Time for Regime Change in Iran

Helle Dale / February 11, 2010

If ever there was a case for regime change, today’s Iran is it. Today on the anniversary of the revolution that brought the country’s authoritarian, theocratic government to power offers an opportunity to rectify the mistake made by the Obama administration last summer when it failed to lend material support to Iran’s burgeoning pro-democracy movement. The “don’t rock the boat” approach has not worked — as was amply clear at the time that it would not do. In fact, it was dangerously naive. The notion that the ayatollahs would somehow like the United States and the political system it represents if only we would leave them to oppress their own population has been disproven. Supreme leader Ayatollah Khameni promised to deliver a “punch” to the west on this Iran’s day of celebration, if such it can be called.

Iran’s leaders want to be treated with the respect accorded nuclear states, like North Korea, and its wants to assert regional dominance. Neither of these are in the interest of the United States, Israel, or indeed the Middle East as a whole. Iran is again warning the world of its ambitions, boasting about the ability to process 20 percent purified enriched uranium, which places it on the way to weapons grade quality — in addition to censoring, imprisoning and oppressing its own political dissidents. The Tehran regime is not just antithetical to American values, it is regionally destabilizing. More often than not, the two go hand in hand around the world. (more…)