Israel is committed to "regulating" its relationship with Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a summit in Tajikistan last week, citing confidential contacts with Israeli leaders.

"We are getting signals from the Israeli leadership asking us to convey to our Iranian friends that Israel… is not interested in any kind of confrontation," Putin said.

Tehran, according to the Russian president, also wants to "work toward peace." Putin also made a point that the Iranian regime "must not possess nuclear weapons."

It is not clear if this message from Israel is sincere, a ruse or simply voiced by Putin in service of Russia's own interests, warns geopolitical analyst Arman Mahmoudian.

"Iranian media reports that Iran has purchased Russian Su-35 fighter jets. If Russia actually delivers them despite the war in Ukraine, it would be a signal of support for Tehran," he told DW.

"It is possible that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is attempting to convince Moscow not to send the jets and has therefore stated that he doesn't want to attack Iran," said Mahmoudian, who currently serves as a lecturer at the University of South Florida.

At the same time, Mahmoudian remains uncertain as to whether Netanyahu intends to "play tactical games" with the Kremlin chief.

"They've known each other for years, and Bibi himself, in his memoirs, says you should be direct when dealing with Putin," he said, using a popular nickname for Netanyahu.

War with Israel exposed Iran's weakness

Israel views Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat. Tehran does not recognize Israel and regularly threatens to destroy it.

The 12-day war between the two countries this June has laid bare the weaknesses of the Iranian air force and its defenses as Israel reached numerous targets inside Iran. The fighting ended with the US bombing Iran's nuclear facilities.

Appearing in the Knesset — the Israeli parliament — this week, US President Donald Trump urged the Iranian regime to change course.

"There's nothing that would do more good for this part of the world than for Iran's leaders to renounce terrorists, stop threatening their neighbors, quit funding their militant proxies and finally recognize Israel's right to exist," he told Israeli lawmakers.

"I'm telling you, they want to make a deal," he added.

After traveling on to Egypt for the Gaza peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Trump also said the US could lift the sanctions on Iran If Tehran is willing to negotiate. Unfortunately, Iran had no representative at the Sharm el-Sheikh conference to react to Trump's offer — Tehran had been invited, but decided not to participate.

Crippled by indecision

Paris-based Iranian expert Mojtaba Najafi sees Iran's rejection as a signal of a system that "lost its capability to make decisions." He believes the regime is facing complex crises, yet remains unable to overcome ideological obstacles to diplomacy.

Najafi told DW that the Islamic Republic has a history of making rational decisions only when it is already too late.

Even the Iranian media has criticized the decision not to take part in the Egypt summit. Pundits noted that Iran used to negotiate even with the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who attacked Iran in 1980 and started an eight-year war.

A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, insisted Iran was still committed to ending the Gaza war and that diplomatic tools remained available.

"The interplay on the international stage is not limited to physical presence only," he said on Monday.

Has Iran lost its 'Axis of Resistance'?

"A truce in Gaza has both advantages and disadvantages for Iran," said analyst Mahmoudian.

"The advantage is that the topic which had fueled the conflict between Iran and Israel… is off the table for now. On the other hand, if the so-called Gaza Model leads to the disarmament of Hamas, the US and Israel could also apply it to Hezbollah in Lebanon with the support of Arab nations."

Hezbollah is an essential part of the "Axis of Resistance" — an Iranian-backed network of militias across the Middle East. The term emerged in part as a counterpoint to ex-US President George W. Bush famously labeling Iran, Iraq and North Korea "axis of evil" in 2002, but Tehran's support for such groups predates that moment.

Iran has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to maintaining this alliance and has little to show for it — except its own international isolation.

Now, many key figures of the axis are dead, including Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, and longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. And with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad ousted from power in 2024, despite Russia conducting strikes on his behalf, Iran's network of allies is at the brink of collapse.

'Biggest lie' in Iran's modern history

"Syria is lost. Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, the Hezbollah is out of the picture. With all this, can we still talk of victory and deterrence?" asked defense expert Mehdi Motaharnia, former lecturer at the Sayad Shirazi University earlier this year.

"This strategy no longer works," he told the Iranian news outlet Azad.

Even Iranian politicians are now openly criticizing Tehran's course, with former lawmaker and head of national security committee in the Iranian parliament, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, posting online that "85% of Iranians would vote to end tensions with the world in a referendum."

"We have lost over $700 billion due to the conflict with Israel and the West. Turning the Arab-Israeli war into an Iranian-Israeli war was the biggest lie in the history of the Islamic Republic," he wrote on X.

Iran nuclear material remains its strongest argument

Tehran has now recognized that the militias it supports are not able to prevent a direct attack on Iran, said Mahmoudian.

Moreover, the Middle East has shifted in a way that makes it hard to maintain the network, he added.

"Even if Iran had enough funds, it could not provide military support at the moment, because Syria is lost to Tehran" as a transit country, said the analyst.

Iran will now try to strengthen its internal military capabilities, especially by improving its long-range missiles and by buying modern jets for its air force from China or Russia.

"However, it is hard to say what political decisions Tehran will make relating to Trump's offer of negotiations," said Mahmoudian.

"The most important tool in any negotiations is still the 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium, the exact location of which remains unknown," he told DW.

This article was originally written in German.