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The clerical regime ruling Iran refused to attend Sharm el-Sheikh gathering, a high-level meeting convened by Egypt—with broad transatlantic, Arab, and Asian participation—to consolidate the Gaza ceasefire and move from guns to governance. Multiple outlets confirm Tehran’s snub; Iranian state media framed it as a sovereign decision reached after “expert consultations.” The optics are clear: the regime avoided an event dedicated to winding down proxy warfare and building enforceable rules.
The agenda under discussion—prisoner exchanges, international oversight of reconstruction, a technocratic interim authority in Gaza, and the exclusion of armed factions from governing—cuts directly against Tehran’s regional playbook. Participation would have implied acquiescence to curbs on the very instruments the regime funds, trains, and arms.
Tehran’s public rationale—sanctions and “attacks” by Western states—does not withstand scrutiny. Those pressures are precisely what the summit sought to de-escalate by institutional means. Refusing the stage was less about principle than about self-preservation: joining a coalition that formalizes constraints on proxy warfare would have advertised the regime’s weakness at home and eroded its coercive tools abroad.
#Iranian Regime’s Fourfold Objectives in the #GazaCrisishttps://t.co/UXfRouGv2b
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 9, 2023
Ideology
The clerical dictatorship is not designed for normal coexistence. Its constitution builds foreign policy around confronting “hegemonic powers,” pledging “support” beyond Iran’s borders—a clause repeatedly invoked to justify extraterritorial activism. This is not a policy preference that can be toggled off at a summit; it is baked into the regime’s legal-ideological DNA.
During the Iran-Iraq war, the former Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini’s slogan—“the road to Jerusalem passes through Karbala”—sacralized confrontation with its neighbors and framed a theory of regional influence through armed struggle. Scholarly and policy literature documents how that slogan shaped strategy far beyond the battlefield. A political system that casts proxy warfare as a virtue will see any demobilization framework as heresy.
This ideological mandate is not rhetorical excess; it confers purpose, budget, and prestige on security organs that enforce it. When outside actors push for demilitarization, monitoring, and rule-bound dispute resolution, they challenge a founding narrative that equates militancy with moral standing. That is why even symbolic attendance in Sharm el-Sheikh was too costly for Tehran.
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Understanding the #Iranian regime’s Goals in the Crisis pic.twitter.com/oikos96Kxu— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) January 2, 2024
Instruments
The IRGC—designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States in 2019—exists to defend the regime at home and project power through the Quds Force abroad. Its comparative advantage is proxy warfare: arming, training, and financing non-state actors to create veto power over local politics and to pressure adversaries without direct interstate war.
UN reporting and government designations detail Iranian material support to the Houthis, Hezbollah, and multiple Iraqi militias. Recent U.S. actions again targeted Iran-aligned groups’ finance and logistics; UN experts have traced interdicted missiles and drone components to Iran’s networks. A process that interdicts resupply routes and sidelines armed groups from governance threatens Tehran’s entire operating model.
Iranian media can claim that skipping Sharm “won’t limit” Tehran’s influence. The facts say otherwise: where verification tightens and arms pipelines are policed, the regime’s leverage shrinks. That is precisely why it would not stand on a stage built to codify those constraints.
#Iran's Regime Dismisses Gaza Ceasefire, Defies @IAEA and Keeps Missile Talks Off Limitshttps://t.co/clj8FHa6ZH
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 6, 2025
Domestic
Skip the euphemisms: the regime’s weakness is internal. After years of protests and crackdowns, voter participation cratered—about 8% in the 2024 presidential first round, the lowest since 1979—before rebounding to roughly half in the runoff. Low consent forces rulers to lean on security organs and propaganda. Joining a rules-first regional order would puncture the “siege” narrative they need to justify repression.
Repression is surging. The UN reported at least 975 executions in 2024; Amnesty now counts over 1,000 already in 2025—Iran’s highest in at least 36 years. Independent human rights organizations and UN mechanisms continue to document torture, unfair trials, and systemic discrimination. A state that governs by fear cannot afford the optics of de-escalation abroad.
The economy is brittle. IMF and World Bank indicators point to high inflation (around the 40s), currency collapse past one million rials per dollar this year, and even contraction in 2025 per fresh World Bank projections. Parliament’s push to lop four zeros off the currency is a symptom, not a cure. Conflict abroad keeps attention off governance failure at home.
Crisis and War in the #MiddleEast: The Roots and Solutions
Understanding the #Iranian regime’s Goals in the Crisishttps://t.co/nwhOvnj8w3— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) January 2, 2024
Incentives
Coexistence means intrusive monitoring, interdiction of weapons flows, and sidelining gunmen from politics. For Tehran, that rips out three pillars of survival: ideological legitimacy built on confrontation; an IRGC budget and patronage system tied to expeditionary activism; and a domestic narrative that blames an external enemy for every shortage and strike. The incentives all point away from compromise.
Attendance in Sharm would have signaled acceptance of a new regional order: no weapons in non-state hands, tighter verification, and technocratic governance in Gaza. That order would force Tehran to halt the very proxy warfare that sustains its regional leverage and its internal cohesion. The regime did the math and stayed home.
This is not a tactical choice but a structural one. Unless those pillars change, Tehran will view any enduring regional peace architecture as a direct threat to regime survival—and will work to spoil it through deniable violence. Western planners should treat that as a baseline, not an outlier.
What Happens if The Regime in #Iran Stops Running Global #Terrorismhttps://t.co/1bGMkcfBZB
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) December 4, 2023
Endgame
Waiting for Tehran to renounce the very mechanisms that keep the clerical state alive is a mirage. The regime’s sitting Supreme Leader and chief strategist, Ali Khamenei has long told his base that if Iran does not fight beyond its borders, it will confront war in “Kermanshah, Hamedan… and other [Iranian] cities”—a doctrine meant to sanctify permanent proxy warfare and to frame any retreat as the first slip on a slope of “unending concessions.”
In the run-up to—and throughout—the June Twelve-Day War, warnings were explicit: IAEA censure over 60% enrichment, public signals from Washington, and then Israeli strikes on nuclear and command targets followed by U.S. attacks on enrichment infrastructure. Tehran still refused to curb enrichment or offer serious trade-offs, because conceding the tools of survival would have undercut the system that secures the regime at home.
The conclusion is stark but inescapable: virtually every state has welcomed the Gaza peace accord—except the Iranian regime. For Tehran’s rulers, regional peace would dismantle the very survival strategy they have built on proxy militias, missile programs, and perpetual crisis. So long as this regime governs Iran, it will obstruct any path to durable peace in the Middle East. Enduring peace, therefore, hinges on political change in Tehran that removes the apparatus which makes conflict its reason to exist.