The Geopolitics of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Geography, nuclear threshold, and network warfare in the Middle East of the 21st century. General Pasquale Preziosa, former Chief of Staff of the Italian Air Force, analyzes what is immutable in the geopolitical situation of contemporary Iran, in an attempt to understand how the current conflict came about.
Iran cannot be understood by starting with ideology. It can be understood by starting with the map. It is a state of almost continental scale in the heart of the Middle East: large, complex, difficult to cross, and even more difficult to subdue. Its cities, its economy, and even its strategic psychology are deeply shaped by a peculiar geographical configuration, defined by a combination of mountains, plateaus, and deserts that form a ver l natural enclosure. This enclosure serves a dual function: it protects the country from invasions but at the same time conditions its economic development and strategic projection.
To the west, the Zagros mountain range and to the north, the Alborz mountain range, constitute the main defensive architecture of the territory. These are not just mountain ranges: they represent Iran’s geopolitical belt. It is along these ridges that the main cities and most of the population are concentrated. At the same time, they constitute the first line of defense against the traditional routes of strategic penetration from Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
The morphology has therefore contributed to shaping a particular form of strategic state psychology, based on three recurring priorities in Iranian history: preserving territorial integrity, controlling ethnic peripheries, and preventing external powers from using neighboring regions as platforms for destabilization.
Iran is in fact a more complex ethnic and religious mosaic than its compact image might suggest. Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, and other minorities populate regions that are often peripheral and sometimes difficult to fully integrate into the state system. In this geographical and demographic context, the Iranian state has developed, over the centuries, an almost structural response based on the centralization of political power, a strong security apparatus, and widespread control of the territory. When external pressure increases, Iran’s strategic priority is not to expand but to avoid internal fragmentation.
The desert as a geopolitical factor
In the heart of the country lie two large arid expanses: the Dasht-e Kavir and the Dasht-e Lut. These deserts are not just marginal geographical features, but real geopolitical factors. They constitute an internal barrier that divides Iran into different territorial compartments, producing significant logistical inertia. Communications are more difficult, population density is uneven, and industrial development is more expensive than in more homogeneous geographical areas. This helps explain a structural paradox of the Iranian economy. Although the country has immense energy resources, including some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, the transformation of these resources into widespread economic power has historically been limited. Energy revenues support the state, but they do not eliminate the structural frictions of a complex territory. The result is a particular strategic configuration: a state with considerable resilience, but with often uneven economic growth.
This configuration pushes Iran to seek strategic security not primarily through the economy, but through other instruments of power. Over the past few decades, Tehran has built its security on four main levers: conventional and missile deterrence, regional strategic depth, energy leverage, and asymmetric instruments and indirect warfare.
The maritime lever: the Strait of Hormuz
On the maritime front, Iran has a geopolitical tool of enormous importance, namely the Strait of Hormuz. This strait connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and is one of the most important energy chokepoints in the global system. A significant proportion of global oil exports pass through this relatively narrow maritime corridor. Its geographical position allows Iran to exercise a form of economic deterrence. It is not necessary to have a dominant ocean-going navy to influence global energy markets; it is sufficient to be able to threaten the point where the world’s energy system is concentrated and becomes vulnerable. The ability to disrupt or even threaten the security of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is therefore a strategic lever that inevitably enters into the calculations of any external actor considering military action against Tehran.
From territorial geopolitics to threshold geopolitics
The geographical constants that define Iran’s strategic position were already evident at the beginning of the 21st century and remain valid today. However, in recent years there has been a significant change in the nature of the strategic competition involving the country. Whereas in the past the dynamics of confrontation developed mainly along territorial lines, such as the Mesopotamian plains or the historical corridors between Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, in the contemporary context competition is increasingly centered around a strategic triad: the nuclear program, missile capabilities, and regional networks.
The turning point coincides with the progressive crisis of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iranian nuclear agreement signed in 2015. The gradual erosion of mutual trust between Iran and the West has pushed Tehran towards a nuclear threshold logic. This logic does not necessarily imply the declared possession of a nuclear weapon, but the ability to approach the point where such a weapon becomes technically credible and politically plausible.
The crisis of nuclear verifiability
In the years following 2020, the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency has become increasingly central in determining the degree of transparency of Iran’s nuclear program. In 2026, the Agency reported a significant deterioration in its monitoring capabilities. This is not only due to political tensions between Iran and the international community, but also to technical difficulties in verifying the quantity, location, and status of enriched nuclear material stocks. The so-called “continuity of knowledge,” i.e., the ability of inspectors to maintain a consistent and continuous view of Iran’s nuclear program, has gradually weakened. This has important strategic implications. When verifiability decreases, uncertainty increases. And when uncertainty increases, so does the likelihood that the actors involved will consider preventive action a plausible option.
The strategic trauma of October 7
A further transformative factor is represented by the events of October 7, 2023. Hamas’ attack on Israel produced a profound transformation in the perception of Israeli security. Since then, Israel has gradually abandoned the idea that regional threats can be managed separately (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria) and has begun to interpret them as part of an integrated system. In this system, the strategic center of gravity is often identified as Tehran. Not necessarily because Iran directly controls every action of regional armed groups, but because it represents the main political and logistic hub of a network of actors challenging the regional order. This dynamic has gradually shifted the confrontation between Israel and Iran from an indirect to a more explicit dimension.
The escalation of 2026
In 2026, this dynamic reaches an even more critical stage. Direct military operations against Iranian infrastructure and Tehran’s subsequent missile strikes against US and Israeli targets signal a shift from indirect warfare to a more explicit form of interstate confrontation. Iran’s strategic logic appears consistent with a doctrine of regime survival. In a situation perceived as existential, the main objective is not to preserve regional consensus, but to transfer strategic costs to adversaries. This implies the possibility of striking military bases, energy infrastructure, and trade routes, expanding the perimeter of the confrontation well beyond Iranian territory.
The transformation of regional projection
Compared to the past, Iran’s strategic projection has undergone a significant transformation. In the past, it was often described as a low-cost attrition strategy based on local militias, political influence, and indirect pressure. In the contemporary context, this dimension remains, but it has been integrated into a broader structure that combines missile capabilities and unmanned aerial systems, dispersion and hardening of strategic infrastructure, and regional networks capable of amplifying escalation. In this sense, Iran remains a fortress that is difficult to conquer militarily, but at the same time vulnerable to precision operations and campaigns of systematic degradation of its infrastructure.
The geopolitics of survival
In the past, it could be argued that Iran could not be conquered. In 2026, this statement needs to be revised. Iran cannot be easily occupied, but it can be subjected to continuous strategic pressure. When this happens, Iran’s response follows a recurring historical logic: strengthening internal control while expanding the field of external confrontation in order to make the pressure too costly for its adversaries. In this context, the nuclear program takes on a political as well as a technological function. Nuclear ambiguity becomes a form of strategic insurance for the regime’s survival.
Contemporary Iranian geopolitics therefore lies at the intersection of two fundamental dynamics. On the one hand, geography continues to provide a structure of resilience that makes the country difficult to subdue. On the other hand, the technological transformation of warfare makes rapid and widespread escalation possible. Between the stability of space and the acceleration of strategic time, one of the most delicate passages in the geopolitical balance of the Middle East is currently being played out.
This was first published in Italian on March 6, 2026.