Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute Michael Doran, in an article he wrote in early January, ‘The Ayatollah’s Regime Is Crumbling’, said:

‘No matter what happens now, there is no scenario in which the Islamic Republic survives 2026 with its power intact.’

For sure, after the massive wave of anti-government protests that began on 28 December and lasted until 14 January, when shopkeepers and bazaar merchants in Tehran—and thereafter in other cities—staged a strike as the Iranian currency hit an all-time low against the U.S. dollar, it was hyped up in the Western media that the Iranian regime was on its last leg.

‘What began as protests against a failing economy has turned into a potential overthrow of Ali Khamenei’s oppressive regime,’ the Daily Telegraph reported. This is more so, after President Donald Trump encouraged regime change, saying:

‘Iranian Patriots, keep protesting—take over your institutions!!!… help is on its way.’

After striking Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow last June and the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, U.S. intervention seemed all but certain after an unprecedented crackdown by the regime against protests he and Israel helped fuel, a reason why former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo foolishly posted on X:

‘Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them.’

Then, after the protests had been quelled, Trump backed down, realizing bombing Iran was going to have little to no effect in ousting its leadership.

Trump has now sent the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers to Iran, and according to The New York Times, he is even considering sending U.S. forces inside Iran. His reasoning is, once more, Tehran’s killing of protesters and restarting its nuclear program.

I personally remain baffled at the president’s rationale, for he declared that Iran’s nuclear operations were ‘completely and totally obliterated’ after he launched strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, despite providing no meaningful information on the installations that enrich uranium—Iran had enriched 400 kilograms of uranium, which amounted to 60 per cent. That being said, Trump has placed himself in a pickle, where he has to show the world that he means business. And, if that means forcing a regime change with military intervention, which would be welcomed by Iranians, then he better have a master plan to achieve this.

‘Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them’

Ever since the 9/11 tragedies, the U.S., according to then–NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 1997 to 2000 General Wesley Clark, has been desperately trying to destabilize the Islamic Republic of Iran. In truth, this endeavor began in 1998 with the Iraqi Liberation Act, when, at the behest of Israel, the U.S. sought to bring down the regimes of six other Islamic nations—Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan—since they were supporting the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s push for a ‘two-state’ solution.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is much more formidable than what the U.S.–Israeli alliance initially thought. Its perception of Iran’s strategic calculations is hopelessly defective and recklessly obsolete, for it continues to view Iran through the prism of the 1979 revolution and the central role that the Islamic religion and the clergy played in it. The regime is no longer driven by its Islamic ideology as it was during its inception and formative years. Instead, as seen by its support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, Iran has realigned itself as the global bulwark of resistance against American imperialism and U.S.–Israeli colonialism. In the process, it has become ‘a prototypical nation-state’ embracing a particular vision of national security to keep its professed enemies at bay.^[1]

A case in point was how it responded to the massive protests in 2022 when Iranians, including school children, hit the streets for months after the death of a Kurdish Iranian, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died from her injuries from beatings by religious morality police for not wearing the hijab. Notwithstanding the violent crackdown that killed thousands of innocent people, Iran portrayed it as a success.

For months afterwards, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chose not to focus on the inviolability of the sharia’s ‘strictures that the protesters had challenged or talk about the country’s dire economic situation,’ Nasr says. ‘In fact, references to Islam and its laws were conspicuously scant in his remarks. Instead, he warned of a concerted attack on Iran’s national security,’^[2] explicating the protests as a conspiracy, meticulously organized and incited by the U.S. and its allies to weaken Iran, engineer regime change, and even break up the country.

Pounding Iran with missiles will not get anything accomplished, as the Israelis found out during the 12-day war in June. The mullahs emerged from the bruising conflict with much of their arsenal of thousands of ballistic missiles intact, which gives them the ability to inflict real damage on the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East. In addition, Iran still retains the power to close the Straits of Hormuz, which would be a financial catastrophe for the international community, as roughly 20 per cent of global oil trade and liquefied natural gas exports pass through them daily.

Truth be told, it is not in America’s national interest to start a war with Iran. Trump may still attack, but all the evidence indicates that it would be absurd to do so.

The views expressed by our guest authors are theirs and do not necessarily represent the views of Hungarian Conservative.

^[1] Bali Nasr, Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History, Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2025, pp. 2–3.

^[2] Ibid, 4.

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