For decades, the United States has had a reactive approach to the Middle East, scrambling to contain conflicts instigated by Iran and its proxies while ignoring the source of the region’s war and terrorism – the theocratic regime in Tehran.
Instead of confronting regime’s aggression head-on, successive American administrations have resorted to a futile policy of appeasement – epitomized by the Obama and Biden administrations’ policies of accommodation through sanctions relief and nuclear negotiations. America’s indecisiveness and weakness has emboldened Tehran to escalate its campaign of terror and destabilization with impunity.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the regime’s survival has relied on two related pillars: the suppression of dissent at home and the export of terrorism and warfare abroad. The latter objective has been pursued by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which bankrolls, arms, and directs proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and sectarian militias in Iraq.
The IRGC and its proxies have unleashed a campaign of violence which has terrorized the people of the region and facilitated Tehran’s hegemonic ambitions. Indeed, the head of the snake of war and suffering in the Middle East lies in Tehran, and lasting peace and stability will remain unattainable until the Islamic Republic is removed from power.
For decades, the mullahs in Iran have compensated for their internal weakness through asymmetric proxy warfare, relying on the hope that terrorism and instability would deter a conflict-fatigued United States from confronting the IRGC’s imperialism. However, a slew of military and security failures have shattered Tehran’s façade of invulnerability.
Most recently, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah for three decades, marked a critical turning point in Iran’s regional influence. The strike that killed Nasrallah came just two months after the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was eliminated in the heart of Tehran by a bomb planted in his guesthouse.
These men were more than terrorist figureheads; they were mission-critical executioners in Iran’s most valuable regional proxies, and their assassinations have created a key moment of vulnerability in Tehran. Nasrallah notably had a decades-long relationship with Tehran dating back to the early days of the Islamic Revolution, when then-Supreme Leader Khomeini helped establish Hezbollah as tentacle of Iran’s terror apparatus in Lebanon.
Since its founding, Hezbollah has played an instrumental role in executing Supreme Leader Khamenei’s bloody crusades in Syria, Gaza, and elsewhere. With Nasrallah’s demise, the bridge of influence that connected Tehran to Beirut is weaker than ever.
Similarly, Haniyeh’s assassination was a humiliating blow to the IRGC, which is so incompetent and vulnerable that it could not even protect one of its vital allies while he was on Iranian soil. The terror group that Haniyeh led, Hamas, has played a critical role in Khamenei’s efforts to maintain a perpetual conflict between Israel and Gaza, feeding on Palestinian oppression and bloodshed to justify terrorism.
Nasrallah and Haniyeh’s deaths follow a chain of key military losses that began with the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Before his death, Soleimani spent decades as commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force architecting nearly every modern conflict in the Middle East – from the bloody civil wars in Syria and Yemen to constant attacks on America and its allies in Iraq and elsewhere.
The assassinations of Soleimani, Nasrallah, and Haniyeh were existential blows to the institutions that have sustained Iran’s terror and military apparatus since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The inability of the regime to protect its most vital assets – and its failure to mount any substantive retaliation – exposes a fragile and crumbling system that is incapable of securing either its influence abroad or its survival at home.
The collapse of Iran’s regional hegemony comes at a time of unprecedented levels of dissent at home. Emboldened by the regime’s corruption and criminality, ordinary Iranians have bravely challenged the mullahs in several rounds of nationwide uprisings, undeterred by the security forces’ lethal crackdowns on protesters.
The ubiquitous rallying cry of the uprisings in Iran –“death to the dictator” – reflects a defiant people who are determined to free their nation from the shackles of tyranny. As chaos and uncertainty mounts for Khamenei and his inner circle, the opportunity for lasting political change is increasingly within reach for the people of Iran.
Iran’s losses both at home and abroad have exposed an existential vulnerability in the strategy of intimidation and brutality that the regime’s survival relies on. As the Islamic Republic’s house of cards collapses under the weight of its own evil, it may lash out with threats of retaliation and symbolic strikes against America and its allies, but the IRGC’s provocations are nothing more than desperate attempts to delay the regime’s looming demise by projecting an illusion of strength.
The United States should respond to Tehran’s barbarism with strength, and not allow its policymaking to be paralyzed by a medieval despot’s empty threats. Strength, to be clear, does not entail armed conflict, but rather a calculated set of policies to weaken the regime through economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
Forty-five years of appeasement and diplomacy with Iran’s mullahs have only produced greater suffering and instability in the region. The only hope for a stable and prosperous Middle East is for the theocratic regime in Iran to be overthrown and replaced by a secular, democratic republic. Tehran’s current moment of weakness is an opportunity for the United States to help the Iranian people deliver the final blow to the regime from within.
The Islamic Republic will ultimately be toppled by the Iranian people, but the next American administration should support their quest for freedom by applying maximum pressure on Tehran while providing recognition and support to the democratic opposition inside the country. Regime change will be an opportunity to secure lasting peace and prosperity in Iran and the broader Middle East. It is time for the United States to embrace the Iranian opposition’s noble fight by confronting the regime with strength and resolve.
Seena Saiedian is a human rights advocate and volunteer with the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, where he works with community organizers and policymakers to promote freedom and democracy in Iran. Follow him on Twitter @SeenaSaiedian.