Albert Einstein famously said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Based on that rationale, when it comes to dealing with Iran, the West must be mad. For more than four decades, Western powers have repeatedly tried to placate the mullahs, sending plane loads of cash, lifting sanctions, signing ludicrous nuclear deals and even blacklisting legitimate democratic Iranian opposition groups at the Ayatollahs’ request. There has been a fruitless and never-ending search by Western appeasers for moderates or reformists within the theocratic leadership. But the mullahs’ response has never changed. They have increased repression at home and increased terrorism and aggression abroad. Deploying the regime’s Gestapo, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its extraterritorial Quds Force, the mullahs have spent billions backing Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship in Syria, arming and training the Houthi rebels in Yemen and the Shi’ia militias in Iraq, while steadily building and equipping the terrorist gorup Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, planning and instigating the horrifying attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza.
As the world’s main sponsor of international terror, the mullahs have poured resources into worldwide bombings and assassinations, using their embassies as terrorist command and control centers, deploying registered diplomats as bombers. When Iranian terrorists are arrested and sentenced to long jail terms, the mullahs simply seize Western hostages, find them guilty on trumped-up espionage charges and sentence them to floggings and decades of imprisonment. Then they blackmail weak Western governments into entirely bogus prisoner-swap deals, so that their terrorists can be sent home to a hero’s welcome. Appeasing the mullahs has become almost an art form in the West.
Now, the enduring failure of the West’s policy of appeasement toward Iran necessitates a profound and strategic reappraisal. The West, particularly Europe, has for far too long pursued a course of engagement with Tehran, rooted in the misguided belief that dialogue and concessions could moderate the mullahs’ menacing behavior. This approach has not only failed to achieve its objectives, it has in fact emboldened the regime. Structurally resistant to genuine reform, Tehran has exploited this leniency to entrench its power, expand its influence across the Middle East, accelerate its nuclear weapons program, and suppress its own people with impunity.
A dangerous escalation of Iranian aggression could plunge the Middle East into further catastrophic turmoil, drawing in the West, as Iranian backed and IRGC trained proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq, combine forces against Israel. Already, international commerce has been disrupted by Iranian-backed Houthi drone and missile attacks on international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. IRGC kamikaze drones have been shipped to Russia for Vladimir Putin to use in his illegal war in Ukraine and now the EU, UK and US admit that they have credible intelligence that Iran has supplied Russia with new surface-to-surface 4th generation Khorramshahr ballistic missiles called Kheibar, with a range of 2,000 km, supplied by the IRGC’s aerospace force.
Due to Western appeasement, the weaponization aspect of Iran's nuclear activities has not only persisted but has expanded and improved over time, all while avoiding significant international scrutiny, even during the implementation of the ill-fated and deeply flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal.The IRGC has enriched uranium to 60 percent purity, a hair’s-breadth away from weapons grade. The combination of the development of new ballistic missiles armed with potential nuclear warheads, is terrifying.
It is against this alarming background that Western governments are once again clutching at straws to identify the new Iranian president – Masoud Pezeshkian – as some sort of ‘moderate’ or ‘reformist’ with whom we can do business. It is a dangerous illusion. The sham presidential election in July that brought Pezeshkian to power was boycotted by the vast majority of Iran’s 75 million population. In the first round, 12 percent turned out, and in the second round only 9 percent turnout, indicating a complete rejection of the regime and an overwhelming demand for its overthrow. Given the dire economic situation, severe poverty, spiraling inflation and unemployment, Pezeshkian’s emergence as president has raised public expectations which can never be fulfilled and therefore increased the potential for social unrest. Although he has only been in office for a few weeks, there has already been a significant increase in demonstrations and protests.
Pezeshkian has slavishly admitted that his sole policy for Iran is to follow the orders of the deeply psychotic Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He even confessed that his new cabinet had been personally hand-picked and vetted by Khamenei. So, there will be no change in policy and no deviation from tyranny at home and aggression and terrorism abroad. While Pezeshkian may seek to re-open nuclear talks with the West with a concomitant easing of sanctions, Western leaders should realize that he has neither the intention nor the ability to revise the regime's three main policies: repression, war-mongering, and terrorism.
Now is the time for the West to take a firm stand instead of falling into the trap of Pezeshkian's games. Given the regime's current weakness and crisis, a firm policy of refusing to make concessions and imposing more sanctions will yield more positive results than ever before. We must go even further, showing our outright support for the Iranian people and their desire for regime-change. History has repeatedly shown that the Iranian regime is inherently incapable of meaningful reform. Only a complete overthrow, led by the Iranian people themselves, can pave the way for true and lasting positive change. The glaring omission in Western policy has been the neglect of the Iranian people and their organized resistance, which represent a force of immense strategic value. Albert Einstein was right about the futility of repetition without change. It highlights the irrationality of continuing a course of action that consistently fails to produce the desired outcome, yet expecting a different result each time. It is time for the West to wake up.