For more than four decades, Iran's ruling theocracy has perfected the art of plausible deniability. Murder, sabotage, hostage-taking, and terrorism have been carried out through a web of proxies stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, from Iraq to Gaza. Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and an array of Shi’ite militias served as expendable instruments, allowing Tehran's clerical rulers to wage war while pretending innocence. That pretense has finally collapsed.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime's ideological army and chief instrument of repression, has stepped into the open. Missile and drone strikes launched across the Gulf have exposed the regime's true character beyond any lingering doubt. Tehran claimed it sought American military bases. Reality tells a far darker story. Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan have all endured attacks on civilian infrastructure, including power stations, desalination plants, and vital public utilities upon which millions depend for survival. These were civilian targets. Their destruction serves no legitimate military objective. They provide electricity, drinking water, healthcare support, and essential services for ordinary families. Under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, deliberate attacks against such facilities constitute war crimes.
For years, many governments argued that dialogue, engagement, and concessions could moderate the Iranian regime. Every fresh outrage was met with another diplomatic initiative, another package of incentives, another round of fruitless negotiations. Every concession merely emboldened the ayatollahs. The latest attacks reveal a regime driven by revolutionary fanaticism rather than strategic calculation. Tehran seeks fear. It seeks chaos. It seeks regional domination through intimidation. Any nation standing outside its sphere of influence becomes a potential victim.
Perhaps the greatest irony lies in the identity of those now under attack. Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan have worked tirelessly to prevent regional escalation. Gulf leaders invested enormous diplomatic effort in reducing tensions, encouraging dialogue, and preserving stability during successive crises. Their reward has been missile attacks upon their civilian populations. Such behavior exposes the bankruptcy of the regime's political philosophy. It also demonstrates why every previous attempt to accommodate Tehran has failed. The IRGC has always occupied the center of this machinery of terror.
Created by Ayatollah Khomeini to defend revolutionary ideology rather than national security, the IRGC grew into an empire controlling vast sectors of Iran's economy while exporting extremism throughout the Middle East. Its Quds Force armed Hezbollah with precision missiles, transformed the Houthis into a regional menace, financed Hamas, equipped Shi’ite militias across Iraq and Syria, and supplied drones to Russia for use against Ukraine. Its fingerprints appear across almost every major conflict in the region.
Inside Iran, the same organization crushes peaceful demonstrations, imprisons journalists, tortures dissidents, and oversees executions at an industrial scale. Thousands of young Iranians have paid with their lives simply for demanding freedom, democracy, and equal rights. Women have suffered savage repression merely for refusing compulsory veiling. Ethnic minorities, religious communities, and political prisoners endure systematic persecution. Now the IRGC has abandoned even the pretense of restraint. Direct attacks upon neighboring Arab states represent an extraordinary escalation. Tehran has crossed a threshold from sponsoring terrorism through proxies to openly threatening sovereign nations and deliberately placing civilian lives in jeopardy.
This changes everything. The governments of the Gulf Cooperation Council, together with Jordan and every responsible Arab nation, face a defining moment. Old divisions between Sunni and Shi’ite governments pale beside the existential threat presented by Tehran's revolutionary project. The ayatollahs recognize neither sectarian solidarity nor Arab brotherhood. Their loyalty belongs exclusively to an extremist ideology built upon perpetual confrontation. Every neighboring country eventually becomes either a client state or an enemy.
History offers countless warnings. Lebanon descended into political paralysis through Hezbollah's domination. Iraq endured years of sectarian violence fueled by Iranian-backed militias. Syria became a battlefield sustained by IRGC intervention. Yemen remains devastated through Houthi aggression directed and armed from Tehran. Now the Gulf itself stands directly in the firing line. Arab leaders therefore require a new strategy founded upon unity rather than hesitation. Diplomatic protests alone carry little weight against a regime whose leadership celebrates martyrdom and thrives upon confrontation. Comprehensive economic pressure, coordinated intelligence sharing, strengthened regional defense, and unwavering political isolation must become common policy. International legal action over attacks upon civilian infrastructure deserves vigorous pursuit. Every responsible democracy should support efforts to bring those responsible before international courts for war crimes.
Yet lasting peace demands something more fundamental. The source of instability lies within Tehran itself. The Iranian people deserve far better than the aging clerics who have squandered their nation's extraordinary wealth while exporting violence across the Middle East. Iran possesses immense natural resources, a highly educated population, a rich civilization, and an entrepreneurial spirit capable of transforming the entire region into a center of prosperity and cooperation. That future remains impossible while the mullahs retain power.
Across Iran, courageous resistance continues despite arrests, torture, and executions. Millions yearn for a secular democratic republic founded upon freedom of religion, equality between women and men, respect for minorities, an independent judiciary, and peaceful coexistence with neighboring states. Those aspirations deserve active international support rather than cautious indifference. The Arab world faces a historic choice. Continued fragmentation serves only the interests of Tehran's rulers. Unity offers the opportunity to end decades of bloodshed and intimidation.
The IRGC has revealed its true face before the entire world. Its missiles have shattered every illusion. Its attacks upon civilian infrastructure have exposed a regime prepared to weaponize water, electricity, and essential services against innocent families. Such conduct belongs among the darkest chapters of modern warfare. The time has arrived for every Arab government, whether Sunni or Shi’ite, together with the wider democratic world, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Iran. The objective must extend beyond deterrence. It must embrace the peaceful overthrow of the theocratic dictatorship and the birth of a free, democratic Iran living in harmony with its neighbors. Only then will the Middle East escape the long shadow cast by the mullahs and begin building a future founded upon peace, justice, liberty, and hope.
Struan Stevenson was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14), and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.