“To espouse a policy which would free the world of such a regime should be regarded as a moderate approach.”
David Isaac
(JNS)
Ever since Tehran’s ballistic-missile bombardment of Israel on Oct. 1, the hot topic has been which Iranian assets to hit in Israel’s expected retaliatory strike. Some observers say the target should be regime change.
Yoram Ettinger, head of Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative and a former Israeli ambassador, makes the case that the Islamic Republic poses such a threat to the free world that regime change is the only logical solution.
If that means killing ayatollahs, so be it.
“I don’t think it’s an extreme position. It’s extreme to allow such a rogue regime to remain in power—that’s an extreme position. To espouse a policy which would free the world of such a regime should be regarded as a moderate approach,” Ettinger told JNS on Monday.
Since the rise of the ayatollahs, Iran has become the “epicenter of instability, terrorism, drug trafficking and civil wars,” not just in the Mideast, but in large areas of the world, he said.
Some say that Iran’s nuclear sites should be targeted. Ettinger argued that Tehran has used its nuclear program to misdirect its adversaries.
“There is a misperception that it is the nuclear potential of Iran which is the clear and present danger, and that overlooks the obvious fact that without nuclear they have managed to destabilize the Middle East and beyond,” he said.
Iran’s conventional capabilities “constitute the real, immediate threat,” he said, referring to proxy militias, drug and weapons trafficking, and attempts to undermine pro-Western governments.
“Some say Iran has more than 100 sleeper cells in the United States,” Ettinger noted.
“Those conventional capabilities have to be amputated, and the only way to amputate those capabilities is by cutting off the head of the snake.”
Whether Israel is able to affect regime change on its own, Ettinger can’t say. The United States is best positioned to carry out “such a vital mission, vital to America’s interest, vital to the free world’s interest.”
Actual dismemberment
Mordechai Kedar, a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, lays out a scenario that goes beyond regime change. He speaks of the actual dismemberment of the Iranian state. Call it regime change through dissolution.
“Iran will one day collapse, like the Soviet Union,” Kedar told JNS on Monday.
“There is no Iranian nation. There are Iranian citizens, but there is no nation named ‘Iranian.’ There are many ethnic groups living in Iran side by side,” he said.
Kedar bolsters his case with a personal anecdote. After he wrote two articles on the subject in March, Iran’s minister of foreign affairs felt compelled to pen an immediate rebuttal, accusing him of knowing nothing. “Now if I was speaking nonsense, would he bother writing an article against me? I touched an open nerve in their body politic,” Kedar said.
Western governments should have long been supporting Iran’s ethnic minorities, he said. Instead, they collaborate with the regime. The reason is money. They’re heavily invested in Iran and don’t want to risk their investments.
For Ettinger, American policy is most to blame. The State Department has for 45 years, since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, rejected regime change in favor of a “diplomatic option,” he said, adding that the dismal results speak for themselves.
The Islamic Republic, not even a regional power when it started, now commands a global position producing world-class weaponry. The ayatollahs have amassed wealth to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars; established proxies that wreak havoc across the Middle East and in Africa; and attempted to destabilize every American ally.
Iran could topple “any day” the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Ettinger said. Should Jordan fall, it would transform from a U.S. ally “into a major platform of anti-U.S. global terrorism.”
Iran’s tentacles now extend into Latin America. Iran collaborates with drug cartels in Mexico, Colombia and elsewhere, and maintains terror camps in the tri-border areas of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.
“Forty-five years should be a sufficient track record to audit State Department policy, reassess that policy, and reach the obvious conclusion that the diplomatic option has provided Iran with a powerful tailwind to advance its anti-American agenda,” Ettinger said.
“As much as the State Department is eager to change the ayatollahs, leopards never change their spots. They only change tactics. That has yet to penetrate the state of mind within the State Department,” he said.
As to whether a Trump or Harris administration would bring about the desired change, Ettinger looks at their records.
“[Former President Donald] Trump had a four-year track record of harsher policy towards the ayatollahs. From my point of view, it wasn’t realistic enough, because as far as I know, Trump attempted to reach a better deal,” he said.
“I’m not aware that Trump came to the conclusion that the ayatollahs are not partners for negotiation, but rather a target for regime change,” Ettinger said.
Vice President Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris has no track record per se on Iran, he said, but her National Security Advisor Philip Gordon considers the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal, a “great success.”
Harris’s deputy national security advisor, Rebecca Friedman Lissner, “shares Gordon’s worldview. In addition, in one of her books she urges the U.S. to lower its international profile, to lower its international expectations, and once again, that’s quite a tailwind to any rogue element in the world,” Ettinger said.
“So I would say between the two of them, the Trump administration certainly would be less welcome by the ayatollahs. A Harris administration would be much more palatable to them,” he said.
Kedar said that the current U.S. administration not only doesn’t want to take on Iran, it doesn’t want Israel to do so either. Referring to last week’s call between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden, Kedar said he “suspects” that Biden warned Netanyahu not to do anything serious in a retaliatory strike.
The THAAD anti-ballistic system sent to Israel this week may have been a carrot to entice Israel to tone down its planned attack, he said.
Image: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers an address on Oct. 19, 2022. Source: Channel 1 (Iran) via MEMRI.
