*The US State Department has rejected the regime-change option (which would gratify most Iranians) since 1978/79, when Iran’s Ayatollahs seized power, assisted by the State Department, which had stabbed the back of the Shah, who had been America’s Policeman in the Gulf.
Instead, the State Department has embraced the diplomatic option, which has generated hundreds of billions of dollars to the Ayatollahs – notwithstanding their systematically anti-US policies – facilitating their surge from a non-leadership regional stature in 1979 to global prominence, militarily and diplomatically in 2024. Furthermore, the diplomatic option has substantially upgraded the Ayatollahs’ support of terror entities such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.
*In 2024, independent of potential nuclear capabilities, the conventional military capabilities of Iran’s Ayatollahs constitute the most critical epicenter of anti-US global terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced missiles and predator unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Ayatollahs’ conventional capabilities are a clear and present danger to the US homeland (e.g. proliferation of sleeper cells on US soil and the tight collaboration with Mexico’s drug cartels) and national security. Since the early 1980s, the Ayatollahs have severely eroded the US’ strategic posture in Latin America. In addition, the Ayatollahs pose an imminent lethal threat to every pro-US Arab regime, especially the oil-producing regimes (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain), aiming to seize control of 48% of the global oil reserves.
*In 1978/79, the State Department deluded itself that Ayatollah Khomeini would be controlled by moderate advisors, distancing himself from Moscow, focusing on introducing liberty to the Iranian people, refraining from the exportation of the Islamic Revolution, evolving into an Iranian edition of Ghandi.
In 1978/79, the State Department policy doomed the pro-US Iran, transforming it into a venomous anti-US octopus with its tentacles stretched from the Persian Gulf, through the Middle East and Africa to Latin America and the US homeland.
In 2024, irrespective of the Ayatollahs’ rogue track record, the State Department is still convinced that they could be reformed. Foggy Bottom avers that diplomatic and financial bonanzas could induce the Ayatollahs to accept peaceful-coexistence with their Sunni Arab neighbors, become good-faith negotiators, and to abandon their religiously fanatical vision, which mandates the destruction of their “apostate” (Sunni) and “infidel” (Western) enemies.
*In 2024, the State Department’s rejection of regime-change in Iran could doom (any day!) Jordan’s pro-US Hashemite regime, which is increasingly besieged by the Ayatollahs’ conventional capabilities (subversion, terrorism, drug and arms trafficking), in collaboration with their Syrian and Iraqi terror proxies, Jordan-based Moslem Brotherhood terrorists, Palestinian terrorists (including Hamas) and 2 million Syrian and Iraqi refugees in northern Jordan.
*The toppling of the pro-US Hashemite regime would transform Jordan into a major platform of anti-US global terrorism, igniting a volcanic ripple effect in Israel, transforming its most critical and peaceful 192-mile-long Jordanian border into the most vulnerable and explosive border. In addition, this would pose a lethal threat to the pro-US Egypt, bolstering the anti-US and anti-Sisi Ayatollahs, ISIS and Moslem Brotherhood-controlled terrorism in the Red Sea, Sinai and Egypt mainland. It would also threaten the survival of Jordan’s southern neighbors, the Arabian Peninsula Arab oil producing regimes, which could accord the Ayatollahs control of 48% of the global oil reserves.
*However, the Israel-Arab peace process would be dramatically advanced by a State Department’s realization that the Ayatollahs are not partners for a diplomatic option, but rather a target for regime change. Thus, a regime-change in Iran (which would advance human rights and liberty for all Iranians) would bolster the posture of deterrence of the US and Israel, remove the Ayatollahs’ machete from the throats of its Sunni Arab neighbors, and reduce the Saudi and the UAE courting of China and Russia. This would eliminate the major hurdle on the path of Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Peace Accords, possibly followed by Indonesia, Oman and even Kuwait.
*The State Department’s rejection of the regime-change option – underscored by the suspension and softening of economic sanctions and the timid response to the frequent bombings of US installations (also in Jordan) by the Ayatollahs and their proxies in Yemen, Iraq and Syria – has been interpreted, in the Middle East, as a preference for short term diplomatic convenience over long term national security. Moreover, it has been discerned by all actors in the Middle East as a suspension of disbelief, hesitancy, a non-realization that rogue entities bite the hands that feed them, while undermining the US posture of deterrence. This has energized anti-US terrorists, threatening the survival of all pro-US Arab regimes (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt), and driving them closer to China and Russia.
*The 45-year-old State Department’s rejection of the regime-change option, in defiance of Middle East and global reality, has bolstered the anti-US capabilities of Iran’s Ayatollahs, undermining US homeland and national security, reflecting Foggy Bottom’s assumption that the Iranian leopard is amenable to changing spots, not merely tactics.
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.
