The ‘Fourth Successor’: Iran’s plan for a long war with the US and Israel

When Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had spent two decades studying US wars to build a system that could keep fighting even if the capital was bombed, he was describing more than resilience; he was outlining the logic of Iran’s defence doctrine.

At the centre of that doctrine is what Iranian military thinkers call “decentralised mosaic defence” – a concept built on one core a...