Israel’s recent campaign against Iran scored three outsized gains. It decimated Iran’s long-range weaponry, demolished nuclear sites, and decapitated the military/scientific establishment. At the same time, American bombers cracked open ultra-hardened facilities, which Israel’s air force could not do.
But winning against an outgunned foe was the easy part. The “mullahcracy,” in power since 1979, remains in charge. And it could still restart its weapons program. So why not let Tehran’s victims topple it? President Trump posted on Truth Social: “It’s not politically correct to use the term ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has chimed in. The enslaved nation, he said, will rise up against the “theological thuggery that has kidnapped your country.”
This is regime change on the cheap. Let those brave Iranians exorcise the demons, with a little discreet help from the United States. Experienced Middle East hands concur, laying out a low-risk program: “The United States should aid [the opposition] with financial backing and technological assistance.” No more of the tyranny, nukes, and Iranian imperialism that have tortured the region since the Khomeinist Revolution.
A dream deferred
Gone is the idealistic rhetoric that had animated American thought on the democracy-peace nexus since the early days of the Republic. In Democracy in America (1835–40), Alexis de Tocqueville, an adopted American sage, argued that popular rule equaled peace. In our days, Bill Clinton explained: “Democracies don’t attack each other.” The more of them, the better. “The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom,” orated George W. Bush.
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