The disaster in Iran
With no plan for real regime change and no thoughtful strategy, Trump has thrown the Iranian people to the wolves.
First Putin, now Netanyahu: Trump gladly does their bidding. (IA-generated image)
Good day. This administration’s amateur, chaotic governance, and the erratic decision-making by the Orange Menace, has now led to war with Iran and some head-spinning, conflicting rationales from Trump and his top officials.
Let’s take a look at Iran, the country: Its role in the Middle East, as well as its government, economy, and people. And the big question: What comes next?
🇮🇷 Whither Iran?
Benjamin Netanyahu has finally gotten something he has desired for decades: A war with Iran and a US president, made malleable by flattery, willing to go along and put US military members in harm’s way.
Let’s remember: Iran is not to be trifled with. It’s a pretty big country. Of the world’s 195 independent, sovereign countries, Iran ranks 17th in both population and size, with 93 million people and a land area of 636,371 square miles. Geographically, it’s bigger than France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland combined. It’s the second-largest country in the Middle East, behind Saudi Arabia, and the 6th largest among Asia’s 50 or so countries.
World Atlas
It’s located in the area of one of the world’s oldest continuous major civilizations, dating to the 7th century BC. Over the centuries, through various conquests and rulers, ancient Iran (called Persia by the outside world until 1935) was the site of some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanization, religion, and administration. During the Islamic Golden Age, from the 8th to 13th century, there were innovations in literature, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and art.
Today, Iran is an energy powerhouse thanks to its massive oil and gas reserves, among the largest in the world, which help power its economy, the 19th largest in the world with a GDP of close to $2 trillion. It has lush flora and diverse fauna and 20 national parks. Tourism is big, more than 5% of the economy; it hit 9 million foreign visitors right before the pandemic, and has rebounded to more than 6 million.
It has a robust fisheries industry thanks to its access to the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and lots of rivers. In fact, it’s the world’s largest exporter of caviar. It’s the world’s 12th largest automaker. Construction is another hugely profitable industry, including homebuilding; 70% of Iranians own homes vs. 65% in the US.
Iran has made tremendous strides in science and medical technology. It has a space program and has launched satellites into orbit.
Culturally, Iran is known for its art, literature, architecture, carpet weaving, museums, cuisine, and more. It has 29 World Heritage sites.
Iranians are highly educated — 94% of adults are literate, vs. 79% in the US (the other 21% is the Trump family) — and 85% of its population has access to high-speed internet. There is free education through college, and universal health care covers about 90% of the population, both citizens and refugees. Residents are guaranteed a national basic income.
But the Islamic republic’s repressive practices have resulted in a brain drain. And a combination of devastating sanctions by the US and its allies, mismanagement by the ruling regime that maintains central control of many sectors of the economy, and financial support of terrorist organizations in the region, has led to huge budget deficits and high inflation.
The regime is moving toward free markets and privatizing industry, but it isn’t happening fast enough for residents who took to the streets to protest last month and were slaughtered by government forces.
Look, in modern history, Iran’s been a bad actor in the Middle East ever since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 that ousted the corrupt but Western-friendly Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and put Islamist zealots in power.
They are running a totalitarian regime, trying to spread their fanatical beliefs around the world and financially and militarily supporting terrorist organizations while repressing their own people and squashing opposition.
Given what has happened, it’s important to note that when the clerics seized power, what had been an uneasy relationship with Israel immediately turned openly hostile.
For a time, the Ayatollah Khomeini government maintained clandestine relations with Israel, a strategy that paid off when Israel supplied Iran with weapons and advisers during its 1980-1988 war with Iraq in exchange for oil.
Since 1989, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei became supreme leader, and through a series of Iranian presidents, threats against Israel have ebbed and flowed. Sometimes Israel was “a cancerous tumor” that should be “wiped off the map;” at other times, Iranian leaders quietly sought a truce and possible recognition of Israel’s right to exist.
Today, Iran’s leaders are unequivocal about their desire to see Israel destroyed, and their uranium enrichment program has everyone in the region worried. The Trump administration claims Iran is not serious about negotiating, but I’d feel more confident in that assessment if we had real diplomats at the table instead of a real estate developer (Steve Witkoff) and the president’s callow son-in-law (Jared Kushner).
It didn’t have to come to this. Under Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, Iran reduced its nuclear enrichment from 60% to 3.67%, cut its uranium stockpile by 98%, eliminated two facilities that were producing weapons-grade plutonium, and gave the International Atomic Energy Agency 24/7 access for inspections.
In exchange, the US and its allies lifted many of their sanctions, worth about $100 billion, that were crushing Iran’s economy.
Granted, the deal didn’t address Iran’s missile program, and the nuclear restrictions expired in 10 years. But if Iran had chosen to restart a nuclear weapons program, it would have taken it more than a year to enrich enough uranium, giving the rest of the world plenty of time to deal with it.
But it doesn’t matter. Trump took office in 2017 and blew up the deal, reimposed sanctions, and went for his favorite relationship move: Utter humiliation. Capitulate to his demands, or you’ll find the bloody head of your favorite dog in your bed, courtesy of Kristi Noem.
In response, Iran embarked on uranium enrichment again. Today it’s estimated that they are back up to 60%. From that level, it’s a quick step to the 90% level for producing nuclear weapons.
The recent negotiations stalled because the US demanded that Iran reduce its uranium enrichment to zero. But Iran is a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which gives countries the right to produce small amounts of their own nuclear fuel for atomic energy and medical research projects. It refused to go to zero.
So Netanyahu paid a visit to Trump to talk him into war, and here we are.
The US and Israel continue to bomb Iran, which in turn fired missiles into Israel as well as into Gulf States that are US allies and/or host US military bases.
Six US service members have been killed, and Israelis are dying in missile strikes. The State Department, which failed to prepare an evacuation plan for the million or so Americans trapped in the Middle East, is urging them to find their own way out. So helpful.
Iran’s biggest ally, the Hezbollah terrorist group based in Lebanon, is firing missiles into Israel, which is responding in kind. Borrowing a page from Trump’s Chaos Handbook, Iran has hit all six Persian Gulf states: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. It also fired missiles and sent bomb-carrying drones into Jordan and the Kurdish region of Iraq (although the Iraqi government is an Iran ally).
And it’s dragging Europe into the conflict. In Cyprus, drones from Iran or Hezbollah hit a British Royal Air Force base. That prompted British PM Keir Starmer to let the US use British air bases to strike Iran. He also sent a destroyer and counter-drone helicopters to the region. Iranian missiles and drones have also hit French and German personnel stationed in Middle East countries, such as a German army camp in Jordan. They had called for negotiations to resume; now they’re considering hitting Iran back.
I think that’s 17 countries now involved in this war somehow. And it could grow larger.
Meanwhile, Trump’s talk of regime change is a joke. Iran isn’t ruled by one charismatic leader with a government that would totter if decapitated. The Islamic regime is a multi-layered structure, with succession plans and contingencies galore.
It is a strategic partnership led by an assembly of 88 clerics who pick and supervise the supreme leader. There’s a Guardian Council of clerics and lawyers who pick political candidates. Parliament is popularly elected, but again, the council has chosen the candidates. The president runs the government, but answers to the supreme leader. And the powerful military, the Revolutionary Guard, protects the regime.
The joint US-Israeli attack on Iran wasn’t really surprising. Trump has been bloviating about it for months. But I must admit I spit out my loaded water when Trump said yesterday that he had identified some less-radical Iranian leaders as possible successors to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But oops — they were killed, too.
Most of the people we had in mind are dead. So, you know, we had some in mind from that group that is, is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also based on reports. So, I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.
You have got to be kidding me.
Trump has thrown the Iranian people to the wolves. He has no plan for helping reasonable opposition leaders try to take over. He shrugs his shoulders about what comes next for Iranians, wanly suggesting that they rise up against the regime. How? Throw fish and carpets at them? They’ve already been butchered by the thousands when they took to the streets to protest — at his urging — last month.
It’s absurd. But he’s an absurd, unserious person. The Iranian people, and the world, deserve better. So do we.
Far and away the best synopsis I have read of what is going on in Iran, balanced, informed and insightful. With an occasional teaspoon of humor to help the tragedy go down. Thanks you.
An excellent column but you fail to mention the event that precipitated this whole sequence, the CIA and MI6 collaborating to remove the democratically elected Mossadegh, replacing his government with that of the Pahlavi clan who were so repressive ( with US assistance).