War and Negotiation After the 12-Day Conflict: Tehran on Alert Over Parallel Security Scenarios

According to the news outlet Negah-e No, both the political and military arenas have entered an intensified phase following the recent conflict. On the diplomatic front, officials are seeking to maximize national interests and safeguard security through calibrated engagement. Simultaneously, the military establishment is repairing vulnerabilities exposed during the war and accelerating efforts to upgrade the country’s operational and weapons capabilities.

Yet heightened military preparedness has not led to complacency regarding other security threats. A noticeable increase in the interception and seizure of smuggled weapons—particularly along Iran’s eastern and western borders—has reinforced concerns about broader destabilization plans targeting the country’s territorial integrity.

Security assessments indicate that intelligence services from certain Western and regional countries have allegedly held meetings with separatist militant groups to design scenarios aimed at triggering unrest in sensitive border provinces, including Sistan and Baluchestan in the east, as well as predominantly Arab-populated provinces in the south and southwest.

These assessments further claim that the meetings were overseen by Mossad and the Central Intelligence Agency, with reported participation by intelligence officers linked to Ukraine. The United States is also alleged to have established a military facility in the tribal regions of Balochistan in Pakistan, where militants from both Iran and Pakistan purportedly receive advanced military and intelligence training, including instruction in the use of new weapons systems. Additional facilities are reportedly operating in other countries.

Reports further allege that approximately 3,000 drones have been supplied to these groups. Under the supervision of Ukrainian officers and drawing on battlefield experience from the Russia-Ukraine war, the plan allegedly envisions targeting locations in the provinces of Sistan, Kerman, and Khorasan.

According to the scenario outlined in these assessments, a coordinated large-scale ground and drone assault would be launched against a border province, with militants attempting to seize territory through intimidation and violence. The objective, as described, would be to force Tehran into one of two difficult choices:

Restraint, out of concern for civilian casualties—potentially emboldening militants to replicate territorial seizures.

Decisive military intervention to suppress the insurgency and reclaim occupied areas—an action that could be portrayed through international media campaigns as indiscriminate violence against civilians, possibly paving the way for U.S. strikes, either unilaterally or within a coalition framework. Concurrently, militants in northwestern and western provinces could attempt parallel offensives, raising fears of a broader destabilization scenario akin to the fragmentation experienced in Syria or Libya.

Strategic Motives

Analysts cited in the report argue that the broader objectives of such a plan may include:

Weakening Russia’s economic capacity to secure access to southern warm waters.

Undermining Iran’s efforts to build and consolidate a non-oil-based economy.

Preventing economic development and growth in Sistan and Baluchestan, whose strategic and commercial expansion is viewed as conflicting with the interests of rival powers.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The report concludes with several strategic recommendations:

Russia should expedite sharing its anti-drone expertise with Iran.

Pakistan should recognize the potential consequences of such destabilization and enhance preventive coordination, including serious operational cooperation between Iranian and Pakistani border forces and the implementation of joint preventive maneuvers.

Iran should strengthen coordination with influential Baloch tribal leaders and clerics, while clearly signaling comprehensive and firm counterterrorism responses.

India, the report argues, should avoid entanglement in U.S. regional strategies that could fuel instability, as prolonged regional crises would negatively affect India’s economic growth—an outcome some analysts view as aligned with broader American strategic calculations.

Overall, the post-war environment appears to have ushered Iran into a dual-track posture: preparing for overt confrontation while simultaneously seeking to neutralize covert and asymmetric threats along its most vulnerable frontiers.