Soon after becoming president in 2017, Donald Trump ordered an attack on an Islamic State (IS) underground complex in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. The strike involved the first-ever use in combat of a GBU-43 massive ordnance air blast (Moab) “bunker buster” bomb – the US’s most powerful conventional weapon. The bombing killed about 90 insurgents but failed to crush IS. It also made zero long-term difference to the US’s losing battle with the Taliban.
Yet that was not the point. Inexperienced Trump, who had famously avoided military service, was keen to show he was in charge, a commander-in-chief unafraid to make tough calls and send troops into harm’s way. He craved a big bang – a spectacular demonstration of unmatched US power. Like a teenager who unexpectedly obtains the keys to the family gun cabinet, he could not resist the temptation to play with all those shiny new Pentagon weapons.
Trump’s latest threats to bomb Iran, prompted by the recent, terrible events across the country, suggest his mindset is unchanged. It’s naive to think he genuinely cares about the killing and brutalisation of unarmed Iranian demonstrators when, on his orders, gun-toting federal militias abuse American citizens in similar ways in Minneapolis and other cities. It’s plain Trump doesn’t give a damn about democracy in the US, let alone in Iran (or newly colonised Venezuela).
On the contrary, Trump sees an opportunity to impose US hegemony on a historically defiant, ill-led, energy-rich country that Democrats from Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden failed to subdue or co-opt. It’s a chance to play at being supreme leader. Trump does not want a settlement with the mullahs. He wants a capitulation – and regime change on his terms. Yet he also wants instant gratification and quick results. As his lopsided meddling in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine shows, Trump lacks strategic vision, consistency and staying power.
As the White House considered military options last week, it became clear that strikes on supposed nuclear facilities, missile defences and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases would not deliver the immediate headline success Trump covets. Military action was opposed by Gulf leaders, fearful of Iranian retaliation and regional chaos. Even Trump’s close ally Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he recklessly bombed Iran in June, urged caution – perhaps because missile strikes on Israeli cities could damage his re-election prospects.
Nor was regime decapitation – the tactic pursued in Venezuela, whose leader, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted – a convincing alternative. Trump claimed in June that US and Israeli forces could easily have killed Iran’s (real) supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But his assassination would not guarantee change – and could set it back. Iran has a “deep bench” of possible successors, including Khamenei’s son, cut from the same hardline, theocratic cloth.
For all these reasons, and despite assuring Iranian demonstrators that “help is on its way”, “bomber” Trump appears to have backed off – for now.
Iran’s murderous, incompetent and corrupt clerical regime, installed after the 1979 revolution, has undoubtedly lost all legitimacy and must be replaced, as previously argued here. Its crimes are legion, its failures endemic. They did not begin with this month’s vicious repression. Nor will they end there, absent radical change. But externally imposed regime change is not the way to achieve it, or to secure the west’s long-term aim – a stable, peaceful, prosperous, unthreatening Iran.
Military intervention would only make matters worse for its longsuffering people. The focus instead must be on ensuring the country’s obscurantist, “divinely ordained” governing system – a religious relic designed to suit the revolution’s leading fanatic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – is jettisoned by peaceful means. Centres of regime power, such as the Guardian Council, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, internal security agencies and corrupt state monopolies, must be disbanded, too.
Surveys suggest a majority of Iranians would welcome a secular constitution and free, fair and fully democratic elections. The anachronistic post of supreme leader should be scrapped. Universal human rights, especially women’s rights, must be written into law. And individuals responsible for past and present crimes must face justice, in Iran or via the UN and international courts. In short, the theocracy must be demolished.
How might this be achieved without even greater violence? Western countries could increase direct economic and financial pressure on the regime and its leaders through sanctions, tariffs, bans and boycotts. Diplomatic contacts should be suspended and Tehran embassies, such as Britain’s, shuttered indefinitely. Any talks on sanctions relief and nuclear issues that normalise this rogue regime should be frozen.
If the political will exists, cyber operations and hybrid ops to disable missile defences, cripple security forces’ communications and disrupt regime revenues could be set in motion. It’s been done before. “Ghost” tankers carrying Iran’s oil exports could be seized. More coercive pressure could be applied to China, Russia and North Korea to curtail trade and aid.
In any event, Britain and its allies must do more to support Iran’s fractured opposition and identify future leaders. Western tech companies could provide ways for ordinary people to circumvent internet and information blackouts. Use of soft-power tools, such as Persian language broadcasts, should be expanded, rather than shortsightedly cut. All possible means must be employed to help strengthen Iranian civil society, independent media and the rule of law.
Trump promised Iranians last week that life will change. It was not his promise to make, and cannot be delivered at the point of a gun. The impetus for fundamental reform must ultimately come from within. But the US president, who claims he’s guided by morality, now has a clear moral obligation to break his habit of opportunistic, short-term grandstanding and back his words with sustained, practical and constructive, nonviolent assistance.
Dropping big bombs on people is easy. Forging a safe and peaceful future for the betrayed and orphaned children of Iran’s failed revolution is much, much harder.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator