In recent remarks at a recent hearing at the Congressional Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus, the Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi observed that “the situation of the Iranian society is explosive” and that Iran’s theocratic dictatorship “has never been so weak and fragile” since it was established in the wake of the 1979 revolution. Even as she offered his assessment to Congress, the White House was in the process of actively implementing a renewed strategy of “maximum pressure” on the Iranian regime, which promises to increase its fragility even further.
The stated goal of this second iteration of maximum pressure is to reduce Iran’s energy exports to zero and ultimately compel the regime to enter into what President Trump has called a “verifiable nuclear peace agreement.” The strategy itself is an admirable departure from Western policies which tend to prioritize the “carrot” over the “stick” by offering Tehran ample concessions in exchange for a limited scaling-back of its malign activities. But the aim of that strategy is unfortunately more of the same, and reflects a conspicuous lack of ambition, respective to the opportunities at hand.
Trump, it seems, is uncharacteristically similar to former US presidents and other world leaders in his reticence to acknowledge either the imperative or the attainability of regime change in Iran. But with maximum pressure 2.0 still being less than a month old, there is still time for his administration to change its outlook and modify its goals. And in view of the audience for Rajavi’s recent remarks, there is good reason to believe that other elements of the US government will help the White House to arrive at the conclusion that right now, regime change is a much more viable solution to threats from Tehran than another diplomatic agreement with a regime that simply cannot be trusted.
This view was expressed very clearly in a House resolution(H.Res. 166) that was introduced by a bipartisan group of 150 representatives on the same day as Rajavi delivered her speech. The resolution stated that “the efforts of Western countries over the past 45 years to change the behavior of this regime have failed, and the ultimate solution to ending the Iranian regime’s threats is the establishment of a secular, democratic, and pluralistic republic by the Iranian people and resistance.”
Rajavi’s speech, meanwhile, clarified that the Iranian people are prepared to pursue this goal on their own, and that her Resistance movement neither seeks nor would accept military support or other direct intervention from the US or any other foreign entity.
Instead, the National Council of Resistance of Iran urges the international community to simply ramp up pressure on the regime, in line with the strategy just re-introduced by Trump, but to do so in ways that express clear support for the democratic opposition and the “Resistance Units” currently pushing for a resumption of popular unrest aimed at toppling the clerical regime. As Rajavi also pointed out, those Resistance Units have played a leading role in a series of anti-government uprisings that have overtaken the Islamic Republic in recent years. The House resolution identified three of these as taking place in 2018, 2019, and 2022, the last of which was widely recognized as the greatest challenge to the mullahs’ hold on power in four decades. Through Tehran carried out approximately 1,000 executions just last year as part of a broader effort to prevent further such unrest, there has been an unmistakable change in Iranian society which threatens to spark a movement even grander in its scale and ambition any day now.
That uprising will no doubt emerge more quickly and gain greater momentum if it is backed up by coordinated Western strategies that ascribe political legitimacy to the organized Resistance while also imposing maximum pressure as a means of weakening those Iranian institutions, like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that would use the greatest violence to suppress the people’s democratic aspirations.
As the House resolution put it, “Western nations should stand on the side of the people of Iran by holding the regime accountable for repression, terrorism, and rogue behavior and by supporting the Iranian people as they seek change.” The sizable bipartisan support for that resolution is a hopeful sign that momentum is building for the widespread adoption of policies that include maximum pressure but also look beyond it. However, more support is needed, and Iranian communities worldwide are prepared to make the case for it.
In the US, thousands of Iranian-Americans are expected to converge on Capitol Hill on March 8 for a demonstration urging more assertive policies toward the Iranian regime, along with more serious acknowledgment of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) as the framework for the transitional Iranian government under Mrs. Rajavi’s leadership. If other American citizens and US lawmakers would simply pay attention as that demonstration draws attention to the great strides already made by Resistance Units in Iran, they will surely come to understand that regime change is well within reach and that the US need not sacrifice anything to help the Iranian people achieve it.