It is common to scorn the way weak nations wage war and label them terrorists. Yet, in the case of Iran against the United States, it is the latter that is defeated. But the parallel doesn’t end there. Unlike Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam, Iran is not content with its victory: it is trying to solidify its revolution by forcing the Gulf States, and then the Western states, to acknowledge their dependence on the crimes of the United States.

The 2005 book “How the Weak Win Wars: Asymmetric Conflict Theory” [1], by University of Chicago scholar and former military intelligence analyst Ivan Arreguin-Toft, appears to be the bedside reading of the Iranian government under attack from the US nuclear superpower and the medium-sized nuclear power Israel - which benefits from the deliberate complicity of the Argentine pro-Zionist Rafael Grossi, discredited director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who turns a blind eye to Netanyahu’s clandestine arsenals, evading UN inspection and the signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that the US is asymmetrically and unfairly demanding of Iran.

In the 5th century BC, the omnipotent Athenian envoys - in the famous Dialogue of the Melians narrated by Thucydides during the Peloponnesian War - demanded the surrender of the island of Melos with a formulation of political hyperrealism: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, 2,455 years later, demanded the same peremptory capitulation from the Iranians.

In his remarkable work, Ivan Arreguin-Toft convincingly argues that “asymmetric warfare” depends on the interaction between the respective strategies of the strong and the weak, rather than on brute, material power.

According to Arreguin-Toft, when the strong and the weak employ similar strategies, the former generally prevails, while when they employ opposing strategies (sic!), the weak’s chances of victory increase, since the weak win when this transforms the strong’s superiority into a distinct political disadvantage, which the Islamic Republic of Iran has implemented to the letter: “The probability of victory or defeat in asymmetric conflicts depends on the interaction of the strategies used by weak and strong actors,” since “when actors employ opposing strategic approaches, weak actors have a much greater chance of winning.”

Ivan Arreguin-Toft analyzes 197 asymmetric conflicts and asserts that the strong prevail in 75% of cases in general (when the weak directly confront the strong), while, since World War II, the weak have achieved victories in more than 50% of cases when they opt for opposing tactics [2].
The author focuses on several examples dating back to 1800 that support his argument, ranging from the Vietnam War to Afghanistan, but which, in my opinion, cannot be extrapolated to the present day.

The weak win wars not because they are more powerful, but because they render the power of the strong politically dysfunctional, strategically costly, and vulnerable to the erosion of time.

In other words, the metastasis of the geoeconomic /geofinancial impact of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has trapped the United States and, by extension, the West in its phase of decline - according to the remarkable book *The Defeat of the West* (Gallimard), by the Frenchman Emmanuel Todd, published two years ago - as President Xi pointed out to his visitor Trump, who was unable to defend himself, simply blaming the decline of the United States on the Obama /Biden duo.

Following the unjustifiable overthrow of the Iranian sovereignist Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh [3], 75 years ago, by the nationalist Islamic revolution of 47 years ago, I propose the most holistic theorem established on four diachronic points:

1.      The A singular resilience, which is by no means misunderstood masochism, nor a martyrology of Shiism condensed into the “Karbala syndrome”;

2.     Its undetectable hypersonic missiles, which the United States and Israel do not possess;

3.     The brilliant strategic move of keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed: the geoeconomic /geofinancial jugular through which Trump can be advantageously attacked; and

4.     The prodigious level of public scientific education, with top rankings in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Amen.

Notes

[1] How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict (Cambridge Studies in International Relations, Series Number 99), Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Cambridge University Press (2005).

[2] «The Underdog Superpower. Embracing Tactics That Work in an Adversary’s Near Abroad», Scott Pence, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), December 6, 2024.

[3] « L’Iranien Mohammad Mossadegh avait été inspiré par le Mexicain Lázaro Cárdenas pour nationaliser le pétrole iranien », par Alfredo Jalife-Rahme, Traduction Maria Poumier, La Jornada (Mexique), Réseau Voltaire, 8 mai 2026.

Courtesy Alfredo Jalife-Rahme; Translation Roger Lagassé

Source: La Jornada (Mexico)

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