이란 전쟁, 평화가 아닌 전쟁을 원하는 이유
Why Tehran Doesn’t Want the War to End - الحرة
지정학적 갈등 관련 헤드라인은 광범위한 시장에 즉각적인 방향성 편향 없이 높은 변동성을 유발합니다.
핵심 요약
이란의 전쟁은 경제적 피해에도 불구하고 정권의 목적에 부합하여 지속되고 있습니다.
핵심요약
- 전쟁으로 인해 수천 명의 사망자와 수만 명의 부상 발생 및 수백억 달러의 인프라 피해 발생
- 미국-이란 간의 평화 협정 60일 기한은 현재 무가치함
- 전쟁은 정권의 목적을 달성하는 데 평화보다 더 효과적임
- 이란 혁명수비대(IRGC)가 경제 및 사회 전반을 통제하는 권력 구조를 확립함
도입
본 기사는 현재 이란 전쟁이 단순한 군사적 충돌을 넘어, 이란 정권의 구조적 이해관계에 어떻게 기여하고 있는지를 분석합니다. 투자자 입장에서 이 정보는 지정학적 위험과 장기적인 경제 안정성을 평가하는 데 필수적입니다. 전쟁이 평화보다 정권에 유리하다는 관점은 향후 이란의 정책 결정과 국제 에너지 시장의 변동성을 예측하는 데 중요한 맥락을 제공합니다.
본문 1: 군사 권력의 제도적 생존 (Power: The Military State’s Institutional Survival)
이란 전쟁이 지속되는 가장 큰 이유는 이란 혁명수비대(IRGC)가 국가 내부에 '국가 내의 국가(state within a state)'로 자리 잡았기 때문입니다. IRGC는 석유 및 가스 생산, 건설 프로젝트, 통신, 금융 기관 등 이란 경제와 국민 생활 전반에 걸쳐 영향력을 행사하며 통제하고 있습니다. 이는 단순히 군사적 승패를 넘어, 정권의 통제력을 제도화하고 유지하는 핵심 동력입니다. 즉, 전쟁 상황이 IRGC에게 비상 권한을 부여하여 대통령, 의회, 외무부 등 국가 기관에 대한 통제력을 강화하는 수단으로 작용하고 있습니다. 평화로의 전환은 이러한 비상 권한을 약화시켜 정권의 통제 모델을 붕괴시킬 위험이 있습니다.
본문 2: 평화 협상의 위험과 경제적 취약성 (The Risks of Peace Negotiations and Economic Vulnerability)
만약 이란이 평화 협상을 통해 전쟁을 종식시킨다면, 정권이 유지해 온 전쟁 시기 비상 통제 모델이 해체될 위험이 있습니다. 이 경우, 약화된 지도부(예: 모스타파 카메네이)가 등장하면서 이란 경제의 근본적인 문제, 즉 관리 부실과 부패의 심각성이 노출될 수 있습니다. 전쟁이 제공했던 통제 환경이 사라지면, 경제적 불안정성이 표면화되어 투자 환경에 부정적인 영향을 미칠 수 있습니다. 따라서 평화 협상은 군사적 승리뿐만 아니라, 정권의 통제 구조와 경제 시스템의 취약성을 동시에 고려해야 하는 복합적인 위험을 수반합니다. 이는 단기적인 평화 체결보다 장기적인 정치경제적 안정성을 저해할 수 있습니다.
본문 3: 장기적 전망 및 시장 시사점 (Long-term Outlook and Market Implications)
이란의 전략적 선택은 단기적인 평화 협상보다는 장기적인 권력 구조의 안정화에 초점을 맞추고 있음을 시사합니다. IRGC가 경제 시스템 전반을 장악하고 있다는 사실은 향후 이란의 대외 정책과 에너지 수출 결정에 있어 강력한 내부 동인으로 작용할 것입니다. 투자자들은 이러한 내부 권력 구조의 변화가 국제 에너지 시장과 중동 지역의 지정학적 변동성에 미치는 영향을 지속적으로 주시해야 합니다. 평화 협상 시도와 실제 권력 역학 관계 사이의 괴리를 분석하는 것이 향후 포트폴리오 위험을 관리하는 데 중요합니다.
결론
결론적으로, 이란이 전쟁을 유지하려는 것은 단순한 군사적 선택이 아니라, 현재의 권력 구조와 경제적 통제력을 제도화하려는 전략적 행위로 읽힙니다. 투자자들은 이란의 내적 권력 역학 관계와 경제 시스템의 취약성을 핵심 위험 요소로 인식하고, 외부의 평화 제안보다는 내부 권력 구조의 변화 가능성에 초점을 맞추어 시장을 분석해야 할 것입니다. 향후 이란의 정책 방향과 국제 에너지 시장의 변동성을 면밀히 관찰하는 것이 중요합니다.
Original Article
Why Tehran Doesn’t Want the War to End - الحرة
There’s one big reason the Iran war hasn’t ended: Iran doesn’t want it to.
The fact of the matter is that war currently serves the purposes of the regime in Tehran far better than peace would. The expiration this week of the 60-day deadline for a peace deal, set down in a now worthless memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, is no cause for regret for hardline Iranian leaders who are lashed to the mast of war.
At first glance that might be surprising. The war has killed thousands of Iranians, wounded tens of thousands more , and wrought hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to bridges, highways, railroads, and airports. The country’s military and political leadership has been decimated, with one supreme leader dead and his replacement invisible. Oil sales have ground to a halt, devastating Iran’s economy .
In the face of such losses, any model of rational behavior would suggest that Tehran sue for peace. But peace would critically weaken the pillars propping up the regime, stripping the newly strengthened Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the wartime emergency that has allowed it to run roughshod over the country’s president, parliament, and foreign ministry.
Imagine the alternative. In peacetime, a weak Mojtaba Khamenei, widely thought to be diminished by injury, would eventually have to emerge from hiding. A state of relative normalcy would expose the parlous state of the Iranian economy and its root causes in mismanagement and corruption rather than war. Every path to negotiation threatens the regime’s wartime model of control.
The regime has every reason to keep this war going. Here are three reasons why:
Power: The Military State’s Institutional Survival
The IRGC is now a state within a state . With tentacles reaching deep into every aspect of the Iranian economy and people’s daily existence, it controls oil and gas production, construction projects, telecommunications, financial institutions, and myriad other sectors.
This development, long in the making, has accelerated in recent years. Then-Foreign Minister Javad Zarif complained in 2021 that the IRGC held more influence over Iran’s foreign policy than the Foreign Ministry did.
All the more so now that the war has created a succession crisis that the IRGC exploited. Following the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the outset of the war, his son Mojtaba was installed as a figurehead successor by IRGC commanders led by Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi.
As I reported last week, Vahidi, the founding commander of the Quds Force and a former interior minister, has been appointed IRGC commander-in-chief, part of a regime reshuffle that put a half-dozen long-standing IRGC heavies into top positions. Mohsen Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guard commander, has been named the new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s personal representative on the body.
Even if he were in good health, Mojtaba would lack his father’s revolutionary credentials and independent authority. He continues nominally in the country’s most powerful role, a mysterious figure whose face and voice have remained hidden from the public since he acceded to the position, only because IRGC commanders back him in the context of a wartime crisis. Without an external threat, others might vie for influence and challenge Mojtaba’s legitimacy.
With the IRGC’s rise, President Masoud Pezeshkian’s power has cratered. Before hostilities commenced, he exercised genuine executive authority over cabinet appointments and civilian governance. Since the war’s start the IRGC has blocked his appointments and curtailed his authority. Neither Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf nor Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi can act without IRGC approval either.
Essentially the IRGC now answers only to an invisible supreme leader. It has the war to thank for receiving an allocation of over 3.11 quadrillion rials ($6 billion) in the current budget, almost twice that of the regular army’s 1.77 quadrillion rials ($3.4 billion).
Without an active external threat, the IRGC’s total control might well falter. Pezeshkian could try to reclaim executive authority and other institutions could press for a return to constitutional processes.
Combat: The Proxy Network and Regional Leverage
With this war, Iran stays strategically relevant. Although the Islamic Republic cannot defeat the United States or Israel in conventional military terms, it can remain a regional force to be reckoned with through its proxies, cross-border attacks, and a demonstrated willingness to go to the mat. As Mona Yacoubian, the director of CSIS’s Middle East Program, succinctly put it : “Iran’s War Strategy: Don’t Calibrate – Escalate.”
Continued conflict permits Iran to amplify its decades-long spoiler role, rendering the Middle East even more of a “no-go zone” for its adversaries. The IRGC now gleefully wields its ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, holding veto power over one fifth of global oil transit and offering massive disruptive capability over the global economy.
The MOU that mediators brokered on June 14 offered Iran a path to end the war. Taking it, though, would have required Tehran to relinquish its wartime leverage of Hormuz. Tehran refused, driving that home with attacks on shipping in July to collapse the talks entirely.
Peace under the terms suggested in the MOU would hand the Hormuz card back for nothing, as Iran sees it. The moment the strait reopens freely under peacetime conditions, Iran cedes the disruptive leverage it now holds over the U.S., Gulf producers, and Asian buyers.
For the first time in its history, the Islamic Republic has attacked all six Gulf Cooperation Council states: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. Iran launched an unprecedented barrage of missiles and drones, targeting oil refineries and military installations across the region. It has demonstrated it can neutralize every major economic and military target across the Gulf simultaneously. Ongoing war keeps that threat hovering over the region.
War also keeps the IRGC’s regional proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Syria and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Palestine, dependent on Tehran for weapons, funding, and coordination. In wartime, Tehran has even more incentive to fund the proxies to attack its foes.
As recently as last November, the Middle East was in fourth place – after the Western Hemisphere, Asia, and Europe – in the Trump administration’s regional priorities as outlined in the White House national security strategy. “Iran – the region’s chief destabilizing force – has been greatly weakened by Israeli actions since October 7, 2023 and President Trump’s June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer, which significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program,” according to that document.
In wartime, the U.S. has increased its troop commitment in the Middle East to 50,000 , and two of America’s aircraft carrier strike groups have been moved to the region.
Tehran likely didn’t want to see this concentration of U.S. military might in the region, but now that it is there, it may well have an interest in the U.S. staying. Each additional day of war keeps a concentrated, exposed U.S. force within range of Iranian and proxy missiles and drones. Tehran has what in military parlance is referred to as “interior lines” – the advantage of operating close to its own territory, supply chains, and reinforcements.