SMITH: Is there not also an increased danger of an IRGC-inspired attack elsewhere in the world, to divert attention from Thar Allah operations in Iran?

PHARES: Obviously. Strategically, the Iranian regime is bleeding politically. Its credibility is gone, even if it crushes the opposition and pursues the youth across the country. And when such regimes see their political shields shattered, they begin acting irrationally and preemptively. Iran's billions of petrodollars invested in propaganda via satellite TV, as well as the infiltration and influence of Western media have built an unnatural image of the regime camouflaging the oppression. As a result, journalists and academics have described Iran's Khomeinist regime as “reasonable, stable, and with whom democracies can conduct business.” The young men and women on the streets of Tehran have come very close to destroying this expensive public-relations image. Hence, the IRGC could be tasked to strike at targets overseas and engage in terror regionally as a means of deflecting attention from the “Tha’r Allah” operations inside the so-called "republic." The international community in general, Western democracies in particular must be very attentive to the possibility of Pasdaran-guided, ordered and/or inspired terror operations worldwide as the crisis inside Iran persists. Therefore, it is crucial that the West in general and the United States in particular work on backing the democratic uprising in Iran now before the Pasdaran takes them by surprise. This is not an issue of luxurious choice, it is a matter of national security.

SMITH: What is the West failing to understand, that we must get our heads around regarding the IRGC – its subsidiaries like Hizballah – and the “Tha’r Allah” forces?

PHARES: As of the fall of 2006, early 2007, the pro-Iranian-regime lobby in the United States – and some other Western countries – has succeeded in imposing a new equation regarding Iran. Whether it is because of propositions of oil advantages or false promises of help in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is a fact that the Iran policy in the United States has shifted during the last two years of the Bush Administration and throughout the current Obama administration from considering the Iranian regime as a strategic foe supporting terrorism to just a nuisance with which one might cut a deal. U.S. policy has reached a summit of contradictions as its intelligence and legal components consider the Pasdaran and Quds force, as well as Hizballah, as terrorists; yet our political decision-makers look at the Iran of Khamenei as a potential partner in regional political business. The West – particularly the U.S. and the UK – knows all too well that the IRGC and Hizballah are strategic threats but a political decision was made to disregard this reality hoping that it would – or could – end when the “engagement path” would bare fruit. This is a dangerous game, a bet that is irrational, which may cost democracies greater losses and the region's civil societies longer oppression. The Tehran uprising should be viewed as an event of destiny, and it should open Western eyes. Let’s see if Washington and London figure it out and change course or stubbornly continue toward the precipice.

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.