An Optimistic View of the War in Iran
There is no shortage of doom and gloom circulating around the week-old war in Iran. A majority of Americans currently oppose the war according to the most recent reporting. Highly-regarded experts such as Karim Sadjadpour and Vali Nasr have expressed doubts about the prospects of the war. There are no shortage of examples how both US and Israeli interventions in their neighboring countries created significant blowback and contributed to the region’s overall instability over the past several decades. The failures from Libya to Afghanistan are many and the successes are nearly non-existent. However, history is a poor guide to the future and even the experts are wrong sometimes. While I’m personally skeptical of the current conflict as I laid out in my previous post, there is value in exploring a more optimistic view of the war.
Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has been a scourge to American interests in the Middle East and stability more broadly. Under the Ayatollah’s Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) built networks of proxies throughout the region facilitating acts of terrorism far beyond its borders and corrupting neighboring governments politics. Hezbollah in Lebanon, groups like Assa’ib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organization, and the Houthis in Yemen function with Iranian backing as armed political parties holding their governments hostage. Rivaling the strength in arms of state-militaries, these groups threaten civil war if governments chose to threaten their interests, such as when Hezbollah fighters took to the streets in 2008 when the Lebanese government voted to dismantle the group’s telecommunications network. In this manner, Iran’s far reaching had contributed to the dysfunctional politics of several Arab states. With this in mind, eliminating the Islamic Republic is the first step towards liberating the likes of Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen from its theocratic tyranny.
The Iranian government’s oppressive hand is most felt within its own borders. The mullahs who control Iran have brought ruin to the country. In forty-seven years of rule, they have isolated Iranians from the global community, decimated Iran’s economy, and stripped its citizens of basic rights. As a consequence the regime is deeply unpopular at home and abroad. Some experts speculate that more than 70 percent of the population oppose the regime (although these numbers are difficult to verify). Large popular protest movements such as the Green Revolution in 2009, the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022, and the recent anti-government protests last month reflect the popular mood of discontent. Iran’s security forces crushed these protests with an iron-fist. In some reports Iran killed up to 30,000 civilian protesters in January 2026.
Perhaps more than any other US intervention in the region this war enjoys the popular support of the people being bombed. Karim Sadjadpour remarked earlier this week, and I’m paraphrasing, that for the first time in modern history a greater percentage of the people being bombed support the war than do the population of the country doing the bombing. After Israeli and American bombs killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, some Iranians took to the streets to celebrate the death of their tormentor. The Iranian people appear ready and eager to embrace representative politics and government and dispense with their theocracy. A good friend of mine who had spent time living and studying throughout the region often remarked about his belief that in the future Iran would look more the US/Europe than any other country region.
It is important that Iran is not Iraq, Libya, or Afghanistan. It has its own unique culture, history, and ethnic make-up. Iran, more than any other country in the region, has maintained roughly the same territorial borders over centuries. From the 16th century onward, the Iranian polity survived various periods of disunity with more or less the same borders or frontiers. These borders are not the results of European imperialism or collapsing empire. There is a stronger sense of national identity and nationalism in Iran than in its neighboring states. In the event of regime collapse, nationalist sentiment may prevent the country from falling into chaos.
The early trajectory of the current war and Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in 2025 reveal the extent to which Israeli and American intelligence have infiltrated the ranks of Iran’s political and security institutions. In less than 20 combined days of war, the US/Israeli campaign have wiped out large numbers of the country’s political and military elites and disrupted Iran’s ability to defend itself. While the country’s coercive military apparatus remains in place, it’s reasonable to question how long this remains the cause. As the more ideologically driven leaders are eliminated more pragmatic younger officers in the IRGC may be willing to either make deals with the US/Israel and help overthrow the regime or abandon their positions and pave the way for a civilian-led uprising. Writing in the New York Times, Sanam Vakil, an Iran expert at Chatham House said of this moment:
“Those who oppose the regime have not had the time or the support to do the slow political work of compromise and reconciliation that makes democratic openings viable and have found themselves scrambling. This does not mean that democracy in Iran is a pipe dream. With the Islamic republic in crisis, a democratic transition in Iran remains conceivable. But the aperture is narrowing. To take advantage of this moment, the opposition would have to put aside its differences and forge a pluralistic coalition, engage with factions of the existing security establishment and secure the backing of the United States, regional powers and, above all, the Iranian people.”
One final note, Iran may not be primed for political transformation. This deeply odious regime may well survive this war, but that does not mean this war will have been a waste of taxpayer money. This is a regime that has sown chaos throughout the region and has shown little willingness to end its murderous acts. The US/Israeli War on Iran will likely have cause its future leaders to recalculate their actions for years to come.
Only time will tell if this war will be successful. Although I remain skeptical of the war’s prospects, I’ve tried to honestly interrogate a more hopeful outlook for the war here. If the regime falls and is replaced by even a quasi-functional government (military or civilian) that is less antagonistic towards its neighbors and the US, and focuses on the Iranian peoples’ interests rather than opposing the “Great Satan”, it will yield tremendous dividends for years to come.
