As the current US-led military offensive intensifies against Iran’s ayatollah regime, its strategic rationale has become unmistakable. The theocratic regime in Tehran has evolved into a clear and present danger not only to all US’ allies in the Middle East and Africa, but directly to the US’ homeland and national security.
The Ayatollah regime’s apocalyptic ideology
Unlike any other contemporary power, the Ayatollah regime is guided by an apocalyptic ideology that transcends business/financial logic and diplomatic negotiation. The Supreme Leader (Ayatollah) – who directed and controlled Iran’s anti-US education curriculum, war, terror, drug trafficking, money laundering and despotic conduct – views confrontation with “The Great American Satan” as a sacred commitment rooted in a 1,400-year-old mission to topple all “apostate” (Sunni) regimes, and bring the “infidel” West to submission in a Shiite Islam-dominated society. This nihilistic vision – underscored in Iran’s kindergartens, schools, mosques and state media – mandates martyrdom and bloodshed in order to expedite deliverance (the reappearance of the 12th Imam), and sets it apart from other dangerous nuclear powers such as China, Russia, North Korea and Pakistan. Tolerating the existence of the Ayatollah regime would, eventually, pave the road to the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power, which would afflict humanity with catastrophic consequences.
Iran’s global reach: from Tehran to US soil
The 2025 threat assessments by the US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Director of National Annual Threat identified the Ayatollah regime – along with Hezbollah – as the foremost state sponsor of terrorism targeting the US. Those assessments, once viewed as warnings, have proven prophetic. Iranian-directed terrorist cells, sleeper networks, and proxy militias continue to operate from the Middle East through Africa and into Latin America, which is considered by the Ayatollah as the US’ vulnerable “soft underbelly.” The joint Ayatollah’s/Hezbollah’s entrenched operations in the Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and the Chile-Bolivia-Peru Tri-Border regions to IRGC-linked schemes uncovered near the U.S.-Mexico border, have yielded warnings about Tehran’s directed anti-US cyberattacks, random assassination of civilians, and plots against Iranian-dissidents and US officials alike.
These warnings are now materializing in real time!
The Latin American bridgehead
Since 1980, the Ayatollah regime – in collaboration with Hezbollah – has made the sustained penetration of Latin America its top priority. Hence, the strategic alliances with all anti-US Latin American regimes, drug cartels and terror organizations, that constitutes a direct challenge to the Monroe Doctrine. This long-term strategy is not a peripheral campaign; it is Tehran’s western front. The Ayatollah regime has harnessed regional instability to erode the US’ strategic posture, launder billions through criminal enterprises, and position terror operatives – in coordination with China and Russia – within reach of major US cities.
The case for regime-change
Calls for restraint or coexistence with the Ayatollah regime ignore both the apocalyptic ideology and the systematic track record.
The assumption that the Ayatollah regime is amenable to moderation via negotiation and maximum pressure economic sanctions has been repudiated by the 47-year-old Ayatollah regime. Neither financial and diplomatic bonanzas, nor economic punishment have induced the Ayatollah regime to embrace peaceful coexistence, evolve into good-faith negotiators, or abandon its 1,400-year-old fanatic, apocalyptic vision. In fact, the US’ negotiation and economic sanctions policies were a chief engine, transforming Iran from “The American Policeman of the Gulf” to a chief potent enemy of the US.
The belief that a US-engineered regime-change is not a viable option overlooks the fact that the US engineered an Iranian regime-change in 1953 (toppling the pro-Soviet government of Mohammad Mosaddegh and restoring the pro-US Shah) and in 1978/79 (stabbing the Shah in the back and providing a tailwind for the takeover by Ayatollah Khomeini).
Moreover, the assumption that the US’ failure of regime-change in Iraq and Afghanistan applies to Iran, ignores the momentous difference between Afghanistan and Iraq, on the one hand, and Iran, on the other hand. Historically, religiously, ethnically, culturally, educationally and nationally (e.g., Iran’s national identity – which has been challenged by the Ayatollah’s Islamic Revolution) Iran is, at least, 3,000-years-old, while Iraq and Afghanistan are highly fragmented and relatively recent entities.
The notion that regime change alienates the Iranian people misreads reality. Decades of popular protests—from 2009 to 2022 and again now during the current conflict—have shown the profound desire of most Iranians to be freed from the Ayatollah’s despotism. The current military effort is therefore not a war against the Iranian people but a liberation from their oppressors.
In fact, refraining from regime-change has eroded the US posture of deterrence, emboldened anti-US rogue regimes, and driven traditional partners—such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE—toward China and Russia. Refraining from regime-change ensures the nuclearization of an apocalyptic regime.
The bottom line
The ayatollah regime has proven that it does not change ideological stripes, only negotiation tactics. Its ideological DNA – anti-US, anti-Western, and megalomaniacal – remains immutable. The 2026 US-led military offensive underscores a reality that diplomacy could no longer obscure: the Islamic Republic is not just a regional menace, but the most persistent, integrated, and ideologically driven threat to the national and homeland security of the USA.
This column was published at The Ettinger Report
The views expressed in guest columns are not necessarily the views or positions of the CCNS or its members.
