While sanctions on Iran’s oil industry – their major source of income – and their access to the US financial system is a good start and should be followed by other countries around the world, it should be understood that the problems with the Iranian Regime are political, not economical.
Many policymakers believe that this economic pressure and the ensuing misery will encourage the Iranian people to overthrow the Regime and institute a democratic government – as is their genuine wish, expressed over months of consistent protest – which will help the US by removing a terrorist supporting regime that constantly meddles in the affairs of its neighbouring countries.
While the economic pressures will help to do this, the US must also show the Iranian people that life can and should be better for them. Michael Ledeen advises that most revolutions do not happen in an atmosphere of unrelenting misery and hardship, but at a time where people can see the world improving, so we should encourage the young people of Iran to see that they can be a driving force for change.
He wrote: “Revolutions are carried out by people who want to change the world, not feed their families and neighbours.”
The streets of Iran are – at any given moment – filled with people who want to end the Regime; from teachers to truck drivers, students to store owners, and so many more. These brave people are deliberately risking their job security and their own lives to promote revolution in Iran. They are not demanding higher wages, but greater freedoms.
So how can the US bring down the Iranian Regime? By supporting the strikers and demonstrators. It’ll be fairly easy for the US to do this by strengthening Western-based Farsi-language radio and television broadcasting and providing a free and open internet to the people of Iran, thus avoiding the mullah’ censorship.
This will give the revolutionaries the information that they need to overthrow the Regime and the ability to communicate with each other securely.
Over the past 40 years, the failed appeasement policy of most Western countries towards Iran led to a flawed nuclear deal that provided no real safeguards, but helped the mullahs to claim political legitimacy.
Now the US says that they want the Regime’s behaviour to change, but that will only be accomplished through regime change, which is something that we must fight for.
