Back on March 8, my old traveling companion Kyle Orton wrote about the unlikelihood of a Venezuela scenario in Iran, and how it was doubtful that any Tehran version of Delcy Rodríguez was waiting in the wings, ready to steer Iran into a more conciliatory and less anti-American direction:
A Venezuela scenario in Iran relies on the idea that the U.S. can keep killing the current leadership cadre until it reaches down to a layer of people, especially in the military, who are willing to come to terms with the U.S. and rule according to its key interests. The problem with this is that the Islamic Revolution is an ideological movement which from inception had hostility to the United States and the broader West as core elements. UANI’s Kasra Aarabi put it well: “The IRGC is a highly radicalised and indoctrinated force. So the idea of them switching sides … is unlikely.” The scale of what is required to neutralise the Revolution as a factor in Iranian life, and get to a point where people amenable to the U.S. are able to take power stably, given the vitality of the Revolution’s votaries and the depth of its ruling structure, amounts to a thoroughgoing regime change. In short, the Venezuela option does not exist in Iran, and the implications for the possibility of regime change are not positive.
The Islamic Revolution has only ruled in Yemen for a little over a decade and it has shown itself to be immensely durable, able to withstand internal challenges on multiple fronts and sustained external intervention. The Revolution has had nearly half-a-century to entrench in Iran, to infiltrate every sector of the society, raise three generations in its ideology, and recruit hundreds of thousands of armed men who believe God wants them to protect the rule of His viceregent on earth. It is not absolutely impossible that regime decapitation, damage to IRGC security nodes, the activities of Israel’s ground assets and agents, and internal Iranian rebellion combine just right to unravel the clerical regime. But, absent that black swan, it is most unlikely Trump can overthrow the Revolution in Iran with a month-long air campaign.
The U.S. and Israel have been pounding Iran for 25 days. As the president points out, the Iranian air force and navy are no more; the Israelis have conducted more than 3,000 strikes across the country since the start of the war; as of last week, the U.S. had struck more than 7,800 targets, according to U.S. Central Command. Militarily, the war has been a sterling success on many fronts.
But the hardliners are still running the show. Iran is still governed by the fundamentalists. And as I am fond of saying, the primary problem with the Iranian regime . . . is the Iranian regime.
To hear the president tell it Tuesday, the Iranian equivalent of Delcy Rodríguez is going to appear any day now:
We’re having, by the way, a tremendous success, as you know, in Iran. We had one in Venezuela and now we’re having one in Iran. They have no Navy left, they have no Air Force left, they have no anti-aircraft equipment left, no radar left, no leaders left. The leaders are all gone, nobody knows who to talk to. But we’re actually talking to the right people, and they want to make a deal so badly, you have no idea how badly they want to make a deal and we’ll see what happens.