should leverage this to bring Iranians back home who disagree with them but can contribute to Iran’s future. The regime can exhibit real confidence.
That is a real strategic challenge.
If Iran can create prosperity at home while building sustainable partnerships abroad, it will emerge stronger than it has been in generations. If it fails to do so, no alliance, however powerful, will compensate for the loss of confidence among its own people.
The next alliance Iran needs is therefore not complicated.
First, with the Iranian people.
Second, with China.
Everything else follows from there.
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