When looked at from any perspective, that was a disastrous deal, no doubt. Khamenei thought to prevent the war his version of the deal would certainly be performed and he would be crowned as the king of the world. The issue is that when the first phases of the scenario were performed Iran would be in a terrible position and that would transform the calculations of the war. Khamanei of course didn’t notice that because the idea of becoming the king of the world was very pleasant. He had been fooled by Ahmadinejad before with the very same trick and the West knew he would be fooled again and again.
When the first phases of the scenario were performed, the coherence of Iran’s regime would become very fragile. Any element of the regime would be in danger of elimination because some of the most high-ranked individuals were eliminated for Khamenei’s plans and no one would be safe in the future. On the other hand, Iran is at the edge of social collapse and that changes everything. Russia busy with the Ukraine war cannot provide military assistance to Iran for a long time. Weak within the inner circle, among Iranians and abroad, Khamenei is in a terrible situation. He thinks to show some divisiveness war will be the only option but that only multiplies his problems. Internal conflicts in the regime will widen, and Iran’s social situation does nothing to stop that. So an all-out war is the worst cart Khamanei can play. In a football match when a team concede goals many times in a short time, the best thing to do is to calm the situation instead of frantically attaching because the result will be more goals.
UPDATE 1:
Khamenei might think if the war starts people will fight against the foreign enemy and will support the regime. The thing is the US will inevitably be involved in the war, and it’s not hard to predict the US counts on internal paralyzation of the regime to decrease its military presence. The West will surely try to minimize the cost of the war imposed on them and based on Iran’s current social and economic situation the best option for them is to paralyze the regime from inside the country. So it is predicted (with high accuracy) that the West will pursue tactics that benefit from the power of social dissatisfaction against the regime instead of turning Iranians into their enemies, as Khamenei hopes.
Iran really has limited options. in fact, there is only one. The tension should be reduced.
UPDATE 2:
Many Iranians care about the situation of Palestinians. It is predicted that the West will pursue tactics to ensure that part of the society that this war is not against Palestinians that there are solutions for the conflict and that Khamenei is on the way. This is particularly true because if the war starts it won’t benefit the republican party in the election which has to be more aggressive in the war (and impose more costs on Americans).
However, it is predicted that, putting Trump aside, Democrats and Republicans will eventually converge on this issue.