Former MI6 chief Sir Alex Younger said Iran has the upper hand in the war against the United States and ‘Israel’, noting that Washington has lost the initiative to Tehran.
“Iran has the upper hand,” Younger told Shashank Joshi, defense editor of The Economist.
“I regret reaching that conclusion. I spent most of my career dealing with the violence and brutality of the Revolutionary Guards. I did not shed a tear over the death of Ali Khamenei, but the reality is that the United States underestimated the task and, about two weeks ago, lost the initiative to Iran,” he said, referring to the former Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei, who was martyred in the US-Israeli aggression on Tehran.
“The Iranian regime has shown greater resilience than anyone would have expected, in my view,” he explained.
Alex Younger says Iran has the “upper hand” in the war. In an interview with @shashj, the former head of MI6 says that America underestimated the regime, which has employed all manner of tactics to fight for its survival https://t.co/TGDUhQ9jdX pic.twitter.com/wdbRuMYeuX
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 25, 2026
“They made some good decisions as early as last June regarding the dispersal of their military capabilities. That gave them significant resilience against a powerful air campaign. They launched what is technically called ‘horizontal escalation,’ firing rockets at anyone within range. At the time I thought it was madness, but in fact it is a very effective way of imposing a direct cost on the United States, and it has worked reasonably well.”
He added that “Iran understood the significance of energy warfare and threatened to close the strait. It turned the conflict into a global one. The Iranians have played their hand quite well, despite being dealt weak cards.”
Younger also criticized President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and its impact on the war.
“Trump made it clear that Iran is in an existential war and that he wants to see it with its back to the wall. The United States, by contrast, is in a war of choice. I think that has given the Iranians more staying power than the United States — and certainly more than its partners. I think that gives them the dominant position,” he concluded.
Source: Agencies (edited by Al-Manar)