Iran: A Dying Tyranny

The Iranian revolution is older than most Iranians and the sclerosis is starting to set in. The Ayatollahs are increasingly out of touch with the Iranian people. Their current president is clearly not playing with a full deck. Even his international supporters can’t keep on ignoring his dumb moves and provocations. The Iranian economy has been bad for years and is getting worse. This whole ramshackle structure might just collapse, maybe with a little nudge.

Iranian protesters are murdered but protests continue
Public protests related to the death of dissident cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri show that the opposition is alive and even stronger than it was after the stolen elections and they are getting bolder. When the regime tries to stir them us with the tired old “death to America” chants, the protesters shout back “death to the dictator.” The government is feeling pressure. In an unprecedented move, they have even admitted that they tortured to death three student protesters. This kind of admission is a big deal for a regime like this.
You can see on the poster nearby some of the young Iranians murdered by the regime in recent months. Protesters are dying but in some places they are taking over the streets.

The American nation is Greater than the American government; the Iranian nation is much greater than the Iranian regime. 
The hard part is what to do next. President Obama’s neglect or maybe what we can call the Peter Sellers "Being There" strategy, saying things that sound profound and are interpreted in different ways by others, works only so long. The Iranian leadership is trying hard to provoke us and we face a persistent danger that they could develop nuclear weapons. The Iranian people are the best antidote to the tyrants that rule them. We need to walk the narrow path between smacking the Iranian regime while helping the Iranian people. The American nation needs to engage the Iranian nation and to a large extent we are. The great thing about the communications revolutions of recent times is that the U.S. government doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting.
This is lucky. President Obama is no Ronald Reagan. He probably doesn’t have the gravitas or the charisma to do what Reagan did in the 1980s to disrupt the teetering communist tyrannies. But maybe his softer approach is more appropriate here anyway. Millions of Americans reaching out to millions of Iranians is much harder for the tyrants to stop or exploit. Beyond that, the Soviet Union was a peer competitor, in many ways an equal adversary. Ahmadinejad is by no means an equal of an American president. It is better not to elevate him by making the contest us against him.

Sanctions are tricky
The Obama Administration must push for smart sanctions. Sanctions are tricky. Rotten regimes insulate themselves from the punishment and pass it along to the people. Beyond that, it is very hard to get the international community to agree to sanctions. Most non-western countries don’t care much about human rights, but they do like Iranian oil. Nevertheless, they also don’t want to get too close to a weak regime that may not be able to keep promises or pay its bills. We should exploit these doubts & uncertainties.

President Obama has a lot of advantages in doing this. He still enjoys widespread good will around the globe. But the President also needs to be careful not to too accommodating to the Iranian regime, or too forgiving. We should not make pointless threats, but there is also no point in making concessions that will never be reciprocated. It is just as bad to cozy up to this regime as it is to threaten and we do owe it to the Iranian people to let them know that we support them in their struggle for freedom. Think of the Iranian President for what he is - the unbalanced leader of a weak and nearly bankrupt tyranny, a local menace and a supporter of terrorism, but not an existential threat in the way the Soviet Union was. Don't let's make him more than he is. The Iranian regime has spurned our President’s tentative advances. They ignore the world’s deadline. They think President Obama is weak. But they are the ones who are oppressive and weak.

Some things don't change ...
 This Iranian regime will never live up to agreements or promises it makes to limit its nuclear program. They have been playing their deceptive game for a long time and they are good at it. The only thing that keeps them from developing their programs faster is their lack of abilities and the only thing that will keep them from achieving their goal in the future if the current regime leaves power. But the tyrannical Iranian regime is teetering. The regime is cruel and ruthless and it appears firmly in command, but so did the Shah, so did the communists in Eastern Europe. Tyrannies are naturally hard but also brittle. When the people see that they can stand up to the tyrants, the crumble. The Iranian people are protesting more and more openly. The regime is murdering scores of them and arresting, torturing and raping many more, but fear is giving way to anger. Anything can happen. But it is clear that we will not face the same Iran much longer.

... other things do

We recall that none of the experts accurately predicted the rapid collapse of communist tyrannies. These things rarely happen gradually. The U.S. should be ready to take advantage of whatever comes. The Iranian theocracy has been the source of much suffering and oppression over the past generation. A regime change there would make the world a better place. Maybe we are are seeing the death agony of a thirty-year tyranny. Things might develop better for us than we anticipate. Some might say better than our policy deserves.