September 4, 2025

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

Ben Schmida, Ben Rezaei, Ria Reddy, Adham Fattah, Avery Borens, Parker Hempel, and Brian Carter

Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Tasnim News Agency proposed a series of steps on September 3 that it argued the Iranian regime should take to confront hybrid warfare. The regime defines hybrid warfare as “the use of all domains of power, including information, electronic, cultural, social, and military operations, by hostile actors to destabilize Iran.” The Tasnim report outlined the following three main areas that Iran must address to withstand hybrid warfare.

Redefining Governance Structures and Processes: Tasnim called for re-engineering Iran’s governance system and warned that a centralized bureaucracy is too slow and brittle for hybrid war. Tasnim urged the regime to create mechanisms to monitor internal divisions, accelerate bureaucratic processes, and provide more authority to governors and local officials. It argued that decentralized power would make governance more flexible and resilient, which would speed up the regime’s responses to crises such as unrest, cyberattacks, or supply disruptions.

Reforming the Relationship Between the Regime and People: Tasnim called for the regime to treat the Iranian people as Iran’s main strategic asset rather than dependents of the state. It stressed that victory in hybrid war requires citizens to actively participate in governance, including via neighborhood security, the economy, and cultural resistance. Tasnim highlighted that small, agile grassroots groups involved with technology, media, and culture would counter stronger adversaries and shape public opinion so that people accept hardships as part of a larger struggle for independence and survival.

Developing Iran’s “resistance economy:” Tasnim called for the regime to turn the economy into a “defensive stronghold.” It emphasized the need to end dependence on crude oil sales, cut reliance on food imports and gas consumption, and enforce tight control over foreign exchange and trade. Tasnim also called for building long-term cooperation with Axis of Resistance members, neighboring states, and emerging powers such as Russia and China to secure essential goods and bypass Western economic pressure.

• Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Tasnim News Agency proposed a series of steps on September 3 that it argued the Iranian regime should take to confront hybrid warfare. The regime defines hybrid warfare as “the use of all domains of power, including information, electronic, cultural, social, and military operations, by hostile actors to destabilize Iran.”

• Iranian media outlet Nour News outlined on September 4 the role of the Defense Council in executing a new Iranian defense doctrine to counter hybrid threats. Nour News reported on September 4 that Iran now faces a new threat environment following the war that extends beyond conventional warfare to include other domains of power, such as information and electronic operations.

• Iran continues to refuse to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A Western media journalist posted on X on September 3 that Iran proposed a new inspection arrangement to the IAEA on August 14 that would delay IAEA inspection requests for Fordow, Natanz, and the Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center (ENTC), which are the three major Iranian nuclear facilities that were struck by Israel and the United States during the Israel-Iran War.

• Emirati media reported that the United States has decreased its opposition to Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) efforts to have greater autonomy in post-war Syria, which is consistent with recent changes in US Special Envoy Thomas Barrack’s public statements about the SDF’s integration under the Syrian transitional government. The State Department continues to demand that the SDF make concessions to the transitional government, however.

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