Six months into the war, Iran's leadership has consolidated around a hard core of military generals and clerics long entrenched in the ruling theocracy — a group prepared for a potentially prolonged confrontation with the United States and determined to prevent any unrest at home.

The reality is a far cry from U.S. President Donald Trump's initial hopes of toppling the Islamic Republic, and his subsequent claims that "regime change" had brought more compromising officials to the fore.

Iran's new leaders show little faith in any agreement with Trump — having come under attack twice while holding talks — and may be bracing for another assault once the U.S. replenishes its supplies of interceptors. They have also threatened to escalate the war, as a continuing American blockade and Trump's plans for new sanctions threaten to suffocate Iran's already worsening economy. The stakes extend beyond Iran itself: the country sits atop some of the world's largest proven oil and gas reserves, and its threats to Gulf shipping bear on a waterway that carries roughly a fifth of globally traded oil.

"If (Trump) wants to do something, we will retaliate in a seismic manner," said Mohsen Rezaei, the new secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, speaking last weekend. In a post on X, he added that "if the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported" from the Persian Gulf.

Rezaei's appointment came in a recent set of decrees issued by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, that formally established Iran's new senior leadership, including top military posts. Khamenei's father and much of the regime's highest echelons were killed in the bombing campaign launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28.

Perhaps most telling was the naming of a new head of the Basij, the Revolutionary Guard's volunteer street force, which played a major role in crushing January's nationwide protests, when thousands were killed. The post went to Hossein Taeb, a hard-line cleric and longtime intelligence chief who led one of the first major protest crackdowns in 2009. His appointment is widely seen as a signal that the leadership intends to prevent any new unrest as discontent over the economy spreads.

The 56-year-old Khamenei has not been seen in public — nor has he appeared in video or audio — since Israeli strikes killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had led Iran as supreme leader for some 37 years. The younger Khamenei is believed to have been wounded in the strikes. His absence from public view could reflect the depth of security surrounding him, given that he is likely in Israel's sights, or the severity of his wounds.

With the appointments announced on Aug. 11 and 12, he has surrounded himself with longtime personal allies such as Rezaei and Taeb.

They are "a clique of older senior officers who've served together over the last decades," said Sascha Bruchmann, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Middle East office in Bahrain.

Rezaei, 71, led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard during its formative years — through the entire 1980-1988 war with Iraq and until 1997. He has run for president as a hard-line candidate multiple times since 2009.

Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, 68, was confirmed as head of the Guard, where he has served as acting commander since his predecessor was killed along with the elder Khamenei. Also confirmed in their posts were the acting commander of the Guard's naval forces, Gen. Ali Ozmaei, and the military chief of staff, Gen. Ali Abdollahi. The Revolutionary Guard, founded after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, is one of Iran's most powerful institutions, controlling elite military units as well as vast swaths of the economy.

Bruchmann, who noted that Rezaei was Vahidi's commander for many years, said the emphasis appears to be on ensuring unity. "It looks like internal cohesion, as in hard core people are being pulled into the inner circle," he said.

Homayoun Falakshahi, the top oil analyst at the global commerce information firm Kpler, wrote that the appointments of Rezaei and Vahidi show "greater influence for officials associated with a tougher stance." Still, he argued, escalation is not inevitable, and Iran could find it difficult to "escalate enough to restore deterrence without triggering retaliation that leaves it worse off."

A ceasefire deal reached in June quickly fell apart amid exchanges of strikes. Iran has demanded the release of billions in frozen assets, as called for under the deal, as well as formal authority over the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which much of the region's oil exports pass.

President Masoud Pezeshkian remains one of the most prominent voices calling for a negotiated solution. A relative moderate elected in 2024, he has seen his reform agenda overtaken by the war. His allies argue that Iran risks overplaying its hand by continuing the war while its economy suffers.

"It would be better to bring the war to an end, since today we enjoy power and dignity and the entire world approved our victory, and the U.S. is hated," Pezeshkian said last week. He has also defended the June ceasefire deal against hard-liners' accusations that it conceded too much.

In contrast to ultra-hard-liners who reject any talks outright, Rezaei has held out the possibility of a deal — if the U.S. backs down. On Monday, he told Pakistani mediator Gen. Asim Munir that the U.S. should "change its attitude and take practical action about implementing the conditions" of the ceasefire deal.

Tehran-based political analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi said there are "serious differences over the future path of the country." Hard-liners oppose normalization with the U.S. because "their survival depends on the existence of conflict and hostility," he wrote in the newspaper Hammihan, which backs Pezeshkian.

So far there has been no sign of new protests, even as Iranians find it harder to afford basic staples.

Taeb's appointment as head of the Basij signals that the leadership wants to preempt any potential unrest "before it even manifests," Bruchmann said. "Putting someone from an intelligence background in charge of the people that would do the crackdown makes sense," he said.

Taeb, a 63-year-old cleric, led the Basij when it played a key role in crushing the mass protests that erupted against the 2009 reelection of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Dozens were killed. Soon after, Taeb was named chief of the Guard's intelligence apparatus, an agency he led for nearly 13 years until his removal in 2022, reportedly in a shake-up following Israeli espionage successes.

The Basij run a nationwide network of volunteers who maintain a presence in the streets, government offices and cultural centers, working to ensure loyalty and ideological purity for Iran's theocracy. The force, which draws on millions of members according to estimates cited over the years by Iranian officials and researchers, has repeatedly been mobilized to suppress dissent, from the 2009 unrest to the 2022 protests over Mahsa Amini's death.

In the decree appointing Taeb, Khamenei ordered him to deepen the Basij presence in Iranian social life, use new technologies, and "promote the Basij across the world against Zionist-American arrogance" — suggesting the group may begin to form links with Iran's proxies abroad.

The Basij expanded its presence during the war, and hard-liners have held nightly rallies in Tehran and other cities, drumming up support and intimidating any would-be dissenters. It remains unclear exactly how Taeb will step up the force's role, but in a recent speech he appeared to point toward increasing control over society.

He warned that U.S. pressure on the economy was aimed at creating divisions within Iran. "If the mosque becomes the center of the neighborhood, the nation will protect its unity, which will be a greater deterrent than any missile," he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com