Israel is reportedly attacking multiple targets across Iran, with videos and photos of explosions in Tehran and Tabriz beginning to circulate on social media platforms. The Israeli move comes as the Jewish state concludes that the international community will not stop the Islamic Republic from imminent nuclear weapons production.
While Western officials rationalize inaction by insisting the Islamic Republic is not suicidal, that was always a straw man argument. The real problem was never suicide, but rather, terminal illness. If Islamic Republic collapse is imminent while nuclear armed, the most loyal units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might launch nuclear weapons to fulfill ideological goals. There would be no way to deter such an attack. While many in the West celebrated the ability of Israel and its neighbors to shoot down almost 300 Iranian drones and missiles in April 2024, the fact that seven got through was also a warning. Had any of them carried chemical, biological, or radiological warheads, it would have been a far different narrative.
The Israeli attack on Iran may be a death blow to the regime.
The Israeli attack on Iran may be a death blow to the regime. Israel likely will attack not only Iran’s nuclear facilities but also its airfields, command-and-control, and missile batteries. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as commander in chief, is also a legitimate target.
The Islamic Republic long ago lost its popular legitimacy. While many outside analysts assume Iranians would recoil at a military strike on their country, if Israel can precisely target regime officials without causing civilian casualties, then they might remain neutral or even cheer on regime change. After all, while many Iranians and U.S. analysts obsess about the blowback from the 1953 countercoup against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh, few recount that just eight years prior, the United States occupied a major portion of the country. Iranians are nationalist, but they do have nuance.
If Israel decisively eliminates the nuclear program and the Iranian public turn on their humiliated leaders, ending a regime that was always more of a historical anomaly than a natural apex of political evolution, it will be essential to cleanse society of the corruption and malfeasance that the Islamic Republic represented.
It will be essential to have both a truth commission and a trial. Not only the supreme leader and his immediate staff, but also senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members and top intelligence ministry officials should stand trial. They should confess and explain their terror operations. But Iranians and the world deserve to hear about more than just the terror and misery their regime brought to the region; they need justice themselves.
The head of Evin Prison and top prison officials should stand public trial. So, too, should Iran’s executioners.
While the Mujahedin al-Khalq is odious and at times supported both Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and then Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran, the 1988 prison massacre that saw the execution of thousands of Mujahedin al-Khalq affiliates was a crime against humanity; those who participated should admit their roles and explain their actions.
Today’s attack against the Islamic Republic may be the end of one chapter, but it will not be the end of the story.
It will be necessary to unravel the stranglehold over the economy that the Revolutionary Guard’s economic wing Khatam al-Anbiya—maintains. Indeed, this may be the most important role of a truth and reconciliation committee, so that the financial resources of the regime and the Revolutionary Guard can be confiscated and utilized to rebuild the Iranian state rather than allow the Guard and other hardcore regime elements to utilize the money to fund insurgency, as Baath Party elements did in Iraq after 2003.
U.S. authorities should seek information on all those responsible for the deaths of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bringing justice to them, even decades after their crimes, will send the signal to future American enemies that Washington never forgets. Deterrence matters.
Today’s attack against the Islamic Republic may be the end of one chapter, but it will not be the end of the story. Even if the United States chooses to stand aloof on military action, it cannot afford to remain disinterested in the period after.
