The Iranian People Will Lose Without Help
Winston Churchill had a slip of paper that said, “Action this Day.” If the Iranian revolution is to succeed, its allies need to adopt Churchill’s sense of urgency.
The urgency of helping the Iranian people cannot be overstated.
Determined dictatorships almost never fall from within.
Dictatorships that have lost their morale, have an increasingly disillusioned military and/or police force, and simply run out of the confidence and determination do fall – if popular alienation is broad enough.
The Iranian dictatorship fits none of these criteria.
The Iranian people launched reform efforts against the dictatorship in 2009, 2019, and 2022. In every case the security forces and the military killed thousands and crushed the opposition. Once the popular resistance collapsed, the dictatorship methodically went after the leaders and either killed or imprisoned them.
The fact is the original dictatorship of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was imposed by force with the killing of more than 8,000 opponents during the consolidation. The entire structure of the religiously-based dictatorship has been built around military and police forces who were able to enrich themselves in return for ensuring the survival of the dictatorship.
Some people were shot, others were hung from construction cranes in public to drive home the danger of dissent, others were killed in prison.
For 47 years, the dictatorship has survived despite enormous internal and external pressures and efforts by the Israelis, the Americans, and other to weaken and undermine the Iranian power structure.
In calculating the current balance of power between the vast majority who want to replace the dictatorship and the militant but well-organized minority who are prepared to kill as many as necessary to survive, you have to remember two major facts about the survival of dictatorships.
First, it is the military and the police who have the guns. As Mao Zedong once explained, all power comes out of the end of the rifle. The current estimate of more than 2,400 demonstrators killed and another 18,000-plus arrested almost certainly understates how much violence is being brought to bear to preserve the Iranian dictatorship.
There is a good rule that when the people with guns refuse to use them, the dictatorship is in danger. Deng Xiaoping understood this. When the military from around Beijing refused to kill the students in Tiananmen Square, there was a temporary truce while troops were brought in from the countryside who disliked the students and were willing to kill or arrest them. The protests promptly collapsed because they were unsustainable against people willing to kill them.
We have no evidence of any serious hesitation by the key elements of the Iranian dictatorship to kill and imprison as many protestors as survival requires.
Second, outside observers almost always underestimate the fear and sense of threat which holds together the forces of repression. In strong dictatorships the police and military are given special favors, sources of income, and a higher quality of life.
The people with the guns grow more desperate with each protester they kill, because they know that if the regime falls their lives can be endangered and they can face either jail or death themselves.
When President Donald J. Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price, I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” He was laying down a big marker to rally those Iranians who want freedom and want to end the dictatorship.
The key thing for the Trump administration to understand is that time is not on its side. The protests will start to run out of energy as many of the bravest and boldest protestors are killed. As the regime starts to stabilize, it will grow more confident and more willing to kill as many people as it takes to stay in power.
President Trump should rally every ally who wants a post-Ayatollah Iran and use every tool available: cyber-psychological-economic-covert activities-military force applied in a targeted way to destroy the leadership and the forces of repression.
Part of the undermining efforts should include nice rewards for everyone in the repressive forces willing to desert.
Winston Churchill had a slip of paper that said, “Action this Day.” If the Iranian revolution is to succeed, its allies need to adopt Churchill’s sense of urgency.
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