Ukraine’s drone warfare that devastated Russian forces may now be closing in on Iran. Tasnim, the IRGC-linked news agency, says Ukraine has deployed specialized drone teams and thousands of micro-drones in countries surrounding Iran, including Iraqi Kurdistan. These are not large strategic drones like the Shaheds exported by the Islamic Republic. They are small, cheap and highly agile weapons that Ukraine has refined through years of combat against Russia. First-person-view drones can hunt soldiers, vehicles, checkpoints, weapons and supply lines for a fraction of the cost of the targets they destroy. Fiber-optic variants are even more dangerous. Because they remain physically connected to their operators, they are highly resistant to electronic jamming, emit no conventional control signal and can provide clear video until impact. Their power is not in one decisive strike. It is in relentless attrition. They make every movement dangerous, expose positions once considered safe and force larger forces to hide, disperse or abandon equipment. In Ukraine, they transformed cheap commercial technology into persistent surveillance and precision firepower. That is precisely why they pose such a serious threat to the Islamic Republic. Iran’s air defences were designed primarily to detect aircraft, missiles and larger drones. Micro-drones fly low, have tiny radar signatures and can approach through mountains, cities and cluttered border terrain where conventional systems struggle to track them. Iraqi Kurdistan shares a long and difficult border with Iran. A nearby drone network could place IRGC bases, patrols, checkpoints, logistics routes and other exposed security positions within reach of relatively short-range systems. The cost imbalance is brutal. A drone costing hundreds or several thousand dollars can destroy far more expensive equipment, eliminate trained personnel or force entire units to alter their operations. Intercepting every small drone with costly air-defence missiles is economically impossible. This could also give weaker local actors a limited air capability without requiring fighter aircraft, ballistic missiles or sophisticated military infrastructure. Small operators could conduct reconnaissance, track regime movements and strike vulnerable positions with unprecedented accuracy. The regime’s alarm exposes its hypocrisy. The Islamic Republic supplied Russia with Iranian-designed Shahed drones that were used against Ukraine. It was comfortable exporting drone warfare when Ukrainian cities and infrastructure absorbed the damage. Now it is describing the possible deployment of Ukrainian drone expertise near Iran as European and NATO aggression. The same regime that helped Russia wage drone warfare may now face technology refined through the experience of surviving it. Micro-drones would not bring down the Islamic Republic by themselves. But they could make border control, military movement and the deployment of security forces substantially more dangerous and expensive. The regime spent years exporting drones to terrorize others. The revolution in drone warfare it helped accelerate may now be returning toward Iran. Tasnim attributes the deployment claim to an unnamed security source, and the reported number and locations have not been independently confirmed. The scale may be exaggerated, but the vulnerability these weapons expose is real.

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack says Iran is “not an evil regime,” describing the Twelver Shia theocracy established in 1979 as a religious system deserving respect. “That’s a religious content and practice that we all respect.” Barrack instead singled out the IRGC, saying it “has become an adversary” and that its confrontation with Israel “has been a problem.”

The regime’s loudest war hawk is now demanding an end to the war as mounting pressure threatens the Islamic Republic’s survival. Saeed Jalili, one of the Islamic Republic’s most uncompromising proponents of confrontation with the United States, says the country’s program must not only end the war but also remove the “shadow of war” from Iran. His reversal exposes the regime-breaking pressure tearing through the system. This is not coming from a reformist calling for compromise. Jalili is the Supreme Leader’s representative on the Supreme National Security Council, a former chief nuclear negotiator and one of the regime’s most rigid defenders of confrontation, resistance and nuclear defiance. He built his political identity by opposing concessions, attacking diplomatic agreements and insisting that military strength would make the Islamic Republic’s enemies regret confronting it. Earlier in the war, he told Iranians not to fear and argued that resistance would deprive the enemy of the ability to threaten the country. Now his priority is ending the war and removing its shadow. Jalili still presents this as strategic initiative rather than retreat. But the change in emphasis is unmistakable. Officials who once promised victory are now discussing how to escape the permanent threat of renewed attack. The reason is survival pressure. The war failed to bring the United States or Israel to their knees. Instead, the Islamic Republic lost senior leaders and commanders, suffered severe military damage and demonstrated that its air defences could not reliably protect Tehran or the highest levels of government. The economic pressure is equally severe. Oil revenue has collapsed under the blockade, the rial has reached record lows, inflation has devastated household purchasing power and the state is struggling to finance reconstruction, subsidies and its own security apparatus. Inside the regime, factions are fighting over negotiations, responsibility and who has the authority to make concessions. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi faces impeachment threats over contacts with the United States while other officials warn that continued confrontation is economically unsustainable. This leaves the Islamic Republic trapped between two dangers. Continuing the war risks deeper military destruction, economic collapse and another explosion of public anger. Ending it through concessions would expose decades of resistance propaganda as a catastrophic failure and could demoralize the remaining ideological base. Jalili’s statement does not mean that he has abandoned the regime’s ideology. It means that even one of its most committed architects of confrontation now recognizes that permanent war threatens the system he spent his career defending. When the men who demanded escalation begin searching for an exit, the pressure is no longer merely external. It has reached the foundations of the regime.

Persepolis: the glory of Iran’s living civilization.

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