Iranians Aren’t Angry at America, but at Their Own Government

An uncritical reader of the major U.S. newspapers and journals of opinion could be forgiven for expecting the people of Iran to rally around the flag after recent American retaliatory attacks on their country’s military positions in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, enormous crowds turned out in Tehran for the funeral of Qassem Suleimani, the general killed in one of those counterattacks—although many of those present undoubtedly were cajoled or forced into attending. But what followed instead were mass demonstrations against the mullahs, as David Patrikarakos and Rashad Ali write:

[Protestors] chanted, in clear voices, for the end of the regime: “America is not the enemy,” they roared. “The enemy is in Iran.”

For now, the regime appears to have backed down from repression and mass murder. It is rattled. And well it should be. Despite the dangers to their own lives, Iranians are making it clear that the regime—and not the “Great Satan”—is the oppressor of the Iranian people. They have called not for death to America but rather for “death to the Islamic Republic.”

What comes next will be critical. The world’s eyes are on Iran. This has almost certainly stopped the regime from once more massacring people in the streets. How long this forbearance will last remains unclear. . . . But if one thing the last year in Iran has made clear, it is that people will not stop.

President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have made statements reassuring Iranians that they stand with them. Trump even tweeted [to this effect] in Farsi, [in what] is reported to be the most widely read tweet in Persian-language Twitter. Will this statement of solidarity result in genuine, tangible support with meaningful consequences for the regime? Consistency is not a virtue one associates with Donald Trump. But now is the time not for mere rhetoric but for substance. We owe it to the people of Iran.

Read more at Spectator

More about: Donald Trump, Iran, U.S. Foreign policy

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF