Ahead of the 2003 Iraq War, Pentagon planners proposed to precisely bomb statues of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein across Baghdad and Iraq, as well as the guard towers and walls of Saddam’s notorious prison, Abu Ghraib. The idea was simple: Show the Iraqi people that the United States did not consider them or Iraq the enemy but rather the victim; the real target of military action was Saddam, his inner circle, and his apparatus of terror. Unfortunately, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff disagreed.
State Department lawyers argued that Saddam statues were cultural heritage and deliberately targeting them would constitute a war crime. It was a ridiculous argument, but Secretary of State Colin Powell’s team was more interested in scoring points against the Pentagon than common sense, so it stood. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were just as shortsighted. They cared little for the symbolism of Abu Ghraib; instead, they saw real estate that they could co-opt and utilize. Had Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld pushed back, the United States might not have subsequently stumbled into the worst scandal of its time in Iraq.
Evin Prison for decades has been the top symbol of the Islamic Republic’s oppression.
Israel should not make the same mistake. Evin Prison for decades has been the top symbol of the Islamic Republic’s oppression. Israeli jets, drones, and missiles have already destroyed the Islamic Republic’s Interior Ministry and killed the head of the national police, the man responsible for the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, a murder that sparked the national “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests.
Israel should go further, however, and target the guard towers, wall, and gate of Evin Prison. It should then give Iranians incarcerated there for political crimes hours to leave before leveling the facility. Nor should Evin be the only target. In 1988, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered the mass execution of political prisoners in more than 30 prisons. Each should be destroyed.
When the Islamic Republic today executes gays, women who killed their rapists or abusers, and other dissidents, they normally hang them by slowly lifting them from cranes, so they slowly strangle rather than die instantly from a broken neck. Israel should target the warehouses where Iran stores the cranes.
Israel also might consider destroying the complex—but not the grave—housing the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It is a huge structure that chafes ordinary Iranians. While targeting Khomeini’s silver-incrusted tomb might cross the line, bringing the room on a structure 100 times as large would not.
Israel has successfully walked the tightrope of targeting the regime but not the citizenry, whom Jerusalem rightly recognizes are Israel’s future allies. Still, Israel could help the Iranian people even more. The smoldering ruins of Evin would be a moment Iranians would not forget and would celebrate for decades.
